Bay 29a - St Germain d'Auxerre
Index to panels:
(Click
captions below to open detailed view in this window or click the
relevant
panel
on the diagrams to the left to open in a new window).
01 - The young Germain as a student of the liberal arts
02 - Kneeling donor (Canon Gaufrid Chardon) praying to the Virgin
03 - Germain is chosen to succeed St Amator as Bishop of Auxerre
04 - Germain is installed as Bishop of Auxerre
05 - A tax collector complains to Germain that he has been robbed
06 - Germain tells the thief to return the tax money
07 - Germain celebrates mass and exorcises the demon from the thief
08 - Now healed, the thief returns the stolen money to the tax collector
09 - A demon spreads illness amongst the people of Auxerre
10 - St Germain cures the people afflicted by the epidemic
11 - En route to England, St Lupus wakens Germain during a storm
12 - Germain calms the storm that threatened the boat (see panel 11)
13 - Germain and Lupus, refuting the heretics in England
14 - Having refuted the heretics, Germain accepts English converts
15 - Devils set fire to a house where St Lupus and Germain are staying
16 - Without stirring from his sick bed, St Germain quenches the fires
17 - While Germain is sleeping, a thief steals his horse
18 - After wandering lost all night the thief returns Germain's horse
This window, which dates from around 1230, is one of the hardest to photograph at Chartres. Along with its neighbour in bay 29b (St Nicholas) it stands behind the cult statue of "Our Lady of the Pillar", which is brightly lit with candles and spotlights. Behind them are the buttresses of the eastern wall of the north transept, which block light to parts of the window. As a result it is almost impossible to get a clean photograph of the whole window - which is why I have used a montage for the overview picture above.
The narrative structure is very simple, showing the accumulation of several independent episodes typical of many confessor saints. In many cases adjoining panels work as binary pairs to show cause and effect - the precursor to a miracle on the left, its consequences on the right.