A modern treatment of the circular window bay. Andrews, Jaques & Rantoul, architects 



CHAPTER VI 

 WINDOWS AND WINDOW MOTIVES 



[IHE first windows were simply holes, and unglazed. They were 

 naturally small, as those living in the open air did not require 

 large ones. The windows in southern countries, too, required 

 but small area, owing to the intensity of the light; the reverse 

 is true in the more northerly localities. Classic Greece and 

 the later Roman Empire used the window but sparingly. The 

 prevalent form of ancient dwelling was built with a court in 

 the centre; the windows opened upon this court. In the Pompeian dwelling 

 the windows, located on the court side, were high from the ground and in a 

 measure protected from the weather by the projection of the cornice. 



Windows have followed the general outlines and peculiarities of the door- 

 ways, and with the use of glass were subdivided in many and varied forms. 

 With the middle of the fourteenth century the square-headed form became 

 common and, with the Gothic, very elaborately designed tracery was employed. 

 Glass was little used by the Romans, although its manufacture was known 

 to the Egyptians about 2,000 years B. C., and perhaps much earlier. However, 

 their climate hardly required it, and by them it was used in the form of vessels. 

 Glass was first used in England, for the glazing of windows, about 1180. Stained 

 glass is claimed to have existed as early as the year 1000, but nothing definite is 

 known until the opening of the twelfth century. 



