There is no single answer to “where is the oldest stained glass?”, because the answer changes with the question. It could mean a whole window still in the building it was made for, a panel that has been moved, or old fragments that were later built into a different window.
Why it is hard to say
- Glass is rarely in its first position. Panels have been moved, releaded and combined with later work.
- Dating glass is difficult. Style, the chemistry of the glass and the paint all give different clues, and scholars still debate them.
- Early “stained glass” blurs into coloured window glass from Roman and Anglo-Saxon times, so a firm start date is hard to give.
The oldest in England: Canterbury
Most of the windows at Canterbury Cathedral date from the later twelfth century. In 2021 researchers at University College London used a portable X-ray fluorescence device to test the glass of the panel showing the prophet Nathan, from the Ancestors of Christ series, without removing any. Their results suggest that the glass is older than that in the panels around it, and may date from the 1130s. If that is right, it is the oldest stained glass in the country. They think four panels of this kind hung in the choir before the fire of 1174, survived it, and were put back into the rebuilt cathedral.
The oldest complete windows: Augsburg
The windows usually named as the oldest intact examples in the world are in the south clerestory of Augsburg Cathedral in Bavaria, Germany, where they have been in place since the later eleventh century. Five of them, showing figures such as the prophets Moses and David, are dated to the period between the consecration of the church in 1065 and the first half of the twelfth century.
Older fragments: Jarrow
Fragments of glass found at St Paul’s Church in Jarrow, in north-east England, are often cited as being among the oldest in Britain. They have been reassembled into the window seen there today. That is not a complete window, so they count only under a looser definition.
Seeing old glass
Canterbury is on the medieval glass trail, and the window styles by period guide explains how to tell medieval glass from later work. The museums and collections trail lists places where panels can be studied close up.
Related pages
- A short history of stained glass
- Medieval stained glass and leaded lights
- How to read a church window
- Stained glass tour of the UK
- The History of Stained Glass in the USA