[Illustration: EAST WINDOW, EXETER CATHEDRAL Perpendicular stone frame glazed chiefly with very typically decorated figure-and-canopy glass preserved from the earlier and smaller window. Below and beyond appears the Lady chapel]
The archives tell of a large purchase of glass in Rouen in 1301 and again in 1317 for use in this cathedral. Much of these purchases is still to be seen in the large east window. Here we are struck by a strange anomaly of obviously Decorated glass in purely Perpendicular masonry. Nothing could be more distinctive of the later period than the Perpendicular mullions surmounted by stiffly upright tracery lights, and yet the glazing could not be mistaken for anything but Decorated. Evidently old wine has been put into new bottles. Although a great deal of restoration is noticeable in this window, the strongly brassy tone of the canopies in the three outer lancets on each side clearly indicate that they antedate the discovery of yellow stain. An explanation of this anachronistic clash between the glazing and its framing stonework appears upon the rolls of the Chapter. April 21, 1389, one Henry de Blakeborn, then Canon, moved by the fine appearance of the newly constructed west window, offered 100 marks towards properly enlarging the eastern one. This offer was accepted and the work at once put in hand. The glazing of the earlier east window was saved to put into the new and larger embrasure. As yellow stain was not known at the time of glazing the first east window, it is absent from the early glass, although it is plentifully used in the heads, &c., of the additions made necessary in 1389 by the increased size of the window. One must not quarrel with the judicious restoration which has preserved so charming an _ensemble_. But this indulgent mood will be abruptly dismissed when one examines the lights along the north side walls of the choir aisles, for here the colour in the patterns upon the white panes proves to be Decorated glass cut up into bits for this purpose by some modern glazier! Any further comment upon his taste is unnecessary. It is one of the instances which causes one to query if it be always wise to impose a punishment for murder!