Dow RoseWindow 1957

The Rose-Window
Author(s): Helen J. Dow

Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , Jul. - Dec., 1957, Vol. 20, No.
3/4 (Jul. - Dec., 1957), pp. 248-297
Published by: The Warburg Institute
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/750783
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THE ROSE-WINDOW
By Helen J. Dow
The rose-window is a consistent feature of the Gothic churches in the lie-

de-France,' but not of those in Normandy; and there has been a tendency,
therefore, to regard it as an un-Gothic interruption in the total design of the
church front. For Professor Erwin Panofsky, the French rose-window con-
trasted with its architectural setting as strongly as a Non with a Sic, until the
intrusion was masked by the development of Flamboyant tracery.2 The rose-
window, at first sight, seems to stand apart from the underlying interdepen-
dence of all the other elements in the edifice; the circular outline has always
been felt to require no external assistance to complete its simple intrinsic
perfection. At the same time, this makes it the most assertive feature in the
fagade; aided by its filling of tracery-spokes, the rose seems to revolve upon
itself, gathering energy and centripetal attention into its own centre. On the
west front of Rheims cathedral (P1. 14e), for example, the repeated use of
lancet arcades, steeply pitched porch-gables, and heavy upright buttresses
strengthening the flanking towers, builds up a continuously rising movement.
Against this pattern of ascending lines, the rose is entirely self-contained. The
interruption of the vertical movement performs, in fact, a carefully calculated
aesthetic function, both emphasizing the ascending direction of the straight
lines, and slowing their motion by concentrating attention upon the rose.
This window thus becomes a steadying influence, gathering the aesthetic
energy generated by all the other fagade members into one focal point. Inside
the church, this effect is strengthened by the fact that the rose is a window;
like a great visual centre of gravity, it suspends our gaze, as it were, midway
between Heaven and Earth. Ultimately, as Panofsky has shown, the develop-
ment of Flamboyant tracery destroyed the contrast which the original Gothic
rose had formed with its architectural setting.3 Masked by the criss-cross of
intricate carving, the window lost its outstanding character and merged into
the general plane of the facade, so that its function as the centre of gravity in
the design of the Gothic church front disappeared with the style to which it
had belonged.
Elsewhere than in the Ile-de-France, the rose-window is found most fre-
quently in Italian churches. There, it is also the focal point of the fagade; yet,
except where the Cistercian Order introduced the purely French form, the
effect is fundamentally different. Since the Italians remained more sym-
pathetic to the classical moderation and balance of antique art, they generally
retained a composure in their church facades with which the circular form
harmonized. No ascending force is suddenly checked because no ascending
1 Very sincere gratitude is expressed to the Finally, for their constant encouragement and
director of my doctoral dissertation, Professor support, a word of profound thanks is due to
Richard Bernheimer of the History of Art my parents and my two sisters to whom this
Department at Bryn Mawr College, Penn- paper is affectionately dedicated.
sylvania, and to the many other people both 2 Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and
at Bryn Mawr and in various other parts of Scholasticism, 1951, pp. 70 ff.
the world, whose generous assistance was in- 3 Ibid., pp. 73-74-
dispensable to the progress of this research.
248

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 249
force exerts itself; yet the rose retains it
its centripetal attraction the effortless equ
The Italian rose-motif4 is based on the same forms as the French-the
colonnette, the arch and the circle-though it is less Gothic in design, a
the proportions lack the thin, pointed quality of the French type. We m
therefore define the rose-window as "a round opening containing trace
radiating like a circular arcade, from a central inner circle."
Although most rose-windows occur over doorways, they are also comm
where no doorway is present, as in the north transept of St. Etienne, Beauva
and by the fourteenth century they were even placed over the altar, a
find in Laon Cathedral and at Auxerre.5 As early as the thirteenth centu
this window also appeared in Italian secular architecture; there is a s
one in a gable-end of the Palazzo Comunale, Piacenza.6 This secular
however, seems to be exceptional; and we may summarize the function of
rose-window in general as providing the focal point of the High Gothic chur
fagade.
In spite of its popularity as an architectural feature, its origin and develop-
ment have attracted few historians.7 This paper is an attempt to fill this
gap, and to emphasize the fact that the rose-window becomes a highly signi-
ficant Christian symbol.
The origins of the round opening
The essential characteristics of the rose-window are the round opening

and the radiating tracery filling it. This combination took some time to
evolve, since the use of tracery required a skill which developed only slowly,
and could not be employed with freedom until the Gothic period. The simple
round window or "oculus" (in the modern sense of the word) dates, on the
other hand, from very ancient times. Traces of the earliest known oculi were
unearthed during the excavation of the old city-gate at Babylon, where curved
4 E.g. in San Pietro, Toscanella. tecture, its Origins and Development, New York,
S Cf. also Durham Cathedral, and the I909, II, p. I05; M. C. Nieuwbarn, Church
Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca. See Ralph Symbolism, trans. by John Wattereus, London,
Adams Cram, The Cathedral of Palma de 1910, p. 51; Das Rosettenmotiv in der Kunst- und
Mallorca, 1932. Kulturgeschichte, Munich, 1918, cited in Joseph
6 Corrado Ricci, Architettura romanica in Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchengebdudes und seiner
Italia, 1925, p. 45. A thirteenth-century rose Ausstattung in der Auffassung des Mittelalters,
also remains over the west entrance to what is
Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1924, p. 428; Ellen
believed to be the old Bishop's Palace of
Beer, Die Rose der Kathedrale von Lausanne und
Southwark Cathedral. der Kosmologische Bilderkreis des Mittelalters,
7 Those opinions which have been pub-
Bern, 1952 ; Wiltrud Mersmann, Die Bedeutung
lished may be found in the following: A.
desL.Rundfensters in Mittelalter (unpublished
dissertation), Vienna, 1944; Hans Sedlmayer,
Frothingham, "Introduction of Gothic Archi-
tecture into Italy by the French Cistercian
Die Entstehung der Kathedrale, Zurich, 1950,
pp.
Monks," American Journal of Archaeology, VI,144 f., 234 ff., and 253; A. A. Barb,
I890, pp. 23 ff.; Hans Rose, Die Baukunst"Mensa
der sacra, Der Marmordiskus von Don-
Cisterzienser, Munich, 1916 pp. 77 ff.; Pietro
nerskirchen," Jahreshefte des Osterreichischen
Toesca, Storia Dell'Arte Italiana - II Medioevo,
Archdologischen Instituts, XXXIX, 1952, Col.
Turin, 1927, p. 677, n. 107; G. T. Rivoira,14; and "Mensa Sacra: The Round Table
Lombardic Architecture, London, 1910, and II, p.the Holy Grail," in this Journal, XIX,
1956, pp. 47-48.
121 ; Arthur Kingsley Porter, Mediaeval Archi-
5

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250 HELEN J. DOW
fragments of glazed tile were foun

the rim of small round openings
the representation of a gate fro
area.8 These tiny round "window
flanking the arched entrances to
appear closely associated with door
a protective one.
After the Babylonian gate (c. 6
openings are met again; no doub
surviving evidence of them till
Early Christian architecture. He
already large enough to be pro
function seems not to be purely t
placed in close association with
Southern Syria they are most freq
while in Northern Syria they oc
dows, while still small, are far b
used more freely; sometimes th
religious as well as in secular bui
The reason for their frequent a
and windows might be suggested
filling them (P1. I6c), since its pat
discs commonly carved on doo
much of this type of lintel-ornam
betray their probable ancestry i
nected with sun-worship.12 Thes
definite meanings; a sun-disc rep
Ishtar. In Christian times, these
a new and Christian meaning; fo
actually bearing the Christian cr
In inquiring into their pagan f
antique Assyrian and Babylonian
on boundary stones, invoking the
are by their very nature a protect
powers of evil; and emblems t
charms. In keeping with this pag
8 Robert Koldewey, Das Ischtar-Tor in Architecture, Leyden - Section A. Southern Syria,

Babylon, Leipzig, 1918, p. 46. 1919, Ill. 68, 69, 70, 176, 268, 269, 282, 283,
9 Ibid., pl. 9, 19, and 20. Koldewey calls and pl. XVII; Section B, Northern Syria, 1920,
them "Schiessl6cher." Ill. 282 and 316.
10 Cf. the typically Syrian arrangement of"1Butler, Early Churches in Syria, Ill. 236,
horseshoe arches placed above door lintels 237, 240, 241 and 245; Architecture and Other
(de Vogii6, Syrie Centrale, Paris, 1867-1877,Arts,
I, p. 33; and de VogiiA: op. cit., pl. XXXII,
pl. IX, X, and XVI). Cf. also Howard I; XLII, XLIII, XLVI, and L, I and 2.
Crosby Butler, Architecture and Other Arts, New 12 W. H. Ward, "The Asherah," American
York, 1903, p. 373; Early Churches in Syria,Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures,
Princeton, I929, Syria, Publications of theI903.
Princeton University Archaeological Expedi- 13 Butler, Architecture, p. 31.
tions to Syria in 1904-5 and i909, Division II,

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 25r
of the name of God, of God and Christ, or
and door-frames became widespread in Ch
ance of Christian disc-symbols;14 these n
have represented a charm against evil spi
demons enter buildings through doors
question, like the Syrian oculi, appear in thi
-houses, churches and shops. The design
based especially on the equal-armed cross
of the labarum; but numerous types of w
and eight-pointed star are also found. S
foliage, but the pattern is usually abstract,
circle reminiscent of sun-discs.16
Remains of window-tracery discovered in Syria (P1. I6c)17 either fit a
round opening or, though constructed in a square plaque, give by their design
the effect of a pierced circular motif. For the most part only fragments of such
tracery have been found in place, but enough survives to show that these same
wheel-like patterns appear as its basis18-suggesting a connection with the
protective function ascribed to the early pagan symbols. As we have seen, the
round opening alone had already been used as a protection against more
tangible foes in Babylon; it must remain a matter for speculation, however,
whether the symbolic protective function of the tracery filling in Syria was
also linked with the plain round window in which tracery does not occur.
Roman and Early Christian oculi

We have now seen that, at some time after its early appearance at Babylon,
the oculus, enlarged and filled with pierced tracery, was apparently adopted
by the Syrians as a consistent feature of their architectural elevations.19 We
know that Syrian ways of thought were communicated to the West as a result
of the lively trade between Asia Minor and the western world. In Spain, for
example, the old liturgy had similarities to the Syrian, and the relics of Syrian
saints like San Gines were venerated; Eastern instead of Roman feasts were
celebrated, and monastic rules were drawn up on Eastern models. It is there-
fore not surprising that round windows should early permeate Western archi-
tecture; in any case, Syria seems to be the link between the appearance of this
motif in the West and its first known occurrence in ancient Babylon.
Round windows occur in Europe at least from Roman times onwards,
though the place and date of their first appearance is difficult to determine,
since so many early Western churches have been either entirely destroyed or
14 Butler, Southern Syria, Ill. 1 Io; and Earlyibid., Ill. 279, 281, and 282, and p. 244; and
Christian Churches in Syria, Ill. 246. de Vogii6, op. cit., pl. XIII, XIV, L, and
15 Butler, Architecture, p. 32 n. CXXXII.
16 Such discs occur prolifically both singly 19 The round opening placed immediat
and in rows, on lintels and arched mouldings. above a door-lintel occurs at least once dur
Ibid., p. 33, for example. the Early Christian period in Palestine, in
17 See also de Voguie, op. cit., pl. XIV, 4Synagogue at Nawa. See Fig. 19 in "T
and 5. Crown of Victory in Judaism" by Erwin
18 Butler, Early Churches in Syria, p. 243. Goodenough, Art Bulletin, XXVIII, 19
Cf. also the decorative work on tympana: p. 139.

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
252 HELEN J. DOW
greatly modified in later times.2

seem to be contemporary with
tectural practice very different fr
over a doorway. An important ea
where it was most frequently foun
as in the Pantheon, and over th
Such oculi seem well placed f
Christian writers often conceive
domed or semi-cylindrical roof w
tradition ;23 the oculus in the cen
this symbol of the sky with a view
cance is not so easily settled, ho
associations, while even the circ
symbol of God.24 The character
possibility. Nero's Domus Aurea,
ing, had a stuccoed dome decorat
sky, distributed round the filled
painted with a circular medallion
Jupiter were seen in the real s
decoration is continued in Christia
contained, for example, the A
Ravenna. As late as the thirteent
of St. John, Puirgg (Styria) repr
four-spoked wheel which enclose
by four giants-a scheme whose
There are also a number of Rom
which in their modern state follow
openings in gables or over por
additions. However, they already
the fifth century A.D. In S. Pao
made prior to the fire of 1823, th
above large windows in the west
Paolo they were added above eac
about A.D. 40O-20, though this
eighteenth century to permit th
20 G. T.
(Lombardic Rivoira
24 See below, p. 268. Architectu
25 Karl Lehmann,
London, 1910o, II, 224) listed "Theseveral
Dome of Heaven,"
insta
Art Bulletin,
in pagan architecture of XXVII,
what 1945, Fig.
he 27. believ
Ap-
parently of
be early Western uses Nero identified
round himself with the
windows.
21 It is also, of course, found
central figure, for in the in the
awnings side
which
the dome,
in covered
thethe Tor e.g.
audiencedei Schiavi,
at outdoor spectacles o
upper chamber the of a tomb
Emperor was embroiderednear Casa
in the central
Pazzi (A.D. 117-138). See E.
chariot (Lehmann, H.
op. cit., Swift, R
p. 11).
Sources of Christian Art,
26 Ibid., 1951, pl. XX. Als
Fig. 52.
dome of the baths at 27 ForPisa,
the transeptbuilt
of S. Paolounder
f. 1. m. see Ha
(ibid., p. IO9); and the
Giacomo tomb
Fontana, of
Raccolta delle the
migliori Tur
chiese
Tivoli, built A.D.di337-361
Roma e suburbane, (ibid., pl.
2 ed., Turin, 1889; and XI
22 E. Baldwin for SS. Giovanni
Smith, The e Dome,
Paolo, R. Krautheimer,
Princeto
1950, p. 21, n. 40. Corpus Basilicarum, No. IV, 1954, PP. 272, 273,
23 Ibid., p. 87. 285, 287 and pl. XXXVIII.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 253
therefore conclude that, although round
East, they appear to have become estab
Christian period; at first more usually i
church walls-not especially in the farade b
nave.
The later development in mediaeval Europe, the

Syrian and the Roman traditions on which to dra
contributions, so that it is difficult to judge their re
noticeable difference between the two areas, however
tracery in Syria, while no such sophistication is know
period in Rome. Moreover, the Syrian tracery-patter
which supports the claim that the Syrian is the older, m
tradition.
The development of tracery in the European round window,

and the probable origin of the "rose" in Spain
We can be certain that Europe had established a tradition of round open-

ings at least by Carolingian times; yet before such openings could be called
rose-windows, they had to acquire radiating tracery. An early Western
example of tracery may be found in a window at Saint-Blnigne, Dijon,
probably from the little chapel erected there in 506.28 The forms used at this
period were mostly abstract, sometimes based on a series of circular or floral
motifs. But we must look several centuries later to find any suggestion of
typical rose-tracery. The earliest examples have doubtless vanished, since
many of the first traceries (and indeed, no doubt, some throughout the Middle
Ages) were of perishable materials, such as wood.29 Metal filling is still
preserved in a rectangular window from S. Apollinare in Classe, where the
abstract pattern is formed from a series of crosses.30
The rose-window, however, has already been defined as a circular window
with tracery radiating like a circular arcade. Such a wheel-pattern would
comfortably fit an oculus. But it was not universally adopted for them. The
Italian church of Sta. Maria, Pomposa, has two eleventh-century round win-
dows flanking the narthex doorway, each containing complex tracery, but
neither pattern is based on a wheel-form. Instead, complicated animal designs
appear to imitate textile ornaments, probably copied from draperies once
hung over the openings to keep out the wind. Yet wheel-motifs were some-
times used in tracery, as in other decorative forms. Two Carolingian windows
from the Baptistery of Albenga incorporate whorls into a geometric pattern.31
The first extant wheel-tracery which seems to fit our definition of rose-
window is found in the western nave-gable of the church of San Miguel de
Lifio, near Oviedo, and consists of an inner arcade (very like a six-petalled
28 Robert de Lasteyrie, L'Architecture reli- designed like a cross from which four whorls
gieuse en France a l'epoque romane, Paris, I929, radiate diagonally, may symbolize Christ and
Fig. 170. the four Evangelists, as we shall see later on.
29 Ibid., p. 86, n. 7. Actually a perforated tympanum, this is a
30 Ibid., Fig. 68. reminder of Syrian pierced panels, which were
3x Ibid., Fig. 17o and 171. One of these, also placed in doorheads.

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
254 HELEN J. DOW
flower radiating from a small c
arcade suggestive of a row of ha
repeated in the top halves of t
either side of the western porch
formation of the rose-window.
this church during renovations,
mistakable signs of having onc
where the oculus now stands.
Two questions therefore arise; firstly, where was the oculus originally placed
in the church? and secondly, was it in the beginning simply a round window?
There is the possibility that it could at one time have fitted into the top half
of a rectangular window. It would seem unlikely that the rosette could have
been broken away from the round-headed type such as the traceries in the
flanking windows at San Miguel; but a square-headed window of very similar
design whose top part also contains a rose-tracery has, in fact, been discovered
at the nearby Asturian church of San Martin de Arguelles. The latter church
also furnishes the only other Asturian example of a rose-window close in
period and design to that of San Miguel. The second occurrence of this
oculus-type strengthens the probability that it was a form originally made to
fit a circular window. Neither example from San Martin can entirely dis-
entangle the complexities, however, since the almost total reconstruction of
this church in very recent times leaves no indication of the original disposition
of the windows. In the modern building the rose-tracery fills an oculus in the
end wall of the south transept, while the rectangular window is placed near
the west end on the south side of the nave. Dr. Schlunk also observed, how-
ever, that, in the restored church of San Miguel, the stone wall fronting an
upper-floor tribune immediately above the western entrance had been re-
paired to almost its entire height. It might be reasonable to infer that the
rose-window was originally situated in this repaired area, in accordance with
the position which became the dominant one, not only for Lombard oculi, but
-what is more significant-for the Gothic rose.
A few other radiating window-traceries belonging to this Asturian group
are worthy of mention. One is in the totally restored church of San Miguel
de Villardeveyo;32 two others are on either side of the apse of San Salvador
de Priesca.33 All these windows, closely related in style and pattern to the
other Asturian traceries we have discussed, belong unquestionably to the
Visigothic period.
These few illustrations are all that survive to tell of a tradition which
flowered briefly for a short period of intense cultural development, and t
suddenly died under the impact of new invasions. Fortunately the dates
these monuments are fairly closely documented, which helps to strength
the contention that the first extant rose-windows are Spanish.
Asturian monuments of the Carolingian period can be roughly divide
32 M. G6mez-Moreno, Iglesias Mozarabes:

Spanish Architecture, Romanesque and Allied Styles,
IV, New York, 1925, p. I67 (illustrates both
Arte Espan"ol de los siglos IX a XI, Madrid, 1919,
p. 82. windows and the east wall of the church).
33 Ed. by Eugene Clute, Masterpieces of

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 255
into three groups.34 First in time was t
the Chaste, who reigned between 791 an
His official architect, Tioda, built the c
known also as Santullano, on the edge of
tion of the ground-plans of many of th
played here, in the square east end for
used by the Asturian window-carvers is
number of intricate stone fillings which a
especially on crosses and circles. In the
there are also to be found tiny round op
gables of the porch and the nave at the
first building of the church. Several of th
hand, have obviously suffered reorganiz
which were originally round-headed but
oculi accord with the Western European
seems to have belonged especially to the
this that round windows generally inc
however, is typical of the early Syrian
strong impression on the Spaniards parti
The church of San Miguel de Lifio b
Asturian development, having been buil
who reigned between 842 and 850.36 It h
eastern end, where at least four bays w
destruction was brought about sometim
the late eighteenth century.38 The rose
design repeats that of the first example
between 850o and 951, since an inscription
date of the old Visigothic church.39 Hen
to the problem of where these early trac
The reign of Alfonso the Great, betw
phase of this development. In this, the
rectangular windows from San Miguel d
Priesca, the latter dating more exactly
which of two possible readings of the co
one.40
The tracery motif in the early Midd

The Moorish conquest apparently broug
to an abrupt end. Rose-tracery seems to
age descends upon our knowledge of its
in the twelfth century, we find it in F
34 Bernard Bevan, History of Spanish
37 King, op. cit., Archi-
p. I 19.
tecture, New York, 1939,38 P.Ibid.,
i6. p. 219, note 18.
35 Giorgianna Goddard 39King,
C. M. Pre-Roman-
Vigil, Asturias Mon
1887,
esque Churches of Spain Tomo I, Mawr
(Bryn p. 538, according
Notes to the
and
Monographs VII), Bryn reference
Mawr,provided by Sr. D. Joaquin
i924, p. 102.Man-
zanares Rodriguez.
36 A. S. Frischauer, Altspanischer Kirchenbau,
Leipzig, 1930, p. 54- 40 King, op. cit., p. I28.

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
256 HELEN J. DOW
independently born afresh in Fra
wheel-window at Beauvais datin
migrate through some other area,
and passed it on in due course to
Ile-de-France?
The situation in Italy is relevant to this problem. We find, for example,
an oculus below the arched apse windows of S. Colombano, Vaprio d'Adda,
of about I I 15, containing simple pierced tracery resembling an equal-armed
cross.41 A cross or four-spoked wheel filling a round window appears in a
number of monuments from the High Middle Ages. One of the first of these,
formed by four bars radiating from a small central circle, was called by Porter
the first extant rose-window in Lombardy.42 It was discovered in the facade
of Badia Morimondo (Milan), begun in I I8643 and finished, according to
Porter, by 1197.44 This Milanese tracery is simpler than the French and
Spanish rose-window patterns, and appears to depict a four-spoked wheel.
This design occurs, usually with a double scallop alternating with the spokes,
as the filling for minor oculi of the High Middle Ages in both France and
Germany; for example, in the facade of the church at Rots (Calvados) and
at Mont-St.-Martin in France, and in various other churches (not always in
their facades) such as the German cathedrals of Mainz and Worms. In these
we often find many ribs inserted, usually still alternating with scallops
which themselves probably mark a place where a spoke has been omitted.
Just as a circle with four bars had been an artistic representation for a wheel
since very ancient times, it is conceivable that a four-spoked simplification of
the radiating circle, or any other demanded by the refractory nature of the
material and the less skilled labour available, could develop in provincial areas
to represent the more intricate rose-window of the master-craftsmen in the
metropolitan places. This suggestion will seem increasingly well-founded as
we progress.
In any case extant evidence gives priority in the fully developed rose-
window to France. There, after its inclusion in Suger's abbey-church at St
Denis, dedicated in I I40, it became an established feature of the Gothi
facade. The Cistercian Order played a dominant r6le in spreading the us
of the design to Italy. Fossanova, near Rome, established in I 135, was the
first Italian home of the Order, from which monasteries spread to many other
parts of Italy.45 Since the Cistercians favoured the Gothic style, it was French
Gothic architecture which they carried into Italy, and with it the Gothic
rose-window.
No evidence of any compelling nature exists which would reverse this
order and show that the rose-window came to France from Lombardy. It is
reasonable to consider, on the other hand, that its path lay first from Spain
to France, for St.-Denis bears a special structural affinity with the Asturian
church ofS. Miguel de Liiio, where the earliest rose-tracery to be preserved is
41 A. K. Porter, Lombard Architecture, Ox-tecture, II, p. 121).
ford, 1917, pl. 212, Fig. 5- 43 Porter, op. cit., pl. 154, Fig. I.
42 Though Rivoira assigned this distinction 44 Ibid., I, p. 20o6.
to the window of Santa Maria del Vescovado, 45 Rose, Die Baukunst der Cisterzienser, passim.
dated 1163 (G. T. Rivoira, Lombardic Archi-

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
THE ROSE-WINDOW 257
found. Crosby has noted that the rose
Denis was planned to illuminate the cent
the upper part of an enlarged narthex
Carolingian westworks, which Suger b
de Lifio contained a somewhat similar
was not until the later stages of full G
Chartres or at St.-Denis itself in the la
seen from inside the main nave of the
of it possible, its position had to be lowe
in the High Gothic fagade. Though the
not present a detailed copy of the chu
tradition to which this Asturian chur
even more likely that the rose-window
Asturian model. For the restored oute
have been the original situation for t
this is now reconstructed according to
round opening in the gable, where one is
ing church of S. Julian de los Prados. P
before them, arranged oculi in either
the front gable. In any event, it shoul
that Asturia may be considered as the
From early times the Spaniards sent
the Seine. Early in the tenth centur
opened through the famous Way of St. J
converged.47 It is also to be remembere
had consented, in an alliance with C
Emperor. In I 134, the Templars enter
Romanesque architecture, but doubtles
to France in return. Indeed, the liaison
and important enough during the twe
between the rulers of Spain and the ro
of policy.
It was the French in and about the Ile-de-France who brought the rose-
window to its full development. With the evolution of more refined techniques,
they were able to replace the cumbersome pierced plate-tracery by the bar-
type in all its elegant intricacies. Then, too, as the Gothic walls were lightened,
the oculus grew in size, to allow for the inclusion of extensive areas of stained
glass. In keeping with the slender piers and narrow walls, the window-
traceries also became highly complex in pattern, and like the whole Gothic
style, delicate and pointed. Yet, in this period and even later, when the form
began to break up with the coming of the Flamboyant style, it was always a
refinement of the same double-arcaded circle as that which made its first
known appearance at San Miguel de Lifio. It is of course obvious that t
two-century break between the first brief occurrence of the rose-window
46 Sumner McK. Crosby, L'Abbaye Royale

et les Routes du Pl1erinage de Compostelle,"
de Saint-Denis, Paris, 1953, P- 37. Revue Giographique des Pyrne'es et du Sud-Ouest,
7 E. Lambert, "Le Livre de Saint Jacques
Paris, 1943, P. 19.

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258 HELEN J. DOW
Spain and its reappearance in Fra
forms developed independently;
nary and important fact of this b
the truth lies in the alternative
from a common source of inspir
The well-thought-out design of
indicates that they are probably
ence. Why was this double arcad
metal-work. Should we infer pe
of stone? Where should we loo
design? Syria immediately com
design closely related to rose-tra
trated by de Vogiie (P1. I6c). T
radiating from a central pierced c
bars is perforated by a ring of t
work of very delicate execution,
to open up the stone very much
our definition, be called a rose-tr
arcade."4 The early Spanish win
development solely from such cr
neither necessary nor probable
sophistication of the Syrian begin
The continued use of a radiat
Christian times with the use of other devices like the Constantinian mono-
gram, and the cross inside a crown of victory. The final rose-window could
perhaps have held a fusion of a number of these forms. The combination o
cross and monogram placed inside a circular halo was not uncommon o
Early Christian sarcophagi from Ravenna. An example of this is found on
one from S. Apollinare in Classe, at the end of the seventh century.49 Th
surrounding circle is doubtless derived from the classical wreath, symbol o
victory or honour; on a sarcophagus it signified the apotheosis of the occupant,
which could be said to correspond in Christian terms to the notion of
victorious ascent to heaven. In fact, one such disc, whose history begins i
just this early period, did eventually become associated with the rose-window
An Early Christian sarcophagus from Istanbul is decorated with an eight-
spoked monogram supported by flanking angels,50 a motif which came to
decorate Romanesque tympana-carvings in Spain, where the monogram con
sisted of the letters A P and S, making it a symbol of the Trinity.51 The whole
arrangement later appeared clearly connected with the rose-window itself,
is to be seen in the gable of the ciborium by Arnolfo di Cambio, over the altar
of San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome, which was completed in 1285. Here a
48 de Vogiid, op. cit., I, pl. xiii, fig. I. und Mittelalterliche Kunst, Zurich, 1945, PP-
49 Marion Lawrence, The Sarcophagi124-6 of and fig. 17; and G. Gaillard, "Notes
Ravenna, New York, 1945, p. 69. Sur Les Tympans Aragonais," Bulletin His-
panique, XXX, 3, 1928; and La Sculpture
50 A. C. Soper, "The Latin Style on Chris-
tian Sarcophagi of the Fourth Century," Romane
Art Espagnole, Paris pl. XLVI (West
Bulletin, XIX, 1937, Fig. 52. Tympanum, Jaca Cathedral), LV, LVI,
LVII, and LVIII.
51 See Werner Weisbach, Religiiise Reform

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 259
pierced disc, very like a rose-window, is
of composition finally reached church
interesting paintings of the school of Gi
Sometimes a wheel-form occurs inexplica
sentations of actual scenes, notably tha
triangular Merovingian lintel-relief from
depicts the crucified Christ flanked by t
group are two eight-spoked wheels. The
tional representations of the sun and m
were frequently included in the crucifix
two more eight-spoked wheels whose me
more closely allied to the rose-window itse
on a liturgical comb from St. Heribert,
design is composed of an eight-arched ar
crucifixion scene, flanking the personifi
Indeed, circular patterns multiplied as
Baltru'aitis has shown that the wheel-sc
came to be a formal means of organizing
pictorially arranged in this fashion-the sev
and sorrows of the Virgin, scenes from
various world-pictures, wind-roses, an
came very near to being that typical of
in the later Middle Ages it was very like
rose-window itself or by the source, what
itself derived its inspiration. Remarkabl
ment calendars of Tuscany, one in the tw
another in the Baptistery at Florence, in b
zodiac are incorporated between the bar
circled animals just outside the calendar
view of the fact that sculptured beasts
this fashion, as we shall see later. Opicin
on this rose-like scheme as late as the four
The rose-window itself, however, has
the oculus in the north transept of the
which contains tracery arranged like a ja
name of a "crown-of-thorns" window. L
52 A. Venturi, StoriaMoyen
dell'Arte
Age," Gazette Italiana,
des Beaux-Arts, IV,
XXI,
"La Scultura del Trecento,"
I939- Milano, 19o6,
Fig. 53. 57 Ibid., and by the same author, "Quelques
53 Osvald Siren, Giotto, Cambridge, Mass., Survivances de Symboles solaires dans l'Art
1917, II, pl. io and 150o. du Moyen Age," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XVII,
54J. Baum, La Sculpture figurale en Europe 1937; and "L'Image du Monde Celeste du
a L'Epoque Merovingienne, Paris, 1937, pl. IXe au XIIe siecle," and "Roses des Vents et
LXVIII, Fig. 178. Roses de Personnages a l'epoque Romane,"
55 R. Hinks, Carolingian Art, London, 935, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, I938-
pl. XXII. 58 Richard Salomon, Opicinus de Canistris,
56jurgis Baltrusaitis, "Cercles Astrolo- London, 1936, pl. XX.
giques et Cosmographiques a la Fin du

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260 HELEN J. DOW
distortion of the main type of rose
classic design, we must keep in min
We can trace the path of its gradu
such important churches as the
Chartres, Notre-Dame-de-Paris, R
pattern, one object to which the
and more closely, until the ultima
in the western rose of Rheims. This
Notre-Dame-de-Paris, Rouen, and
after the peak had been reached, th
influence of the Flamboyant style
full flowering of this form at Rhei
the polycandelon, or chandelier in
The Polycandelon
From the earliest information w
develop in two distinct types. In o
the Carolingian city-like chandeli
has more definitely a radiating de
were composed of flat metal disc
suspended horizontally on chains.
We shall be concerned especially
kind, in which bars extended from
a wheel. These spokes supported a
in size to the central one into which the oil-containers were inserted. Some-
times terracotta oil-lamps were placed over each round hole of the disc;
others cup-shaped oil-containers of glass were slipped through the opening
The latter device must have given the more beautiful effect, for the who
disc was patterned with pierced work, like the tracery of a rose-window. T
lamplight, shining through the open-work design, would have given the sa
effect as that produced by sunlight shining through a rose-window, seen from
within.
Polycandela occur at least from the Byzantine period, apparently at fir
in the region of Asia Minor and Greece, and then throughout the Medite
ranean world. Museums usually date their examples roughly within the Ear
Christian period, though such polycandela are said to be still in use in th
shrines of Eastern Christendom, and recent Western examples of the whe
kind are common in modern Spain. There they are to be found both in t
churches of the Asturias, and at Barcelona not only in the churches but in the
Palacio de la Diputaci6n as well. Developed as a Christian motif, the radiatin
type was also taken over by the Moslems, who used it in mosques up
modern times.60
Museum, Philadelphia; The Johns Hopkins

59 The southern-transept rose in Lausanne
Cathedral is another extreme distortion of University Collection, Baltimore; the Staat-
classic rose-tracery. liche Museen of Berlin; the Palestine
60 Mediaeval polycandela are known Archaeological
from Museum, Jerusalem; the
the following collections: The University Museum of the Seminaire St. Anne, Jeru-

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
THE ROSE-WINDOW 261
It is difficult with the scanty re

development in general, but the la
selves around certain relatively w
and wheel kinds seem to have dev
of all types were usually suspend
the plain corona type, formed by
equal-sized circles, the ring itself
arrangement seems to be the basis
Four different kinds of polycan
at Beisan in Palestine.6e All came
certainly between 330 and 636 A
house, but they are believed to ha
summit of the site, where origin
surviving examples are bronze.
variety and together carry the g
(University Museum, Philadelp
central hole like a corona. One i
semi-scalloped ring of six holes conn
pointed and converging outwards
has six ray-like bars supporting ci
rim by an omega (t) pattern.63 T
combined in an Early Christian po
sity,64 in which the radiating bar
rim the open end of each omega
design like an open-work heart.
The best-preserved of all the fu
the British Museum (No. 529), wh
ranean, sixth to seventh centur
outside an arcaded circle, alternat
holes on the rim. Again the effec
wheels. The border decoration is p
the heart design, is simply a new
bar-ends. This well-developed for
simpler type, represented in a chan
salem; the British Museum, London; the Collegio Germanico, Rome. Some have also
Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Washington, been found in the ruins of the church of St.
D.C.; the Egyptian Collection of the Louvre, Peter in Jerusalem, and in the recent excava-
Paris; the R6misch-Germanische Zentral- tions of Corinth.
museum, Mainz; the Kevorkian Collection, 61 Now in the University Museum, Phila-
New York City; the Coptic Museum, Cairo; delphia. See Gerald M. Fitzgerald, Beth-Shan
the Basilewski Collection, formerly in St. Excavations I921r-r23: The Arab and Byzantine
Petersburg; the Walters Art Gallery, Balti- Levels, Philadelphia, 1931, III, p. XXVII and
more; the Smithsonian Institution, Washing- XXXVII.
ton, D.C.; the Victoria and Albert Museum, 62 Ibid., pl. XXXVII, Fig. I.
London; the Granada Archaeological Mu- 63 Ibid., pl. XXXVII, Fig. 3-
seum; the Benaki Museum, Athens; the 64 H. T. 1201 ; D. 0. 51. 472.
Museo sacro della Biblioteca Vaticana, 65 . M. Dalton, Catalogue of Early Chris
Rome; the Historical Museum of Mediaeval Antiquities and Objects from the Christian
Antiquities, Crete; the Arabian Museum,the British Museum, London, 1901, pl. X
Istanbul; and formerly the Collection of and thep. 104.

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262 HELEN J. DOW
was formerly in the Basilewski Co
catacomb in Calabria, it had a bro
over the round central hole, and it
have been placed over all seven ho
to symbolize the soul. It is a curio
eventually became known through
retained. One such disc of bronze
six rings joined together by much
rim with two types of double-bird
is one made of brass in a star-sha
containers. 69
Polycandela in Spain
Especially significant, however, is
ing design eventually found its w
seems to occur all around the Med
fluence was strong. A polycandelo
the British Museum was sold in
form, and also from Southern Sp
now in the Victoria and Albert
claimed to have been found close t
Elvira near the village of Atarfe;
possible that it was in fact brough
a Visigothic origin for it. 72 This is
the eighth and tenth centuries, th
Six Muhammadan polycandela, no
were found directly on the site of t
ington. See
66 Cabrol-LeClerq, Dictionnaire Walter H
d'Archeolog
Museum Bulletin
Chre'tienne, s.v. polycandilon; No.6,
and vol. 141
f
4767. Also, Manuel G6mez-Moreno,
ing Igle
and Lighting Utens
National
Mozdrabes, 1919, fig. 215 for Museum),drawing. pl.
Ch. Rohault de Fleury:
Casanowicz, La Messe, U.S. NationVI, Pa
I888, pp. 4-7, and 148
12-13 (Collection
for a discussion of Object
other Italian lamps.in A the similar
United bronze States Nat la
with only three sockets for oil was foun
70 G6mez-Moreno, op.
Coptic Egypt by Prof. 71 W. Flinders L. HildburghPetrie; W
Lethaby and Harold Swainson, The
Polycandelon found Churc in
Journal, I,London
Sancta Sophia, Constantinople, 1921, p. 32
and
York, 1894, fig. I8. 72 Ibid., p. 235-
67 According to the 73 drawn Ibid., fig. 2-5; G6m
reconstruction
Rohault de Fleury; fig.op.
215, and pl. CXLIX
cit., VI,and CL;pl. and 639,
G6mez-Moreno, loc.
peated in Cabrol-LeClerq, "El Artecit.
Arabe Espafiol
hasta los Almohades:
68 Now at the Walters Art ArteGallery,
Mozarabe," Ars Bal
more; Persian, late 12th or I3th cent.
Hispaniae, III, Madrid, 1951, p. 322, fig. 385. Il
On p. 325 of theGalleries
trated by Parke-Bernet last-mentioned publication
Inc., P
Two of the Collectiona reference
of the is made to a related
late polycandelonBrumm
Joseph
in the
New York, I949, P. Arabian Museum, Istanbul.
29.
69 Now in Smithsonian Institution, Was

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 263
The Wheel-shaped Lamp in France and Italy

From France, no extant examples of p
le-Duc made a sketch of a wheel-shaped
century window in the church of St.-Ma
St. Joachim were represented taking a
candelabra is drawn with a lamp in it
containers on its rim. Without referenc
said to be called a "roue,"74 and docume
this name "wheel" was in fact correct us
Adamnanus described a chandelier in suc
of Calvary as a "wheel" (rota).75 This w
been the disc type which, as we have fo
throughout the Byzantine world. Now,
tion as Calvary would probably have m
pilgrims from France as from elsewhe
chandelier appears to have reached Franc
to St. Bernard: "They admire more the b
sacred. There are placed in the churches
encircled with lamps, but not less glitter
Once the wheel-type of polycandelon
become an established High Mediaeval fo
lamps. Thus the following reference to t
manuscript, dates from 1248 : "We have or
God and His most blessed Mother that . . . two iron wheels stand in the
sanctuary, and of those wheels one will have one hundred wax (candle
the feast of the purification of the Blessed Virgin, which will illumina
church.""77 Once again the word used is "rota." The tradition seems to
been continuous in the North. Between this thirteenth-century exampl
the suspended sixteenth-century version sketched by Viollet-le-Duc, we
in the fifteenth century a painted wheel-type of candelabra, held in the
of Saint Donatian in Jan Van Eyck's altarpiece for Canon van der P
now at Bruges.78 It seems therefore that during the High Middle Age
French must have been well acquainted with wheel-shaped lamps, e
standing or hanging.
It is therefore feasible to associate typical rose-window tracery with
pierced form of the radiating polycandelon, especially since both are ob
involved in church lighting. The similarity of patterns then becomes striki
Primarily the motif is based on a radiating disc with a pierced circle a
centre. The first rose at S. Miguel de Lifio is close to the simple versi
polycandelon found in the catacomb in Calabria. As the ability to prod
74E. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonnd

L'Histoire de l'Architecture, XIe-XIIP Sidcles, II,
du Mobilier Frangais de l'tpoque Carolingienne a"
Paris, 1911, p. 368; St. Bernard, Pat. Lat.
la Renaissance, Paris, 1868, p. 142, and fig.182, 915.
6.
15 Pat. Lat. 88, 784: Adamnanus, De Locis 17 Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. Rota.
Sanctis, VI: De illa ecclesia quae in Calvariae 78
loco
Charles de Tolnay, Le Maitre de Flimalle
constructa est. et Les Frdres Van Eyck, Brussels, 1939, fig- 71,
76 Victor Mortet, Recueil de Textes Relatifs and
a" for details, fig. 95 and 99.

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264 HELEN J. DOW
complex tracery-patterns increas

gradually achieved a nearer and
whole polycandelon-disc. Rose
variations on the polycandelon d
with an outer row of circles; pol
on this radiating scheme. Wherea
rose-windows, in France the G
window-tracery this feature bec
while the size of the oculus exp
Cathedral (P1. I4e) contains tra
polycandelon No. 529 in the Brit
This relationship between the
be made even closer if more of
preserved. The first rose-traceri
during the ninth century-the ve
suggested for the Atarfe polyca
Moreover, it is conceivable that
be made to reproduce the polyca
oculi, since metal window-tracer
period. Ecclesiastical and other w
the accomplished level attained
goths.79 On the other hand, sto
candela; for example, Greek poly
Polycandela were also made i
diameter seems to be about 25
than this; Leo, Cardinal Bishop o
that the Byzantine corona-polyc
tery of Monte Cassino was as lar
This huge corona-polycandelon
Desiderius of Monte Cassino. Ind
corona- and rota-types stem from
apparently succeeded the older
which they may have been a dev
come to light about the pre-Chr
trace a continued use of radiatin
seventh century B.C. circular lam
a central dish for oil was surrou
divided by partitions.82 Some ar
ment.84 These lamps could either
79 Hildburgh, op.naire
cit.,
Raisonndp. 335.
de l'Architecture FranGaise, Paris,
1854-68, VIII,
80 'EepyspL 'EarLpeEaq pp. 39 f.
BuOovrlvv ~xou8w
82J. D. Beazley,
(Annual of the Society "A Marble Lamp"
of Byzantine (P1.
Stud
V-VII), Journalto
1926, p. 321, according of Hellentic Studies, LX,
a reference
vided by Mrs. Maria
I940, pp. 30,Komis
32. Lykondis.
81 E. G. Holt, 83 Ibid., Sources
Literary fig. 18. of Art Histo
Princeton, 1947, P. 84 Brunn-Bruckmann's
o0. The Denkmdler Griech-
measureme
feet was providedischerby Professor
und Rdmischer Kenne
Sculptur, Miinchen, 1912,
Conant. For some measurements of French Tafel 666. An Etruscan lamp formerly in
rose-windows, see E. Viollet-le-Duc, Diction-
Berlin (Beazley, op. cit., p. 46) and a Graeco-

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
14
a-San Miguel de Lifio, A.D. 842-850, Asturias, b-Greek Polycandelon, 6th-7th cent.,
Spain (p. 254) British Museum (pp. 26I, 264)
c-"Wheel of Fortune," c. I 135, North Tran-

sept, St.-Etienne, Beauvais (p. 256)
d-Western Rose-Window, c. I145, Abbey of e-Western Rose-Window, Cathedral of Rheims

St.-Denis, France (p. 277) (pp. 248,
This content downloaded 264)
from
202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
THE ROSE-WINDOW 265
and it is possible to see in the whole arra
early form, of the polycandelon.
Although the pattern of the polycandel
cross, the monogram, the star, the bird
symbolic interpretation can be proved fo
cedent, which was elaborately decorated
particular meaning was involved, except
as a later development. Nevertheless, t
particularly the four-spoked wheel, had
the sun, and through it with the control o
The significance of the Wheel in Pagan a

A short consideration of these cult wh
radiating polycandela, birds were especia
ancient Greek example, an iynx wheel, h
to be found in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.87 Dated to the end of the
eighth century B.c., and painted with geometric designs, it consists of a pottery
ring enclosing a cross and supporting eleven pottery iynges on the rim, while
possibly a twelfth sat in the middle of the cross. The birds are represented
with extended throats as though they were singing, for the wheel, itself a
symbol of the sun, had, together with the birds, a very specific significance.
Grace W. Nelson has explained its function: "Like the solar wheel the iynx
was thought to possess magical properties, a belief inspired by the bird's
peculiarities. For purposes of defence or of courtship-display during the
mating season, it elongates and twists its neck about, turning its head in all
directions with a quick rotary movement.
"To harness this magic power the Greeks utilized the solar wheel with
which birds already were associated. The iynx, seemingly possessed with mad-
ness when excited by the mating instinct, was, as Pindar in his fourth Pythian
(212-214) and the scholiast tell, spread-eagled, Ixion-like, upon the wheel.
Accoutred thus, the solar wheel became the iynx-wheel. Moreover the iynx-
bird evidently proved to be the more potent member of this magical combina-
tion, for henceforth, whether or not the bird is attached to it, the magic wheel,
despite ambiguity, is known as the iynx. A powerful fertility magnet, this
iynx functioned as sun-, moon-, rain-, and above all as a love-charm."88
Wheel-symbols were often given as votive offerings in Greek temples at least
of the Geometric period.
The Boston wheel illustrates that, in use, some were suspended horizontally
Roman lamp in the Wallace Collection, XXXVIII, 1934, PP- 512-13-
London (J. G. Mann, "Sculptures, Marbles, 86 Anna Roes, Greek Geometric Art, Haarlem,
Terra-cottas and Bronzes," Catalogue, Wallace I933, PP. 52 ff.; and "L'Animal au Signe
Collection, London, 1931, pl. 60) present a Solaire," Revue Archdologique, Sixieme S'rie,
related form. XI, 1938, pp. 153 f.
85 See Rodney S. Young, "Late Geometric s7 Grace W. Nelson, "A Greek Votive
Graves and a Seventh-Century Well in the Iynx-Wheel in Boston," American Journal of
Agora," Hesperia, Supplement II, Athens, Archaeology, XLIV, 1940, fig. I.
1939, P. 182; and David M. Robinson: "The 88 Ibid., pp. 447-8; also p. 449.
Villa of Good Fortune at Olynthos," AJA,
6

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
266 HELEN J. DOW
by cords, but they frequently app
figured vases, where they are repr
in vase-painting the wheel has fou
it is simply painted as a ring, sinc
In view of the wheel's significance
could at some point have become
chandelier? Would not the sun, a b
as a wheel, naturally spring to mind
A light-symbol could conceivably
radiating circle was, in fact, a very
sun-worshippers, not only of A
among the Germanic tribes of N
belonged.91 By Roman times the
important. It was this god's symb
fire preserved in the palace of the C
at official functions, symbolic of a
Persia.92
Christianity, of course, makes abundant use of light-symbols. A number of
biblical passages refer symbolically not only to the sun but even to lamps.
St. Jerome had cause to make a special reference to one of these. As early as
the fourth century Vigilantius ridiculed the burning of lamps in churches
during the full light of day, but Jerome justified the practice through its
symbolic associations: "Throughout the churches of the East when the Gospel
is read candles are lighted, although the sun is shining, not for the purpose
of driving away darkness, but as an outward sign of gladness . . . that under
the type of an artificial illumination that light may be symbolized of which
we read in the Psalter, 'Thy Word, O Lord, is a lantern unto my feet, and a
light unto my paths.' "93 St. Isidore, Amalarius and Hrabanus Maurus all
used this same justification.
One of the closest references to the actual use of polycandela, however,
occurs in Paul the Silentiary's poem on Santa Sophia, written in 563, where
the description of the church is precise and, as far as can be ascertained,
accurate. The cosmic significance implied in his light-symbolism seems to
correlate with that already mentioned. He gives a long account of the astro-
nomical effect produced at night by the interior illuminations:
"One might say in truth that some midnight sun illumined the glories of
the temple . . ." He concludes: "Yet not only does it guide the merchant at
night, like the rays from the Pharos on the coast of Africa, but it also shows
the way to the living God.'"94
It is well known that lamps were frequently given symbolic shapes at this
period: crosses, birds, fish, boats, and so on; and such lamps were often
89 Ibid., p. 454- Deutschlands, Berlin, 1935, PP- 306-8, 418.

90 On the subject of "Prayer-Wheels" (or 92 Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, Chicago,
"magical wheels"), see Hastings, Encyclopedia1903, P. 99.
of Religion and Ethics. 93 John Henry Blunt, Dictionary of Doctrinal
91 See O. Montelius, Swedish Antiquities, and Historical Theology, London, 1870, p. 413-
Stockholm, 1922, Nos. 1235 and 1451; and 94 Lethaby and Swainson, op. cit., p. 49.
Herbert Kuhn, Die Vorgeschichtliche Kunst

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 267
precious enough to be made of gold.95 Furt
as the festival service at Vatopedi, are st
church.96
In the West, Honorius of Autun provided
meaning for the position and shape of the c
of which it was made, the gems with whic
by which it was suspended.97 Honorius evide
in mind, such as the turreted example at A
bolism is more broadly applicable. In the sa
spoke of church lamps as symbols of the good
". .. The lights of the church are those
shineth as the sun and the moon; unto who
'Ye are the light of the world.' They be a
whence He saith in His admonitions 'Let yo
that the church is adorned joyfully within b
that its 'Glory is all from within.' For altho
yet doth it shine within in the soul, which
Durandus, Bishop of Mende, was more spe
century, he said: "The lamp in the Church
light of the world'; and again 'That was t
church may denote the apostles and other
Church is enlightened, as the sun and mo
Lord, 'Ye are the light of the world': that
Durandus went on to say that "the light of
people," and, with reference to the seven gift
of lights "showeth the number of graces in th
Any consistent significance residing in
Mediaeval times, however, must surely be
structure as the rose-window, likewise used
seen that the occurrence of polycandela is
date with the first appearance of the ro
especially, that the form of the fully develo
striking similarities to that of the High M
seen, moreover, that this radiating pattern
wheels, symbols which were both spun vert
horizontally; symbols which, like both th
horizontal polycandelon, are connected w
symbolic significance attached to these form
relationship, it is as well to give greater co
and light-symbols in the Middle Ages.
jamin
95 Ibid., pp. I I I, I40. See also Webb in The Symbolism
Liber Pontifi-
calis, ed. Duchesne, 1886.
Church Ornaments by William D
96 Lethaby and Swainson, Igo6, op. p.cit.,
I55-p. i 19.
97 Pat. Lat., 172, 588, De99 See also the latter'sAnimae;
Gemma Rationale Divinorum
cap. CXLI, De Corona. Oficiorum, trans. by Neale and Webb, op. cit.,
pp. the
98 The Mystical Mirror of 25, 54. Church, Chap. I,
translated by John Mason Neale and Ben-

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268 HELEN J. DOW
The Symbolism of the Wheel-s
The spread of the Gothic rose-wind

Cistercian Order who, although insis
continued to use rose-windows in
window carried an important sign
violating the general rule of aesth
first appearance occurred in Spain
officially came to an end. There m
to us, but that a symbol arising at s
such a controversy, in as abstract
prising. Possibly the development
by a similarly gradually acquire
window as a form certainly became
in the development of Gothic arch
attributable symbolism seems who
to disintegrate in the ornate decor
therefore, to be justified in postu
form and in considering what it mig
Essentially the rose-window is ro
plan, this shape alone, from ancie
importance in more than a pure
courage was in itself complete, t
compared a circle to virtue becaus
above all other geometric forms
Kepler's attempt to introduce the
movement of the heavenly bodies,
God had been defined symbolical
poets, an idea which reached Chri
the Areopagite.102 Other Christian w
perfection in other ways. It was u
its sacraments, as well as the reign of
life, until by the thirteenth centu
Church through the world.103
From its very name, however, it
in French "la rose," is more than j
very late that the resemblance to a
in both English and French seems
eighteenth century, while the Oxford
wheel" and "marigold-window," b
romantic names. Some writers dis
developed rose. Yet Camille Enlart se
the most common term for the roun
100 Joan Evans, Art 102Rudolf
in Mediaeval Wittkower
France
Oxford, 1948, p. 66.
ciples in the Age of Hum
101 Richard Krautheimer,
p. 26. "Introduction to
an 'Iconography of 103Mediaeval
Krautheimer, op. cit., p. 9. Architectur
this Journal, V, 1942, p. 9.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 269
merely a degeneration of the word

wheel."04 Other evidence gives unqu
the Italian cathedral of Cremona an
portal reads: "M.CC.LXXIIII Magiste
Hanc Rotam."'5o The word "rota" ob
window above. Already a familiar nam
further illustrates the correlation bet
In fact, some of these windows are u
wheel. The earliest extant French exam
Etienne, Beauvais, of ca. I 135, is surm
fickle goddess Fortuna, who raises and
group of kings clinging to its rim. The
able popularity during the time of th
appearance in Christian art of this a
of this association of Fortune with th
form, we may consider her own histo
theme.
The wheel of Fortune has a long ancestry. One of the earliest recognizable
artistic representations seems to be a four-spoked version of it in mosaic, with
four outer-circles and an inner dotted ring. This comes from the Hellenistic
"Villa of Good Fortune" at Olynthos, where Fortune is identified only by
the accompanying inscriptions.'07 In Roman art the idea of a disc or orb
continued to be represented in association with Fortuna, but here the goddess
was depicted standing on it, as a sign of her instability, a symbol of her un-
predictable behaviour. In literature, where this attribute was given to Fortuna
as early as Pindar, it came closer to representing the instrument of her control
over the fate of men. Boethius in his Consolation of Philosophy was apparently
the first actually to put man on this wheel, which he then depicted as turned
by the goddess Fortuna.8os An antecedent of this image, however, is suggested
in the explanation of an iynx-wheel given by Liddell and Scott in their Greek
Lexicon, s.v. 'uy,. According to this, the iynx birds, which, as we have seen,
ancient Greek witches placed on a magic wheel, represented men's souls,
charmed by this means into obedience to the witches' power. The Christian
polycandelon from Calabria, being associated with bird-shaped oil containers,
possibly represents a later version of this mystic control over the souls of men.
Gaidoz, on the other hand, traced the goddess on the wheel back through the
Greek Tyche and Nemesis to an origin in the Assyrian Sun-god, who was
sometimes represented outstretched on a wheel, the wheel itself being a symbol
of the sun. It is an interesting fact that the Roman feast of Fors Fortuna was
celebrated on June 24th, the date of the summer solstice. But Fortuna was
104Manuel d'Arche'ologie Franfaise, Paris, sketched from Lausanne Cathedral (p. 76,
1902, p. 310. pl. 31b), though he also referred to the latter
105 Porter, Lombard Architecture, II, p. as
377."une reonde veriere" (p. 76 and pl. 3Ia).
106 Villard de Honnecourt, according to107 David M. Robinson, "The Villa of
Hans R. Hahnloser, Villard de Honnecourt,
Good Fortune at Olynthos," AJA, XXXVIII,
Vienna, 1935, p. 75 and pl. 30c, called1934,
the PP- 501-6.
Western rose which he sketched at Chartres 108s Howard R. Patch, The Goddess Fortuna
Cathedral simply "fenestra," like the rose he
in Mediaeval Literature, 1927, pp. 149-52.

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270 HELEN J. DOW
not the only wheel-owning deity
Fortuna, was symbolized by a w
expressing a wish for a safe jour
the same.'09 Nevertheless, twelf
the picture drawn by Boethius, o
we see him depicted in the rose-
His solution, which opposed the
lectual virtues, became one of t
and retained its power well into
amusing to note that in the tw
wheel of fortune which revolved
contemplate the spectacle of w
human life as a restless rolling wh
of men revolved to high and low
represented with this connotatio
Museum of Naples (871 [Io9982])
whose power makes all men equ
all human aspirations in this wo
Fortune, for according to Seneca
trolled.114
By the Carolingian period the wheel, even without Fortune's presence,
had become a symbol of the transient world. Walahfrid Strabo tells us that
he "who clings suspended to the fleeting globe now rises, now falls; thus the
earth's wheel drags him on."'15 To the Christians a worldly life, which meant
separation from God's guidance, was not only evil but vain. Early in the
twelfth century the re-identification of Fortune with the wheel revived
Boethius' pagan representation of the world's vainglory. Honorius of Autun
recorded this interpretation with even greater emphasis: "Philosophers tell
us of a woman fastened to a wheel which turns perpetually, so that they say
she is sometimes rising and sometimes falling with its movement. What is this
wheel? It is the glory of the world which is carried round in perpetual
motion. The woman fastened to the wheel is Fortune, whose head alternately
rises and falls because those who have been raised by their power and riches
are often precipitated into poverty and misery."11
109 H. Gaidoz, "Le Dieu Gaulois du Soleil 113 Otto Brendel, "Untersuchungen zur
et Le Symbolisme de la Roue," Revue Archdo- Allegorie des Pompejanischen Totenkopf-
logique, V, 1885, pp. 192-4. Mosaiks," Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archdolo-
110 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, gischen Instituts, Romische Abt., 49, 1934, Tafel
trans. H. F. Stewart, London, 1918, pp. 179- IO.
I81. 114 Weltrud Mersmann, Die Bedeutung de

111 See Patch, The Goddess Fortuna; and Rundfensters in Mittelalter, unpublished diss
ibid., The Tradition of Boethius, New York, tation, Vienna, 1944, p. 75, n. 28.
1935. The wheel which Cellini mentions as 116 See M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and
having been made by his father, where the Letters in Western Europe, A.D. 500 to goo, N
virtues kept their upright positions as the York, 1931, p. 330.
wheel revolved is an interesting variation on 11s Quoted in Male, Religious Art in Franc
this theme. XIII century, trans. by Dora Nussey, London
112 Joseph Sauer, Symbolik des Kirchenge- 1913, p. 96.
bdudes, Freiburg-i.-B., 1924, p- 272, n. 3.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 271
It was in this same twelfth century that
in Beauvais acquired its wheel of Fortune
survives in a French church, namely that i
at Amiens Cathedral, where the surmo
crowned, holding a sceptre, below whom
aptly illustrating Walahfrid's poem."17
dow with two manuscript illustrations s
teenth-century sketch by Villard de Hon
the twelfth-century Hortus Deliciarum.1
symbolize the transience of worldly pow
sceptred kings rising and falling on a whee
is turned by Fortuna, a crowned woman
Honnecourt placed the goddess in the ce
subject was repeated in several thirteenth
choir of Rochester Cathedral,120 while
sculptured form on the rose-windows of
Trent Cathedrals,122 the latter once mor
the middle of the wheel, as in Villard d
ment of Fortuna also appears on the ext
Parma;123 and twice in the church of San
in a thirteenth-century fresco,124 and aga
tion mentioning "Fortuna" on the rose-w
to Arthur Kingsley Porter this window d
The theme lasted in both the art and lit
Middle Ages. But by this time Fortune
and according to His will she allows on
languish, in obedience to her power beyo
Nevertheless, as we have remarked, Fo
associated with the rose-window. In man
to be completely abstract. Yet the whee
of the rose-window, and it will be worth o
uses of it. Since we are dealing with Chr
into the main source of its inspiration
reference to Fortuna, Ps. lxxxii, 13-16 sp
instability. Gregory likens this wheel to
intrinsic in Fortune's wheel too. Fate, w
Boethius described as shifting and temp
simplicity of Providence. Yet Fortune
124 Ibid.,
117 Male, XIIIe Sitcle, fig. 47. p. I9I.
118 Hahnloser, op. cit., 125
taf.
Ibid., 42.
fig. 218.
119 Mgle, XIIIe Sikcle, fig.
126 Porter,
48. op. cit., III, p. 526.
120 0. Elfrida Saunders, 127
A This concept is fully
History of developed
English by SS.
Art in the Middle Ages,Albert
Oxford,and Thomas.1932, fig.VII,
Cf. Inferno, 51.6i ; and
121 H. Reinhardt, Das Van Marle, op.Miinster,
Basler cit., fig. 225. 1939,
fig. 62, according to the Princeton
128 Select Library of NiceneIndex of
and Post-Nicene
Christian Art. Fathers, Second Series; Vol. XII; Leo the
Great, Gregory the Great; New York, 1895,
122 Van Marle, Iconographie de l'Art Profane,
1932, fig. 217. P. 75; Epistle V.
123 Ibid., p. 190.

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272 HELEN J. DOW
this may be, whether the rule of
of a moral order, or of the demons
Fate was controlled by Providen
necessity. The Platonic metaphor o
relationship between Fortune's m
things which are closest to the stabi
of all things, turn most slowly, and
Fate, while those farthest from this
of uncertain Fortune, revolve w
contrasts with the stable simplicity
understanding, as time with ete
produces it, or a circle with its cent
When King Alfred made his own
changed the symbol of the orb into
which undoubtedly present us wi
the symbolism to be worked out o
sentations, it is to be noticed that F
in Alfred's position of worldly evil,
God in the Wheel
Both Boethius himself and Alfre

as a fixed point, the centre of a c
wheel need not necessarily, of cou
Such an interpretation has indeed
wheel on a seal dating from the s
coming from the Hungarian town
the centre with a cruciform halo,
are found an alpha and omega and
A surrounding inscription reads "
a reference to Ps. lxxvi. 19: "Th
lightnings enlightened the wor
Authorized Version confirms the na
here as a symbol of heaven: "The v
The Vulgate: "Vox tonitrui tui in
Honorius of Autun (who thus diff
read: "Vox tonitrui tui, Deus in r
the wheel is a symbol of the heaven
"Per rotam hic mundus figuratur
tatur." In other words, God at the h
other upon
129 Boethius, ed. cit., p.the 343.
divine life, as if he looked with
130 "Now the axle one
is eye
as heavenwards,
it were and with
the thehighes
other
good we call God, earthwards
and the .. .." (W. J. Sedgefield,
best men Kingmo
next unto God just Alfred's
as the Version,nave
pp. 151-2.)moves neare
the axle. The middle sort of men are like the 131 A. Doren, "Fortuna im Mittelalter und
in der Renaissance," Vortrdge der Bibliothek
spokes, for one end of each spoke is fast in the
nave, and the other is in the felly; and so Warburg,
it 1922-1923, I Teil, Abb. 9-
is with the midmost man, at one time think- 132 Ps. lxxvii. I8.
ing in his mind upon this earthly life, at an- 133 Pat. Lat. I72, 833-

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 273
shapes or controls all, as Boethius also

orbs. We find Dante using the same wh
We have evidence, therefore, that fi
symbolically associated with the cosmos
separately from the imagery inheren
very ancient use of the symbol, prob
itself, with early sun-worship. It was t
that we suggested as a source of symbo
it was undoubtedly one of the symbo
dome. Obviously the wheel is a symbo
quite opposite references. We have alr
wheel represented the vainglory of th
arts associated a wheel or orb with the whole cosmos of heaven and earth.
In Carolingian illumination, for instance, we constantly find the picture
Christ sitting on the round throne of Heaven with an orb-like earth for
footstool. The pictorial effect is thus of a bigger circle, the throne of Chr
above a smaller one, the orb of the earth. The design is used to illustr
Isaiah lxvi. I where the Lord says: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth m
footstool." That is to say, then, that the wheel or orb sometimes symboliz
the vanities of worldly life, sometimes the whole cosmos, sometimes simp
the earth, and sometimes God's dwelling-place in Heaven.
Ezekiel's Wheel
There is, however, another, and the most important Biblical use of th
wheel-symbol, which appears in the account of Ezekiel's vision of the fou
living creatures, which itself seems to be the basis of much of the imagery
the fourth chapter of Revelation. Ezekiel i. 13-21 runs as follows: "And as f
the likeness of the living creatures: their appearance was like that of burni
coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps. This was the vision runni
to and fro in the midst of the living creatures, a bright fire and lightning goin
forth from the fire. And the living creatures ran and returned like flashes
lightning. Now as I beheld the living creatures, there appeared upon t
earth by the living creatures one wheel with four faces. And the appearan
of the wheels and work of them was like the appearance of the sea: and th
four had all one likeness. And their appearance and their work was as it we
a wheel in the midst of a wheel. When they went, they went by their fou
parts: and they turned not when they went. The wheels had also a size an
a height and a dreadful appearance: and the whole body was full of ey
round about all four. And when the living creatures went the wheels also
went together by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up fr
the earth the wheels also were lifted up with them. Whithersoever the spi
went, thither as the spirit went the wheels also were lifted up withal an
followed it: for the spirit of life was in the wheels."
134 "And the others then sweetly and turned towards heaven, even there where the
devoutly accompanied it through the entire stars are slowest, like a wheel nearest the
hymn, having their eyes fixed on the supernal axle" (viii. i6, 85).
wheels . . . My yearning eyes were again

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
274 HELEN J. DOW
Ezekiel x. 12-13describes the f
bodies were also covered with
"And their whole body and thei
the circles were full of eyes, ro
he called Voluble, in my hearing
Apparently the same use of th
till thrones were placed and the
as snow and the hair of his head like clean wool: his throne like flames of
fire: the wheels of it like a burning fire."
Although the symbolism of these visions is complicated, mediaeval the
logians generally interpreted it according to the traditions of the Fathe
From long before the time of Christ, Jewish philosophers had attempted
give the meaning of Ezekiel's symbols, while Christian interpretations be
in the Greek world. For Western Christendom, however, St. Jerome, followe
by Gregory the Great, laid the foundation,135 on which later commentat
built.136 Even Dante seems to be following them in the two wheel-symb
in his Purgatorio (XXIX, Ioo, Io6 and 2 I) usually interpreted by the crit
as the two Testaments, or the active and contemplative life.
Jerome's explanation of Ezekiel's vision, in the tradition of Origen, ma
the four animals represent the Evangelists. To Paulinus in Letter 53,
example, he said that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the Lord's team
of cherubim, the store of knowledge, interwoven with each other like fo
wheels, which are the symbols of their four gospels, and guided through
world by the breath of the Holy Spirit.137 This interpretation became cen
in the history of Biblical exegesis, but Jerome also gave a number of ot
analogies with the four beasts which presumably carry references for t
wheels of the beasts in question also. In his Commentary on Ezekiel he sugges
along with the four Evangelists, such other analogies as: the four eleme
earth, water, fire and air, of which the world is composed; the four seaso
spring, summer, autumn and winter, which make up the months and th
years; the four quarters of the world: East, West, North and South, to wh
the Gospel is carried; the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, courag
and temperance; the four dispositions of the soul: conscience, will, intelligenc
and desire (after Cicero's Tusculans); and (from a line in the Aeneid) the f
emotions: joy, grief, greed and fear.138
The other authoritative interpretation of the vision for the Middle Ag
was that of Gregory. His Commentary on Ezekiel included some of Jerom
interpretations: the four Evangelists, the four regions of the world, and
four virtues; but of the four symbolic animals, he laid greater stress on
likeness of the man, which he took to represent the Lord's incarnation. Mo
over he clearly specified that all four beasts symbolized the four mysterie
135 For a history of the Book of Ezekielthe

seetwelfth century; and Nicholas of Lyra in
Wilhelm Neuss, Das Buch Ezechiel in Theologie
the fourteenth century.
und Kunst bis zum Ende des XII Jahrhunderts,137 Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene
Miinster-i.-W., 9I12. Fathers, Second Series; VI, St. Jerome; New
13e For example the Carolingians, Alcuin,
York, 1893, p. Ioi.
Hrabanus Maurus and Walahfrid Strabo; 138 Pat. Lat. 25, 15 ff-
Honorius of Autun and Rupert of Deutz in

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 275
Christ.139 This theme had been partia

stated by Ambrose.140 It was, however,
the prototype not only for Gregory's
Western commentators: "Hominem na
regnantem, et aquilam ad coelestia rem
man; being sacrificed, an ox; reigni
ascending into Heaven, an eagle.)141
These two Christian meanings, the fo
four mysteries of Christ of St. Gregory,
ficance for all later Western writers, alt
from time to time.142 Walahfrid Strab
Christianus Druthmarus,143 even added
by connecting the Evangelists with th
fountain, to irrigate the Church; he iden
ing inspiration, Matthew with Geon, f
ness, and Luke with Euphrates, signifyin
tion he made these Evangelists repres
was identified with honey, Mark with
wine, associations which Honorius of Aut
But the central theme of this vision was
of Christ's coming, when the Gospel w
by His Evangelists.
The wheel was very closely associate
cosmic significance was indicated as
Aeneid VI, 748, spoke of: "rota in rot
the wheel is the circulation of the yea
an inscription, was represented seated
a tenth-century circular calendar-pict
But the principal meaning for Ezekiel
Among the mingled images of the Bibl
wheel divided by four, while in the ot
inside, some outside. The interpretati
revelation. The spirit in the wheel is t
or four are mentioned they symboliz
gospels of the Evangelists individua
Scripture. From Jerome onwards the
New Testament prophesied in the Old
gogue; "Rota in rota, lex in legem, v
law, the old within the new.147
139 Pat. Lat. 76, 785 if.
145 Speculum Ecclesiae, De Nativitate Domini,
Pat. Lat. 172,
140 Pat. Lat. 15, Expositio in 833-
Lucam, 1532.
14s G6ttingen, MS. theol.
141 In B. Joannis Apocalypsem, Pat. lat.Lat.
f. 231; Ellen
35,
2423. Beer, Die Rose der Kathedrale von Lausanne,
142 Neuss, op. cit., pp. 29 ff. Bern, 1952, Abb. 45.
143 Expositio in Matthaeum, Pat. Lat. io6, 147Walahfrid Strabo, op. cit., col. 864.
1264-5, where the symbols are actually more Herrad of Landsberg in the Hortus Deliciarum
fully explained than in Walahfrid's treatise.
appropriately arranged the Sacraments of the
144 Expositio in Evangelia, Pat. Lat. I 14,
New and the Old Testaments in two wheel-
86 ff. shaped diagrams very like simplified rose-

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276 HELEN J. DOW
Pictorial versions of this vision b
In this period several Egyptian
wheeled chariot supporting the
that it was a picture of this type t
in a sermon delivered in 473, ex
cathedral of Batnan. George, his
his metrical biography of Jacob.
Ezekiel's vision is found, accor
hebraeus, in the I,400-line poetic i
Also from Syria, a sixth- to sev
decorates a circular silver flabell
barton Oaks Collection in Was
on both sides, illustrates the fou
cherub wings, flanked undernea
whole disc is encircled with a scall
feathers.149 The subject of Ezek
theme from the fifth century
Friend went further, however,
through the Monza and Bobbio p
at Jerusalem.
In the West, Spanish Apocalypse manuscripts from the Visigothic period
seem to form a pictorial continuation with the Early Christian versions of
Ezekiel's chariot. In these Spanish paintings, however, the wheel itself became
the centre of the composition, the Lamb of God usually filling the central hub.
Sometimes the scheme appears to be based on a double wheel, the one revolv-
ing inside the other. An example of this is to be found in the eleventh-century
Beatus in Apocalipsin (Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid MS. 33, p. 92).
In this, the four evangelist-symbols, each inside a separate wheel, form with
the central Lamb a system of five interlocking rings, the whole within a larger
all-encompassing sixth wheel. These five interwoven rings occur again in a
more realistic version of Ezekiel's vision from the Farfa Bible (Vat. lat. 5729,
f. 2o8v), dating from the first half of the eleventh century (P1. I5a). The
exterior enclosing wheel is absent here, however, while the Agnus Dei is
exchanged for Christ in Majesty, so that the central ring is changed to a
mandorla, while in this case the surrounding Evangelists are men instead of
symbolic animals. Yet immediately below, they also appear symbolically
represented in a row of four separately encircled animals, underneath which
the whole vision seems to be presented again in a completely abstract form,
in a group of five empty interlocking rings. This subject from Ezekiel also
became a favourite one for initial ornament in the West from Romanesque
times. In the mid-twelfth-century Winchester Bible, for example, now in the
Cathedral Library, an initial ornament illustrates the same vision. Here four
Friend, Jr., at a symposium on Byzantine

window patterns. See the ed. by A. Straub
Liturgy and Music held at Dumbarton Oaks
and G. Keller, Strasbourg, 1879-1899, plates
XXII and XXIII. in April, 1954.
148 This information is taken from a 149 Illustrated on p. 57 (No. 103) of the
lecture
entitled: "The Chariot of Ezekiel and the Handbook of the Collection, Washington, D.C.,
Anaphorae," presented by Prof. A.1946.
M.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 277
overlapping six-spoked wheels appear, e
hub, like the labarum of the Hungarian
A thirteenth-century German Psalter no
22279) organized the theme around two
on whose top the four animal-symbols a
see, therefore, that in the matter of whee
in containing a single or double wheel, or
The wheel of Ezekiel, however, found
western rose-windows of Gothic church
of St.-Denis, the western wheel-window
symbols-the man, the lion, the ox and t
itself in this arrangement is that which
Domini group. The original tracery of th
bility that the surrounding animal-sculp
during the nineteenth century, but the
convincing evidence that the relief scul
twelfth-century rose-window itself.15
invented this symbolic association. We s
other twelfth-century windows at St.-De
himself was perhaps the originator of this
this time it gained in popularity, especially
one other surviving example in France. T
from the church of St.-Gabriel, Bouches-
it probably never had tracery, it is dated
as the second half of the twelfth centu
St.-Denis.152
In Italy, on the other hand, the traceried rose-window surrounded by the
sculptured beast-symbols became fairly common in the thirteenth century.
The Italian picture is confusing, however, since sometimes a small pierced
wheel together with animal-symbols is situated beneath a larger rose-window,
as, for instance, in the thirteenth-century facade of Ruvo Cathedral. The
smaller of these two wheels appears to be composed of six overlapping wheels.
Usually, however, the beast-symbols are found only once around the single
wheel formed by the western rose-window.153 All indicate the more complete
representation of Ezekiel's symbols in Italy, as compared with the majority
of French rose-windows, which form what was probably a more simplified
depiction, where no sculptured animals appear. We remember that already
an eleventh-century painting in the Farfa Bible had ultimately depicted this
theme in completely abstract form.
150 See Neuss, op. cit., for a more complete pp. 259 ff., which disproves the early date
historical sequence of representations insuggested by Henri Revoil in Architecture
mediaeval painting. Romaine du Midi de la France, I, Paris, 1873,
151 S. McK. Crosby in L'Abbaye Royale depp. I6 ff. Both of these books include illus-
Saint-Denis, p. 39, included these animaltrations.
symbols with the nineteenth-century carvings 153 E.g. in the churches of S. Pietro and of
which he believed Debret added to what was Sant'Eutizio in Spoleto, Toscanella, the cathe-
formerly a plain wall. dral of Assisi, and the church of II Crocifisso,
152 Leon Laband, "Saint-Gabriel," Congris
Lugano in Teverina.
Archeologique de France & Avignon en 19og, I,

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278 HELEN J. DOW
Suger of St.-Denis played such

Gothic art that it is not difficul
for the wheel of Ezekiel in the w
but also for establishing the ros
lancet-window, parts of which st
abbey, shows us his train of th
from his own description; one w
collecting the flour, a popular sy
Testament in the New. Two surv
the seven gifts of the Holy Spiri
He crowns, and the Synagogue
Father holding the crucified C
Covenant, in which lie the table
four visionary beasts (P1. I6d).15
God the Father, which appeared
partial representation of the Tri
completed, by the addition of t
La-Trinit6-de-Vend6me. Any or
us, since the facade was unfortu
An illumination in a contempora
version of the Trinity.156
The Ark of the Covenant in th
Denis157 is further labelled in
wheeled chariot of Aminadab which was mentioned in a verse from Canticles
(vi. I2). For this analogy Suger may have been inspired by his elder con-
temporary, Honorius of Autun, who used this chariot-symbolism in his
Exposition of the Song of Solomon,15s and again in his Speculum Ecclesiae where the
four beasts are once more identified as representing the four Evangelists and
the four mysteries of Christ, the Sun ofJustice ("Sol Justitiae").159 Honorius'
account of the ark-symbol explains that the four gospels are the four rings of
the Ark of the Covenant, which is the Holy Church. The Ark of God was
captured by the idolator Allophilis but retrieved by the priest Aminadab;
the Ark of God is the Church captured by the idolators in the form of Allo-
philis; but redeemed by the true priest, Jesus.160 Centuries before Honorius,
indeed, Walahfrid Strabo in his Exposition of the Gospel likened the four Evan-
gelists, who defend the Church from heresy, to the four golden circles, the
rings which held the carrying poles of the Ark of the Covenant, bearing the
tablets of the Law.161 For Walahfrid, too, Ezekiel's wheel within the wheel
signified the prediction of the Gospel carried into the world; the Old Testa-
ment foretells the New. The figure of Esau, for example, was interpreted as
signifying that of the Devil, Jacob as Christ. Even as early as Jerome these
154 Male, XIIIe Sidcle, fig. 93. I72, 462.

155 Ibid., fig. 94- 159 Ibid., 833, 834. Speculum Ecclesiae.
156 Male, XIIe Sidcle, fig. 140o. 160 Ibid., 834. For an explanation of the
157 Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbeyorigin of this interpretation for the term
Church of St.-Denis and its Art Treasures, Prince-"Quadriga Aminadab," see Neuss; op. cit.,
ton, I946, p. 75 (Pat. Lat. I86, 1237). P. 244.
158 Expositio in Cantica Canticorum, Pat. Lat. 161 Pat. Lat. I 14, 862.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 279
same interpretations were drawn. He also lik
to the team of the Testaments, a pair which
figure of Jacob's ladder and in Isaiah's tong
The lesson of such symbolic representations w
directly. Thus the decoration of a Morali
I I5O), from the first half of the thirteenth
alternately between scenes from the Old a
ecclesiastical life.163
Gregory asked of Ezekiel's wheel: "What therefore does the wheel mean
except Holy Scripture?"164 and Rupert of Deutz affirmed that Ezekiel's wheel
represents "Scriptura sancta."165 According to Gregory this Scripture is
divided into four parts, corresponding to the four periods of religious history;
the teaching of the Law, that of the Prophets, and of the Evangelists, and
the Acts of the Apostles all proclaim the same truth.166 Scripture, symbolized
by a wheel, contains in the four gospels the divine revelation of the four
mysteries of Christ. At the same time, the double symbol, the wheel within
a wheel, represents the specific relationship between the New Testament and
the Old. The revelation of the New Testament is the fulfilment of ancient
prophecy. In the allegory of the Old Testament the New lies hidden.
The Wheel and the Rose- Window
When we come to consider rose-window representations of this theme we

find that, like other artistic illustrations of it, it appears sometimes as a single
and sometimes as a double wheel, though the fully-developed wheel-window
employs the double form. Where the sculptured animals surround the wheel,
it undoubtedly represents Scripture, following the mediaeval interpretation,
and when the wheel is a double one, it more specifically signifies the relation
between the Old and New Testaments. Suger showed a deep concern for the
wheel-of-Scripture symbolism, and this may well have become quite generally
attached to the rose-window form.
a. Eye-Symbolism
Holy Scripture was represented in Ezekiel by a wheel studded with eyes.167
Now the Bible culminates in the Apocalypse with the Last Judgement, which
leads us to the final symbolic connections with the rose-window, through the
image of an eye. The common term "oculus" for a round window, no doubt
related to the term "bull's-eye,"168 was applied to round windows in mediaeval
times in only two known instances. On both occasions it refers specifically to
a rose-window. The instances are as follows:
162 Commentaria in Ezechielem, Pat. Lat. rim

25, of the fully-developed rose-window may
27-28. have represented the eyes which Ezekiel saw
163 See A. Laborde: La Bible Moralise'e, III, on the wheel.
Paris, 1915- 168 The traditional French term "oeil de
164 Homiliae in Ezechielem, Pat. Lat. 76, 829. boeuf" is referred to in Canadian churches as
165 In Ezechielem Commentario, Pat. Lat. 167, "oeil de bouc" (eye of a he-goat), according
1432. to Ramsay Traquaire in The Old Architecture
166 Pat. Lat. 76, 834. of Quebec, Toronto, 1947, PP. 138, 139-
167 The ring of circles which comprises the

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280 HELEN J. DOW
A Latin verse life of St. Hugh,
and 1235, in describing his new
"oculi" (P1. I6b), and metaphor
either another Bishop Hugh, B
Master John of Leicester, a grea
views of the great Bishop of Lin
cannot be ascertained. His bac
affected his constructive effor
rightly, that the description o
written from the poet's own po
called "oculi" more than once.
De finestris vitreis De allegoria singulorum

897 The double majesty of the windows
916 There are two rows of lights, twin win-
displays shining riddles dows,
Before men's eyes; it is emblazoned Which look down upon the north and
with the citizens of the Heavenly City, south ends,
And the arms with which they over- They are great in themselves, but
came the tyrant of Hell. signify greater things still . . .
9oo And the two larger windows are like
two blazing lights, whose De duobus orbicularibusfenestris
937 The twin windows offering a circular
Circular radiance is looking at the north
and south end, radiance
And surpasses all the windows with its Are the two eyes of the church; and
twin light. rightly it seems
The others may be compared with the The greater of these is the bishop, the
common stars; secondary is the dean.170
But of these two, one is like the Sun,
940 The north is the Devil, the south is the
the other, the Moon. Holy Ghost,
905 Thus two candelabra make sunlit the Whom the two eyes look upon. For the
head of the church, bishop looks upon the south,
Imitating the rainbow in semblance As if he beckons; but the dean looks
and variegated colours; upon the north
Nay, not imitating, but rather out- To avoid it. This one looks to be saved,
doing it; for when that one looks
The sun is broken up in the clouds it Lest he perish. The church's brow is
makes a rainbow; the candelabra of Heaven;
But these two shine without a sun, and And with those eyes looks round at the
glitter without a cloud ... darkness of Hell.171
"Oculus" or "oeil" may also be the meaning of the letter "O" used to
describe the western rose at Rheims-our second example-in the inscription
on a labyrinth which once decorated the pavement of the nave. Although it
was destroyed in the eighteenth century, the content has been transmitted to
us by a seventeenth-century canon named Coquault whose writings are pre-
served in the library at Rheims. According to these, the Rheims inscription
169 Two MSS. of this metrical life are passage indicates that originally the southern
extant, one in the British Museum (Bib. Reg.
rose was, like its present fourteenth-century
successor, larger than its north transept twin,
13 A. iv), the other in the Bodleian Library
(Laud, 515). Ed. J. F. Dimock, The Metrical
opposite. The latter is the original, usually
dated between I22o and 1225.
Life of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, Lincoln,
i 86o. 171 The translation is largely that of D. F. S.
170 Dimock, op. cit., p. 34, believed thatThomson,
this University College, Toronto.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 281
read: "... Bernard de Soissons, qu

ces ouvrages I'espace de trente-cin
about the year 1290.172
There is one other indication of
Jerome Bosch's painting of the 'Ey
art, and may be the culmination
sents an eye in whose centre the res
rounded by a circle of the seven
series of realistic scenes from daily
subjects of death, resurrection, He
composition in the middle to a gla
the eye at its centre, inscribed w
reminding us that nothing is hidd
the entire painting. While the ocu
poem to distinguish good from evil,
Last Judgement, when the works
from the God of Righteousness.17
A host of Biblical references s
provides an example: "And my eye
but I will lay thy ways upon thee,
of thee. And you shall know that
which we may compare Ps. x. 5-
metaphor (I Peter iii. 12).
Like the wheel of Fortune, the e
man's life. But the two form a co
first is fickle and irrational, the
symbolic associations which we
window, we find the conflict of t
over against evil, demoniacal force
b. The Wheel of Fortune and the Whe

The power to place kings on the
firmly ascribed by Job to God (x
analogy to that of the goddess of Fo
the fate of men. Holy Scripture ac
but teaches that it is God who has
is the judge. One he putteth down
We have seen that certain rose-wi
sent wheels of Fortune, and app
172 tienne Moreau-Nelaton, La Cathedra
an eye of god in conn
deities:
de Reims, Paris, 1915, Horus,
PP. 32, 34.Ra (the
173 Charles de Tolnay,
while Hieronymus Bosc
the symbol in C
Basle, 1937, pl. 3,late
'Lesas
P6ches capitaux
the seventeen
Escurial. (Cat. No. trated
2.)one in the Servitenkirche in Vienna of
174 Ibid., p. i8. 1739, where the eye is placed inside a triangle
175 Georg Stuhlfauth
(col. 1246), the
inlatter,
Reallexikon
according to Stuhl- z
Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, s.v.
fauth, a symbol of the Trinity Auge
since the fourth Go
century.Ancient Egyptians
pointed out that the
7

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
282 HELEN J. DOW
presiding over them. Man had t
Fortune, the blind goddess, or to G
Was this the message which the ro
of Fortune? Did it spur Christian
the message of the rose-window a do
simple call to reject Fortune's whe
In short, did the wheel of Fortune
Scripture? In this connection we
bolism the wheel has often been in
held to represent the meeting of e
be remembered as a case of this la
therefore, to present this paradox
perhaps in a more complex manne
extremes were signified by different
the whole wheel would have to be
rule of fate and evil in Fortune's w
in the wheel of Scripture. Such is
account of Lincoln's two roses, wh
represented by the Holy Ghost.
The Incarnation offers man the
preserving himself from Fortune'
see Him as the Son of God, but th
Son of man. Those who believe in
order governing all things, while
irrational rule of chance.
This truth is, in fact, clearly demonstrated in mediaeval wheel-symbolism.
A conclusive example is found in MS. Hamilton 390 from Berlin, executed at
Verona during the second half of the thirteenth century (Pl. I5b).177 The
frontispiece illustrates a wheel, with Christ placed not on the inside but in the
position of Fortune, above it. With a sword in His mouth, He is shown in
His capacity as Judge, revolving a wheel of judgment. On the wheel three
men are falling to the right; one, pierced with a sword, is inscribed "Sentencia
maledictionis," a lower one is labelled "Demon," while at the bottom a
fourth, in flames and flanked by two devils, is labelled "In Inferno." To the
left three figures are rising, the lower labelled "Benedictus qui venit in Nomine
Dei," the upper, "Vade in Paradiso." An inner wheel encloses Christ again,
this time as the Lamb of God, inscribed "Agnus Dei," holding a cross-staff
above the Virgin and John the Evangelist. This inner wheel forms the hub
of a circular arcade, and is itself surmounted by an enthroned figure, who
seems to represent a worldly ruler, having a globe in his left hand. The inner
wheel also has three revolving figures on it. To the right a falling man is
labelled "Ista cadit"; at the bottom another is already prostrate with the
words "Iacet Hic," while to the left a climbing man raises his hands. The
176 See also St. Augustine, De Trinitate, I. 177 Richard Salomon, Opicinus de Canistris,
xiii, where he speaks of Christ's two naturesLondon, 1936, pp. 296 ff. and 310 ff., gives
in relation to the Last Judgement; and I. xi,a discussion and precise bibliography, and an
for the relationship between Christ and the illustration of the frontispiece in pl. XLII,
written word. fig. 72.

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a-Ezekiel's Vision, Farfa Bible, first half of I Ith cent., MS. Vat. lat. b-Frontispiece, MS. Ham.
5729, fol. 208v (p. 276) Berlin, Staatsbibl. (p. 282)

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16
a-Title-Page of St. John's Gospel, Floreffe Bible, Brit. b-The "Dean's Eye," Rose-Win-
Mus. Add. 17738, fol. I99 (p. 284) dow, I220-I225, North Transept of
Lincoln Cathedral (p. 280)
c-Early Christian Window-Tracery from

the Haouran, Syria (de Vogti6, Syrie Centrale,
P1. XIII, figs. I & 2) (pp. 250, 251, 258)
d-Medallion of the Quadriga Aminadab, e-Christian Monograms from Syrian Archi-

early I2th cent., lancet window, Abbey of tecture, Ist to 7th cents. (de Vogii6, Syrie
Saint-Denis, France (p. 278) Centrale, P1. XLII) (p. 250)
202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
THE ROSE-WINDOW 283
complete picture thus provides a juxtapo
Bosch's Eye of God or Cellini's wheel-mir
is used to demonstrate the rule of God ove
the frontispiece to the Hamilton MS. su
the world. In the latter the relationship
actually emblematic of two opposite way
clusion of revolving figures on both. At th
sun and the moon, together with an ang
holding scales, which flank the judging C
stands with his key, guarding the Heaven
the Virgin and St. John, on either side of
the way to the Heavenly Jerusalem is o
circled by the words: "Crux bona, crux
[libe]ra nos a mor(te) [male?] dic(tionis
scene and the Heavenly Jerusalem revolv
rose-window with animal-symbols in the
Crucifixion medallion: "[Christus] recep
that the painting contains the central do
The symbolism used in this picture rec
wheel within a wheel as an indication of
in other words, of the control of Spirit
came the world, His followers are no lon
wheel. In accordance with this interpret
the Hamilton MS. the wheel of Judgme
righteousness, similar in form though opp
as surrounding the symbol of her dark p
that Christ's sovereignty overrides the e
the realization in Christ of Isaiah's prop
globe of the earth, and the inhabitants
bringeth the searchers of secrets to nothin
earth as vanity" (xl. 22-23).
This manuscript comes, it will be re
Fortune's wheel already decorated the ca
the rose-window, and again in a fresco insi
shows that these images could be used to
both the vicissitudes of earthly life and
Redemption. This combination may well
cally in the rose-window on the facade of S
is that of a bearded man with right hand r
the Christ in Judgment from the Hamilto
suggests both an earthly king and the di
sentations of opposed types of power, with
the one rose-window. The two contrary
of Christ, belong together.
We have already recognized the symbol
the rose-window, while Christ Himself
ning was the Word, and the Word was w
179 See
178 Neuss, Das Buch Ezekiel, p. 271.
p. 39-

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
284 HELEN J. DOW
And the Word was made flesh, a

the glory as it were of the only
truth" (John i. I and 14). At the
to us the symbol of God's judgin
Now we find that the wheel-windo
superimposed the one upon the oth
a fusion of God and man which
Incarnate Word seems to be the fu
nected with the rose-window. He
the Word who rules the heavens
in order to redeem mankind, the
Evangelists, the Word who will
c. The Rose-window representing the

In a painting of the three temp
the cathedral treasury of Bambe
tenth century, the wheel is actuall
is depicted with this halo in the sc
temple. There is, of course, an i
a halo and a drawing of a wheel,
four spokes. We also find the sam
window-painting in Chartres Ca
other figures of the Transfigurati
eight-spoked wheel.s81 It is wor
wheel-window was placed in the
the Lord in Majesty surrounded
With the conception of Christ as
chapter of Ezekiel is, in fact, con
from the Floreffe Bible (P1. I6a) n
Si60o.182 Above the In principio
an inscription which states expl
libro iezechielis" that the paintin
continues around the border with
tion of that vision: "Perspice c
nascendo, vitulus qui fit moriendo
(You see that it is being fulfilled
one person: He is born a man, an
comes a bird in returning again
"Et vetus et nova lex intelligitur
revelat" (And the double wheel i
law. The exterior conceals, the s
Inside this inscribed border the pi
pictures. The top one of these
180 Now CLM 4453- See
gique, A.
V, Goldschmi
I885, fig. 25
Ottonische Buchmalerei,
fig. 82. 1927, pl. 27.
181 H. Gaidoz, "Le Dieu
182 MS. Add. 17738, Gaulois
fol. 199. Neuss, op. du Sol
et le Symbolisme de
cit., p. 234;
laillustrated
Roue," in fig. 45- Revue Arch

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
THE ROSE-WINDOW 285
presence of the Virgin and the Apost

tions reading: "Viri galilei quid stat
ascendit ita veniet Jesus" (Acts i. 11).1
of Christ with the words: "Quid sit
rogandum: prescripta specie, talis ha
what meditated upon, what asked for
you have the form of such an eagle.)
Christ, just as did the traditional Christ
eagle. The eagle itself, with this signi
register. Here, God the Father is depic
man enthroned beside a double wheel,
vision of the Ancient of Days. Resemblin
in the St.-Denis window, however,
encircling an eagle. Although it can r
eagle, in view of the legend above, is c
At the same time the initials In p[rincip
ring, associate this bird with the Logos.
tetramorph stands on a wheel, his f
animals. A prophet stands nearby, per
scription saying: "Quatuor facies uni,"
painting. On the right side another ea
over her young. One of the two flanki
explains the significance of these bird
aquila provocans ad volandum pullo
metaphor acknowledging God's guidan
a king, holds the inscription, "Semita
The two men are doubtless meant to b
and Job in his common mediaeval for
details of the entire painting exemplify
the border, and the incipit of St. John's
adds up to signify the redeeming Chr
the Old Testament and realized in the New.
This was the great theme which came to be crystallized in the one symb
of the rose-window. Ezekiel's flaming wheel was interpreted as the symbol
Holy Scripture. Yet, in the light of the other symbolic associations which w
183 This Ascension scene is no doubt re- was present, as we see her in the Floreffe
lated ultimately to the same subject in Bible.
the Eudocia had ordered these changes
Syriac Gospel codex written by Rabula in the original Eleona representation in
from
Zagba, in A.D. 586. Prof. A. M. Friend, order
Jr., to illustrate the two natures of Christ as
showed, in a lecture at Dumbarton Oaksset inforth in the Council of Chalcedon. The
April of 1945, that this Rabula painting pictorial
was connection, therefore, between the
Chariot-Vision of Ezekiel and the scene of
itself a copy of the mosaic picture with which
the Empress Eudocia decorated the Sion Christ's Ascension, and the implications of
Church in Jerusalem in A.D. 456-458. Bythese two in relation to Christ's two natures
introducing the text from Acts, as well as has an Early Christian foundation. See
elements from the triumphal medallions ofNeuss, op. cit., fig. Io, for a reproduction of
the Roman emperors, this empress had trans- the Rabula Ascension in the Biblioteca
formed Ezekiel's chariot-vision, as it was Laurenziana.
depicted in the Eleona on the Mount of 184 Neuss, op. cit., p. 236, n. 4-
Olives, into an Ascension at which the Virgin

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
286 HELEN J. DOW
have discovered in the wheel-wind
and the judging eye of God, the
broader significance of the Word
sustained in the wheel of light which
The connection between light and t
from St. John (i. 4): "In him was l
The Metrical Life of St. Hugh says
two shine without a sun and glitte
star out of Jacob" (Numbers xxiv.
the revelation of the Gentiles" (L
whose face at the Transfiguration
deed, it was appropriate that the e
Notre-Dame in Paris was originally
Light-Symbolism of the Rose-
We have already noticed the use

as a symbol for the Sun-god in pag
Near Eastern and northern German
associate the Godhead in whole and
even specifically with the sun. W
said: "And my judgment shall rest
significant, however, is Malachi iv.
Sun of Justice shall arise with heal
an already-mentioned passage from
"Sol Justitiae."'88 This title had be
a Christian modification of the "So
for the Sun-god Mithras. The Ch
already in the Biblical text, was in
of the light-giving and justice-givin
the concept of divine justice descri
fire" which shall sift the nations "
Christians it quite naturally displac
god. Similarly, the natal day of the
for celebration as the birth of Christ
In the Life of St. Hugh it is said of
windows: "The others may be comp
two one is like the Sun, the other t
in their construction, since the sou
in the north transept.188 Bernard
Greeks regarded both the sun an
sky."189 In Christian thought, how
world symbolized Christ, who is
185 Ferdinand de Lasteyrie,
188 See p. Histoire de l
284, n. 182.
189 Bernard
Peinture sur Verre, Paris, 1857, I, p.Cook,
138. Z
186 Pat. Lat. 172, 833.
1914, p. 197-
187 Gaidoz, op. cit., III, I884, p. 20.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 287
the lesser luminary, the moon, figur

St. Bruno, for example, said in the tw
the New Testament, and the moon th
spiritual lights; so, as day follows nigh
and the New Testament the Old.191 No doubt the Christian view is the
explanation for the Lincoln metaphor.
The wheels of Scripture in Ezekiel's vision were also related to ligh
that they were flaming with the Spirit of God. Appropriately, there
Psalm cxviii. 105 already connects the Word of God with light: "Thy w
a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my paths." Jerome especially us
passage to justify the practice of burning lamps in churches during day
a symbolic custom of which we have already spoken in relation to the
candelon.192
Hugh of St. Victor transferred this lamp-symbol to the church-windows:
"Glass windows," he said in one sermon, "are the spiritual men through whom
divine cognition shines."'193 Elsewhere he calls glass windows spiritual senses
through which the true rays of the sun penetrate, freeing the church from
ignorance.194 Finally: "The glazed windows of the Church be the Holy
Scriptures, which do ward off the wind and the rain, that is, do repel all
hurtful things; and when they do transmit the brightness of the True Sun by
day into the Church, they do give light to them that be therein."'95 Since
Peter of Russia at the end of the twelfth century, and William Durandus in the
thirteenth, each repeated this metaphor, it seems to have become widespread
and well-established.196
In both the Old and the New dispensations, the Word of God is light.
Proverbs vi. 23, xiii. 9 reads: "Because the commandment is a lamp, and the
law a light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: ... The light of the
just giveth joy: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out."
The Life of St. Hugh, in fact, calls the rose-window the "candelabra" of
the church, a metaphor which is suggestive of the mediaeval wheel-shaped
chandeliers. Speaking of the two "eyes," the transept roses, it says: "Thus
two candelabra make sunlit the head of the church." But the picture is
expanded to reflect the typical mediaeval use of the church-building on earth
as a symbol of Heaven, while the metaphor of the lamp is transferred to "the
forehead of the church": "The church's brow is the candelabra of Heaven,
and with those eyes looks round at the darkness of Hell." In view of what
190 Porter, Lombard Architecture, New Haven,

cit., p. I86.
1917, I, p. 352- 195 Speculum de mysteriis ecclesiae, Pat. Lat.
191 Expositio in Genesim, Pat. Lat. 164, 154. 177, 334; quoted in Grinnell, op. cit., p. 186.
192 See p. 266. Rupert of Deutz in his Trans. Neale and Webb in The Symbolism of
Commentaria in Ezechielem (Pat. Lat. 167, 1431- Churches and Church Ornaments by William
I432) uses a similar metaphor. Durandus, p. 155-
193 Sermo I in dedicatione ecclesiae, Pat. Lat. 196 For Peter of Russia see his De Misteriis
177, 902-903. Trans. by Robert Grinnell, Ecclesie: Victor Mortet and Paul Deschamps,
"Iconography and Philosophy in the Cruci- Recueil de Textes, II, XIIe-XIIIe Sidcles, Paris,
fixion Window at Poitiers," Art Bulletin, 1929, p. 185. For Durandus, see his Rationale
XXVII, I946, p. 186. Divinorum Officiorum, I, i, Neale and Webb,
194 Ibid., Sermo II and III in dedicatione op. cit., p. 20; and Grinnell, op. cit., p. 186.
ecclesiae, Pat. Lat. I77, 904. See Grinnell, op.

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
288 HELEN J. DOW
has been said about the symbolism
seems to suggest that the church wit
distinguishes evil, although the anal
judging eye of God. The words are r
of God in John i. 5: "And the light
not comprehend it."
Yet the Lincoln poem makes it cl
the "brow" (frons) of the church, t
Heaven." It seems that this brow in
lective brow of the living Church,
analogy between this passage and t
in Revelation xxiv. 3-5: "And the
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it. And his servants shall serve
him. And they shall see his face: and his name shall be in their forehead
And night shall be no more. And they shall not need the light of the lamp, no
the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall enlighten them. And th
shall reign for ever and ever." The name to be written in these foreheads
further identified in Revelation xiv as the Lamb's "Father's name" and in
chapters vii and ix as "the sign of God," of the same God who, as we ha
seen, will be the candle to light the Heavenly Jerusalem. Matthew xiii.
associates the blest with heavenly light: "Then shall the blest shine as t
sun in the kingdom of their Father."
The same kind of double and contrasting symbolism as we have m
before presents itself again here. The wheel of Fortune signified the wor
the wheel on the seal of Turnau indicated Heaven. Christ said: "I am the
light of the world;" but, as we have seen, the whole Godhead is the ca
stick of Heaven. We have already seen that the rose-window symbol o
Word of God refers to Christ, the peculiarly human person in the Tr
but St. Hugh's biographer associates the Lincoln rose-windows with Go
Heaven. The roses of Lincoln, therefore, speak of things eternal, just as
temporal Incarnation of the Word opened for man the promise of eternal li
d. The Rose-window and the Trinity

This variety of symbolic associations in the rose-window points defin
to a Trinitarian doctrine. Suger, as we have seen, had the Trinity in m
in the design of his window-medallion of the Quadriga Aminadab w
above the Ark of the Covenant, the picture of God the Father holding
crucified Christ appeared for the first time in history. In fact, while Chris
the central theme of the rose-window, a connection with the other two
bers of the Trinity follows automatically. Christ was the Word sent fro
Father of Light to be the Light of men. Through this act of grace, the
Spirit, the Gift of Love, which proceeds from both the Father and His
descended at Pentecost in the form of a flame (Acts ii. 3). Hugh of St. V
had described the Holy Spirit as a gift of grace sent to illuminate the w
with knowledge, and to inflame it with love.19' The Old Law was given
illuminate ignorance, and through Christ's act of love the New Law is
197 De sacramentis, II, ii, i. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari, 1951, p. 254-

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 289
abroad in the hearts of believers by the
fulfilment of the law established the era o
Spirit, as Jeremiah prophesied (xxxi. 33)
in the letter of the Old the Spirit of the
littera Augustine showed that for this
Finger of God."198 The Spirit thus has p
God, which first came into the world to
ness. Christ is God's wisdom, but so a
(vii. 29-30) Divine Wisdom had already
light; while the Word of God is light, t
well.
The mystery of the Incarnation of the W
the image of light. The Fathers had expl
Ghost, the Virgin received the Word of
High Middle Ages, the event came to be
church windows: as the sun passes through
so the Virgin bore Christ yet remain
Bernard writing: "Just as the brilliance
window without damaging it, and pierc
subtlety, neither hurting it when enteri
thus the word of God, the splendour of th
and came forth from the closed womb."199
The church structure itself had thus become a metaphor for divine truth.
Like St. Bridget, who even changed the simile of the glass into that of a
precious stone,200 St. Bernard must have been struck with the heavenly beauty
of these transparent walls, transfigured by sunlight into intangible iridescence,
for he again used the simile of the glass window to stress the divinity of the
God-man's birth: "As a pure ray enters a glass window and emerges un-
spoiled, but has acquired the colour of the glass . . . the Son of God who
entered the most chaste womb of the Virgin, emerged pure, but took on the
colour of the Virgin, that is, the nature of a man and a comeliness of human
form, and he clothed himself in it."201 The analogy best fits the rose-window
itself, which by its wheel-shape and traceried translucency was already a
symbol for the Word of God. Now with this added metaphor it becomes a
unique illustration of the Incarnation.
The poet said of the Lincoln roses: "They are great in themselves but
signify greater things still." Indeed, the content of the rose-window includes
the whole doctrine of the Church. "The Word was God" and "the true light,
which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world." This was the
prime significance of the symbol, and the central teaching of the Church. In
the wheel of the rose-window shines the manifestation of a redeeming God,
whose law is love and through whose grace all opposites are resolved. Here
at once are bound up together the felly in motion and the axle at rest, the
wheel of chance and the wheel of law, the wheel of fortune and wheel of
righteous judgment, the wheel of instability and the circle complete and
198 Cap. XXVIII. Paintings," Art Bulletin, 27, 1945, P. I76.
199 Trans. by Millard Meiss, "Light as 200 Meiss, op. cit., p. 177, n. I I.
Form and Symbol in some Fifteenth-century
201 Meiss, op. cit., p. I77.

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290 HELEN J. DOW
perfect, the wheel as a sinner an
and the wheel of Heaven, the wh
God's light. The Incarnate Wor
their answer to the riddle of life;
of the church front. St. Augusti
key: "As Word, He is equal to th
Son of God, and at the same tim
same time Son of God; not two
of God: God without beginnin
Christ." 202
The Rose in the Gothic Chur

Just as without the light of th
churches lose all their life, so the
is in darkness. During the Hig
factor not only in the visual art
consequently been expressed i
parency,"203 Or "the active prin
of Gothic cathedrals were constructed.
By the observance of these principles especially, attempts have been made
to show that the Gothic cathedral is the expression in stone of the philosophical
ideas prevalent in Western Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Transfused as with the light of truth, then, the Gothic cathedral is said to b
the Neoplatonic visualization of that cosmic harmony whereby all creation
mirrors the divine reality.205 Or, alternatively, it has been seen as the material
result of an architectural synthesis with its spiritual parallel in the synthesi
of faith and reason at which the Thomist aimed.206
Theologically the underlying principles of both the Neoplatonic meta-
physics of light and the Scholastic synthesis of faith and reason find their actual
consummation in Christ Himself. Countless metaphors involving light and
referring to Christ occur in the Scriptures, particularly in St. John. On the
other hand, as Gilson observes from Augustine's writings, since philosophy
was not sufficient to make existence intelligible, the Christian solution passed
over into the realm of religion, where satisfaction was found in the Incarnation
of the Word.207 We may claim then to see, in the work of artists and thinkers
of the Gothic period in general, the result of their application of this theological
solution in all phases of contemporary thought from their treatment of history
to their approach to architecture. Thus, as we have seen, Suger could say
that the lancet-window at St.-Denis urged us from the material towards the
immaterial,208 or that gazing at the gems in the works of art from his new
202 Cap. XXXV. 205 Von Simson, op. cit., passim.

203 Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasti- 206 Panofsky, op. cit., passim.
cism, p. 43.- 207 E. Gilson, Philosophie et Incarnation selon
204 Otto G. Von Simson, "The Birth of theSaint Augustin, Conf6rence Albert le Grand,
Gothic," Measure, I, 3, Chicago, 1950, p. 279;
Institut d'Etudes M6dievales, Universit6 de
an expansion of his theory is given in The Montreal, I947, PP. 54-55.
Gothic Cathedral, New York, 1956. 208 See p. 278.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 291
abbey-church, he was suspended bet

attitude which could not arise in the W
that is, the Christian world had thoro
Incarnation.
In the foregoing pages we have traced the development of the rose-wind
as the outcome of the central dogma of the Church, a whole corpus of doct
which this window in itself finally symbolically embodies. All contra
forces, mortality and immortality, corruption and incorruption, evil and g
-in short, every conflict-found in Christ, the Bearer of our iniquity,
only its components but also its solution. The foundation of the High M
Ages in every sphere of its existence was this Saviour, manifested in Script
who "by being made partaker of our mortality, . . . made us partakers o
divinity." 210
The Bible, dominating, basic, and overriding the works of philosophy
the authority for this outlook. Writing in Paris about I134, Hugh
Victor, at the opening of his De Sacramentis, summed up the content o
Scripture to show that the Incarnation of God's Word was the central
of all the world's history.211 Accordingly, the divine story of sal
recorded in Holy Scripture is related to all men and to all periods of hi
from the foundation of the world until its close with the Judgement D
events lead up to and follow after its central theme of Christ's Incarna
the act by which man's redemption was accomplished. Gregory had al
divided Scripture into the periods of the Law, the Prophets, the Evang
and the Apostles; Hugh emphasized that each period was related to the
through the main figure of Christ, whose act of love was not only the
of the world's development, but the sublime subject-matter which mad
Bible superior to all other writings.
This theological view of history became from early times tradition
associated with the ground-plan of the church. In the established orien
the north transept, the region of cold and darkness, signified the Old d
sation, the south side the New. The west end, on which the setting sun
its last rays, was related to evil and became the favourite situation, a
from the Romanesque period, for representations of the Last Judgem
During the Gothic period in France, this same scheme underlies the t
both of the fagade sculpture and of the glass in the windows.
Emile Male has shown, however, that the Gothic faqade-scheme frequ
reflected the four mirrors into which Vincent of Beauvais had divided the
world, so that it pictured systematically the High-Mediaeval outlook
History, however, acquired and maintained the prime position, since
temporal event of the Word's Incarnation was, as Hugh of St. Victor
plained, the key to the world's development. Indeed the whole Speculum m
of Vincent of Beauvais centred in the Word of God. The world whose beg
ning is described in the Mirror of Nature was created by Him; the
related in the Mirror of Science, necessitated the coming of the Redeem
and the Mirror of Morality reminds us that at the end of the world
209 Panofsky, Abbot Suger, pp. 62-65. Roy J. Deferrari: Hugh of St. Victor on the
210 Augustine, De Trinitate, IV. ii. Sacraments of the Christian Faith, p. 3.
212 Mile, XIIIe Sidcle, chap. II.
211 Prologue to the First Book, Sect. II, trans.

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292 HELEN J. DOW
Creator, identical with the Restor
The Mirror of History itself illustr
ment through the Testaments.
This event was consequently the
cluded in the ornament of the Got
with the content of these four m
window, the Word Incarnate was t
saints sculptured on the church fag
Not only the aesthetic focal point o
the symbolic crux as well.
Although each church had its va
exterior during the classic Goth
same scheme. In this scheme the
tympanum; in the north appeared
under the old law, was yet the ins
of local saints was depicted in the
related figures; in the west the A
north the prophets who foretold th
appeared with the Apostles in the
the new dispensation. Voussoirs an
vices and virtues or the labours o
place in the Speculum, where their t
helpers or opponents in the great
The subjects had variations, ho
greater emphasis was laid on th
Salvation. The Incarnation freed t
the first woman, and it is this mys
As early as the sixth century Pau
vessel of eternal light,"'214 and she
which supports the candle symbo
jamb-groups in the French Goth
scenes as the Visitation and the Presentation.
For the twelfth century, however, the iconography is more closely con-
nected with those symbols which we have specifically discovered in the wheel-
window. Thus, for instance, the relationship between the pre- and post-
Incarnation periods is expressed in the facade sculpture. We find it in the
custom of placing kings of the Old Testament on the western jamb-columns
as at Chartres for example, and originally also at St.-Denis. Before reaching
Christ Himself, one passed, therefore, between the figures who preceded Hi
coming.216 The arrangement emphasized the idea that the Old Testament
gives access to the New, a meaning which was further developed at Le Mans,
where SS. Peter and Paul were added to the Old Testament kings. The
213 See n. 219. Panofsky in Early Netherlandish Painting, 1953,

214 Lethaby and Swainson, Sancta Sophia, p. 143. For other references in which the
London, I894, p. 47. Virgin is associated with candelabra see the
215 Speculum Humanae Salvationis, ch. Io (ed. Index of Pat. Lat. 219, 504.
J. Lutz and P. Perdrizet, Mulhausen, 1907- 216 MAle, XII* Siecle, p. 392.
1909, I, p. 23: II, pl. 2o) according to

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 293
reason for adding these two figures of the
explicit in Suger's explanation of the a
window at St.-Denis. In this, Peter and Pa
a popular parable, signifying that the O
from which the New is produced. The th
main western tympanum at Chartres, w
Apocalyptic New Testament counterpart
accompanied by the four animal-symbol
the usual Gothic theme for this western
ment, a subject which, as we have seen,
rose-window as the "eye of God," and th
when He will judge the world.
Stained Glass in the Rose
This symbolic relationship was repeated

of the stained glass decoration. The gene
painting seems to be found at Chartres.
contains a central Virgin and Child, bot
angels. The outer rows of medallions repr
ment, twelve prophets, and twelve arms of
of the New Dispensation. Soissons Cathe
in the centre of its early-thirteenth-cen
served example, but by this date the surr
to Christ's mother than to Old Testamen
tion, Visitation, Nativity, Shepherds, Cir
three scenes of the Magi, and the Assump
row of arms of Castille. The main theme is thus the connection between the
Virgin and her Son: the Incarnation. The heavily restored northern rose of
Notre-Dame de Paris, on the other hand, contains figures of the Old Testa-
ment itself, namely, sixteen prophets, thirty-two kings and patriarchs, and
thirty-two high priests, all surrounding the principal medallion of the Virgi
and Child. Likewise at Rheims, the glass encircling the central Virgin and
Child in the mutilated thirteenth-century rose of the north transept is entirely
concerned with Old Testament scenes, this time the Creation, the story of
Adam, Cain and Abel, and so on. In the opposite transept of this cathedral,
the sixteenth-century southern rose, concerned especially with the New Testa-
ment like those in the south at Paris and Chartres, depicts Christ and the
Apostles. The south window at Chartres shows Christ blessing in the middle,
surrounded like the vision in the Apocalypse with eight censing angels, the
four beast-symbols, and the twenty-four Elders placed between the arms of
Dreux, which probably identify the donor. The southern rose at Paris sub-
stitutes twenty-four saints and martyrs for the twenty-four Elders, and add
the wise and foolish virgins. The present arms of the Cardinal de Noailles in
the centre are an eighteenth-century replacement for the original figure of
Christ.
The Last Judgement generally occupies the western roses. Here, as a rule,
Christ is found surrounded by eight angels, the four beast-symbols, and scenes

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00
294 HELEN J. DOW
of the Resurrection. Chartres prov
At Paris, however, the central m
ofJesse, emphasizing again the gen
while surrounding this are the v
the zodiac as well as the labours
other hand, employs for its wes
the theme of the Incarnation. Th
is shown surrounded by angels, k
By the fourteenth century, a r
the high altar, as we find it at Au
sented, or in the cathedral at La
surrounded by references to He
the moral and intellectual qualit
Isaiah, St. John the Baptist, the
twelve Apostles, and the twenty-
In the late Gothic phase the es
disintegrated, however, under th
croaching Renaissance. The fou
Cathedral is a case in point. This
archangels. Other Flamboyant ro
the central figure of Christ by th
in the western window at Amiens.217
Outside France the scheme broke up earlier. The early thirteenth-century
northern rose of Lincoln, reversing the French tradition, depicts Christ en-
throned in the centre, surrounded by saints, angels, and scenes of the resurrec-
tion, like most French southern roses. We may only guess the subjects origin-
ally decorating the southern rose of this cathedral, however, since the present
tracery and glass belong to the fourteenth century.218
In comparison with the abstract significance of the rose-window as a
whole, we see that the subjects of the stained glass were simpler and more
realistic. This obvious difference has a very plausible explanation. Whereas
the meaning contained in the complete form of the rose was doubtless only
fully comprehended by the most learned clerics, the subjects of the stained
glass, like the figures sculptured on the door jambs, were meant to enlighten
the great mass of illiterate faithful. Every detail, therefore, had its place in
the great whole. The entire decorative scheme of the cathedrals during the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, including both painted and carved subjects,
generally depicted aspects of the central theme of the Incarnation and
Redemption. All this decoration was closely related to the rose-window, itself
the symbolic representation of the central figure in the Redemption, and of
the two Testaments. Hugh of St. Victor likened this theological history to the
work of the Lord's army, the faithful from the Old and New Dispensations
preceding and following their King. All are fighting a common enemy, as
217 For the subject-matter of glass-painting l'J9poque Gothique, II, Paris, 1927, pp. 179 ff.;
in rose-windows, see: Ferdinand de Lasteyrie,Male, XIIIe Siecle; Etienne Houvet, Cathidrale
de Chartres, III, Chartres, 1926.
Histoire de la Peinture sur Verre d'apres des Monu-
ments en France, I-II, Paris, 1857; Robert de 218 Saunders, English Art in the Middle Ages,
Lasteyrie, L'Architecture Religieuse en France Oxford,
a 1932, p. 238.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 295
the vices and virtues signify, and all are

to the same damnation as the reminder
Significance of the Rose
To this visual presentation of Christ

the rose-window held the key, both ae
of the fagade, and its focal concentra
structure; and symbolically through it
Word. In truth, it represented the m
which produced it.219
Gradual Development of the Mean

Exactly when its rich profusion of
brilliant form is impossible to say. Pr
the end of the thirteenth century, after
classic French design, began to disinte
ment had begun even in the early Vis
rose-window contained a definite Ch
symbolic stress was perhaps more specif
by the form and function of the poly
feet and a light to my paths." Any
strengthened through the familiarity
have seen, the wheel of Fortune itself w
Certainly by the twelfth century this
church windows. Consequently when
church represented Christ, his symbolis
then fully-developed rose-window.220
Spanish Apocalypse manuscripts do,
of Scripture had begun to develop as a
gothic Asturias. An example of this, a
illumination in the Beatus in Apocalips
Moreover, Neuss believed, with some
century Farfa Bible was related stylis
scripts with which the Bible from San
any Italian group.221 The Farfa versio
comprised two groups of five interlocki
219 Perhaps this significance restoration will last for could be
six ages. "Therefore,
extended to include the the number
works of foundation,symbolism
as if of little impor-
sometimes believed to have had a wide in- tance, were accomplished in six days, but the
fluence in the Middle Ages. For example, it
works of restoration cannot be completed
except
might be suggested that the number of in six ages. Yet six are placed over
medallions in the rose-window, like the against six that the Restorer may be proven
number of spokes in the tracery wheel, oftento be the same as the Creator." (De Sacra-
comprising multiples ofsix: twelve (Chartres),mentis, trans. Deferrari, p. 4-)
twenty-four (Paris), and thirty (Amiens, 220 Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, I, i, trans.
north transept), is reminiscent of Hugh of
Neale and Webb in The Symbolism of Churches
St. Victor's declaration that the works of and Church Ornaments, p. I55-
foundation took six days, while the works
221of
Neuss, Das Buch Ezechiel, p. 217.

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296 HELEN J. DOW
both realistically and abstractly Ch
ing shows that the realistic scene
depicted in a more symbolic form
interlocking rings, like the Majesta
of the whole vision. Apart from t
have already been mentioned, it is
designs of circles with other variatio
as in the windows of San Julin de
windows here have patterns based
a cross or both. In any event, Sug
an originator as a borrower and a
Since the rose-window obviously
pretend to have exhausted its poss
instance, could be attempted with
goes back to Augustine. He likened
golden rings connected with each
each other, refer to each other. Th
just as the Persons of the Trinity
imagery in mind, the twelfth-centu
of the Trinity in the second book of
"Then I saw a most glorious light a
aflame with a most gentle glowing
the glowing fire, and the fire was in
and fire transfused that human form
and one power."224 In this vision of
Christ, the glorious light God the
seems to have had a similar concep
found and shining being of the d
three colours and one magnitude;
reflected, and the third seemed a
the other."225 Like the rose-windo
combined themes of light and eyes
The symbol of the eye, in fact, o
the church nave, which is so called
ship (navis) which carries the Christ
practice, still in use today, to pain
sented as small round openings) in
presence and guidance of the prote
on the religion of the owner. How
body of the church, should be term
eye.226 "The light of thy body is
222 De Trinitate, IX, 225 iv. xxiii, I 15-20. In th

Nikolaus von L.
223 Quoted by Hiltgart der Flie used a double in
Keller wheel Mittel-
as
a Trinitarian
rheinische Buchmalereien in symbol. See F. Weinhandel, aus
Handschriften
Kreis der Hiltgart von
fIber dasBingen,
aufschliessendeStuttgart,
Symbol, Berlin, 1929, 19
p. 51; pl. IXI. pp. 56 ff.
224 H. O. Taylor, The 226 See Mediaeval Mind,
J. Hornell, Water Transport, Cam- New
bridge, 1946.
York, 1919, I, p. 474.

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THE ROSE-WINDOW 297
body will be lightsome: but if it be ev
Take heed therefore that the light whic
thy whole body be lightsome, having no
lightsome and, as a bright lamp, shall e
poem on Lincoln Cathedral seems to be t
thing of the same significance, Dungal, in
from his poem of about the year 827, de
of David, by which he would seem to me
the throne of the Emperor Charlemagn
shrewd tempter enter the low throne of
of God. The four Evangelists guard th
spirit the interior," showing "that the g
from the enemy." We are reminded of t
first Babylonian loopholes.227
Indeed, further metaphors only seem t
just traced for the rose-window; its maj
been established through its significanc
window magnificently demonstrates th
outlook was Christian doctrine, the foca
in the rose-window the focal point of th
Middle Ages it is necessary first of all to r
of its inspiration. On this basis it is poss
again its Christmas and Easter messag
reconciled to God.
imperial sun-symbolism for the rose-window

227 E. Baldwin Smith, Architectural Symbolism
in general. His theory was connected with
of Imperial Rome and the Middle Ages, Princeton,
the theme of Fortuna: loc. cit., p. 89, foot-
1956, p. 83. Baldwin Smith interpreted this
use of the round window as signifyingnote
an 51.
NOTE: Attention should be drawn to the article by H. G. Franz, "Les fenetres circulair
de la cath6drale de Cefalhi et le probleme de l'origine de la 'Rose' du moyen age," Cahie
Arche'ologiques, IX, 1957, P. 253 ff., which appeared when the above paper was already i
the press.

202.120.234.114 on Thu, 19 Oct 2023 12:19:02 +00:00

Dow RoseWindow 1957

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The Rose-Window

Author(s): Helen J. Dow

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/750783

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The rose-window is a consistent feature of the Gothic churches in the lie-

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The origins of the round opening

The essential characteristics of the rose-window are the round opening

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fragments of glazed tile were foun

8 Robert Koldewey, Das Ischtar-Tor in Architecture, Leyden - Section A. Southern Syria,

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Roman and Early Christian oculi

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greatly modified in later times.2

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The later development in mediaeval Europe, the

The development of tracery in the European round window,

We can be certain that Europe had established a tradition of round open-

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32 M. G6mez-Moreno, Iglesias Mozarabes:

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The tracery motif in the early Midd

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46 Sumner McK. Crosby, L'Abbaye Royale

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Museum, Philadelphia; The Johns Hopkins

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It is difficult with the scanty re

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The Wheel-shaped Lamp in France and Italy

74E. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonnd

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complex tracery-patterns increas

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c-"Wheel of Fortune," c. I 135, North Tran-

d-Western Rose-Window, c. I145, Abbey of e-Western Rose-Window, Cathedral of Rheims

The significance of the Wheel in Pagan a

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89 Ibid., p. 454- Deutschlands, Berlin, 1935, PP- 306-8, 418.

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The Symbolism of the Wheel-s

The spread of the Gothic rose-wind

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merely a degeneration of the word

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I81. 114 Weltrud Mersmann, Die Bedeutung de

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God in the Wheel

Both Boethius himself and Alfre

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shapes or controls all, as Boethius also

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