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STAINED GLASS AND ITS TIME
These fragments of stained glass are contemporaneous with the writing of the Book of Margery Kempe: an image of a woman's face, the head of Christ cradled by his mother's hand, or a little bird decorating a window quarry. The head of Christ shows the mingled sweetness, resignation, and sorrow of Kempe's expression. Christ's face is gaunt, his brows are furrowed as if contracted in pain, and the circlet of thorns causes droplets of blood to fleck his skin. Mary's hand tenderly cradles the head that has suffered its last agony. Kempe (Ch. 80 & 81) describes a long meditation of the Passion of Christ in which she feels that she can see and hear all that happened. At the close of Chapter 80, she concentrates on the last moment of Mary with her son. She hears her beseech St. John and Joseph of Aramathea not to "take away from me my son's body." She asks them not to "part my son and me from each other" or if he be buried to bury her with him for she cannot live without him. Head of Christ, 1430-40. Yaxley (Suffolk), Church
of St. Mary,
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