STAGEFYR
241
STAINED GLASS
direction of the learned and saintly Michael Witt-
mann, the future auxiliarj- Bishop of Ratisbon, he
prepared himself for the priesthood. After being
ordained priest by Bishop Sailer at Ratisbon 22 June,
1827, he was occupied a few months in parochial
work at the little village of Otzing in Lower B,a\-aria,
whereupon he continued his theological studies at
the Georgianum in Munich in November, 182S, and
obtained the doctorate in theology in 1829. In 1830
he was "co-operator" at the Hospital of the Holy
Ghost at Munich, in 1831 Privatdocenl for Old Testa-
ment exegesis at the University of Munich, and in
1832 he succeeded Pruggmeyr as subregens of the
Georgianum. In addition he was in 1833 appointed
professo'^-extraordinar}' and in 1837 professor-ordi-
nary' of exegesis at the university. In 1838 he became
canon and in 1858 dean at the Cathedral of Augsburg.
Stadler was well versed in all the branches of theology,
but he was especially fond of linguistic studies.
Besides having a perfect mastery of German, French,
Italian, and English among the modern languages,
he knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, SjTiac, Arabian.
Persian, Sanskrit, and in his later years he studied
also Spanish and Polish. He is best known as the
author of "VolLstiindiges Heiligen-Lexikon oder
Lebensgeschichten aller Heiligen, Seligen u. a. aller
Orte und aller Jahrhunderte, deren Andenken in dcr
kath. Kirche gefeiert oder sonst geehrt wird" (Augs-
burg, 1858-82). The work is alphabetically arranged
and contains more lives than any other work of its
kind. The "Acta Sanctorum" of the Bollandists,
as far as they were finished, that is, to the end of
October, were condensed into short sketches, but
many new lives were introduced and newly discovered
data were added to the lives contained in the "Acta".
The work is rather popular than scientific and from
a critical point of view leaves much to be desired.
In the preparation of the first volume Stadler was
assisted by Rev. Fr. J. Heim, while the second and
the third volume contain contributions from several
priests of the Diocese of Augsburg. Stadler died
before the third volume was finished, lea\ang the
writing of the last two volumes to Rev. J. R. Ginal,
pastor of Zusmarshau.sen. Other works of Stadler
are: a Hebrew-Jjatin lexicon (1831); "De identitate
SapientiiE Veteris Testamenti et Verbi Novi Testa-
menti", which sen-ed as his thesis for the doctorate
(1829); and " Dis-sertatio super Joannem VIII, 25"
(Munich, 1832).
H6rm.\sn in St.^dler's Heiligen-Leiikon, III. 6-10: Schmid, Geschichle des Georgianums (Munich, 1894). .306. .309; Pr.intl, Geschichie der Ludwig~Maximilians-Universit&t, II (Munich, 1872), 525.
Michael Ott. Stagefyr. .See Ferber, Nicholas.
Stained Glass, the popular name for the glass used in the making of coloured windows. The term is a misnomer, as stained glass is only one of the glasses so employed. It is more the result of a process than a glass per se, as it is produced by painting upon any glass, clear or coloured, with the oxide of silver, which penetrates the glass when subjected to heat and gives a yellow reaction. In building a coloured window a variety of glass can be used, but usually there is only one kind employed, \az.; pot-metal, a glass that is coloured throughout its substance while in a molten state. This is used either directly or after it has been toned, or ornamented, or made a background for a figure subject by painting the same upon it with vifrifiable pigments, fused to its surf .ace or in- corporated with its substance by means of heat. Nevertheless, although the word slained-gla&t is inaccurately used, usage h.as so fixed its erroneous meaning in the public mind that in all probability it will continue for all time to be applied in naming coloured windows and their glass.
I. Documentarj-, and, far more, monumental XIV.— 16
history, demonstrates that glass has been in use from
the most remote ages; that the ancients were familiar
with it; moreover, that its origin, or discovery, or
invention is lost in the twilight of fables. In many
cases where china and metal are now employed the
ancients used glass: they blew, cast, and cut into it
thousands of objects with which they furnished tombs
and temples, palaces and private houses; and adorned
their persons, their garments, and their buildings.
It is indeed doubtful if there was any branch of the
art of glass-making and the utihzation of its products
that was not known to them, a fact proved by the
fragments of innumerable articles found to-day in
countless numbers among the ruins of Egypt, Chaldea,
Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome. It is true, however,
that the glazing of window openings with glass can-
not be traced back beyond the year 306 B. c. At
this early date in the Far East coloured windows were
made by arranging small gem-like pieces of pot-metal
in perforated wooden or stone panels. This kind
of window, still in use in the Orient, found its most
notable development after the advent of Christianity;
but it was not until the birth of Gothic architecture,
with its large window-openings, that the full value
of glass as a transmitter of light and a polychromatic
decorative material was fully appreciated. Gothic
window-openings called for a filling strong enough to
keep out the weather, yet transparent enough to
admit the light ; on the other hand, as, in this form of
architecture, the wall-spaces were necessarily small,
the windows offered the only opportunity for the
decorator's art in so far as it depended upon colour.
As glass at that time was to be had only in small
pieces, the glazier was compelled, in order to fill the
window-openings, to make his lights a mosaic, that
is a combination of pieces of gla.s.s of various sizes and
colours worked to a given design by jilacing them in
juxtaposition. These pieces of glass hail to be kept
in place by some other material, and the best medium
for the purpose was found to be load, ajiplied in strips
made with lateral grooves for the reception of the
edges of the glass.
The early windows were purely ornamental trans- parent mosaics; later, when figure subjects were por- trayed, the artist, on account of the limitations of the mosaic method, was compelled to use paint in order to get the proper effect, painting directly upon the glass with ordinary' transparent pigments; but as this was not durable, when exposed to atmospheric changes, he protected the painted portion by co\ering it with another piece of glass which was held in place by means of leads, and thus insured its preservation, at least as long as the superimposed glass remained intact. This imperfect method was not long in use before a great cfiscovery was made at Limoges in France, where a Venetian colony of glass-workers had settled as early as the year 979. The new pro- cess, which revolutionized the art, consisted in paint- ing with metallic pigments which could be fused into the glass, the painting being thus made as lasting as the glass itself. Not the first, but one of the first, to employ this permanent jiroccss of painting on glass to any considerable extent was the great twelfth- century promoter of all things ecciesiological, the Abbot Suger. Recognizing the value of the inven- tion, he caused the windows of the Church of St. Denis at Paris to be executed in this way, and they were so successful that picture-windows became there- after a necessary constituent of every ecclesiastical edifice.
The oldest painted picture-window that has sur- vived the action of time is one representing the A8cen.sion in the cathedral of Le Mans, which is be- lieved by many .antiquarians to be a work of the late eleventh century. The gl;iss composing it is vcrj- beautiful, more particularly the browns, which are rich in tone, the rubies, which are brilliant, streaked
