How stained glass windows could unveil Scotland's religious past

Dr Craig Kennedy, Heriot-Watt University’s Institute for Sustainable Building Design, and Dr Michael Penman, a historian from Stirling University, have taken on research to fill the knowledge gaps.

Speaking on the significance of medieval painted glass to the congregants, Dr Penman said: “Nowhere else would they have seen anything so colourful and lavish.”

But during the Protestant Reformation of 1560, many of Scotland’s Catholic churches faced widespread destruction – targeting items considered to be idolatrous.

This included replacing stained glass windows, which continue to decorate churches across Europe and England, with austere plain glass.

Decorative church windows were smashed and buried on-site or left to decay.

For years, visitors to cathedrals and abbeys across Scotland have had to use their imagination – which the researchers want to change through their studies of Elgin Cathedral and Dunfermline Abbey.

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Dr Penman said: “If you visit the great medieval churches at Canterbury, Westminster or York, the stained glass windows are the main attraction for visitors, alongside the paintings on the walls.

“In medieval times, most of the congregation would have been illiterate, so stained glass and paintings would have been the best way to address them.

“They were positioned and designed based on when the light would move round the church and shine through to best effect.”

The historian spoke about medieval churches south of the border still offering a “sense of what congregants would have experienced”.

He added: “In Scotland, the Reformation was much more destructive, and absolutely nothing remains in place.

“We want to try and recreate this experience and learn more about medieval daily life by combining historical research with scientific findings.”

Glass shards which have been recovered from the grounds around Elgin Cathedral through excavations were previously tested by Dr Craig Kennedy.

Elgin Cathedral glass shard (Image: Supplied)

Using the Edinburgh-based university’s state-of-the-art electron microscopy facility and x-ray fluorescence, scientists were able to reveal the colour of the glass and where it come from by studying the elements present.

And it is providing fresh insight of what Scotland’s catholic churches could have looked like, Dr Kennedy explained: “Over the last few decades, we’ve been able to recover shards of medieval church glass during excavations.

“We can narrow down the age of the glass to part of a century, and from there we can use scientific techniques to determine where it was produced. We can work out when it was produced from some decorative patterns. “We know the colours but so much more. The presence of certain glass tells us where Scotland had trade routes, and who sponsored or supported churches here.”

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The thirty shards which have been collected around Elgin Cathedral have provided a real look into the past of the building of which mainly ruins remain.

“The glass recovered from Elgin was red, brown, blue, green and clear, and many of the clear sections were decorated in the French grisaille style,” Dr Kennedy said.

“Elgin Cathedral’s windows may have had grisaille borders and abstract top lights highlighting saintly figures. As to who those figures were, we have a number of candidates. The Virgin, Thomas Becket, St Columba of Iona and a few others are known to have regional dedications in the northeast of Scotland.”

However, Dunfermline Abbey has proved more of a challenge for the researchers as only 16 glass shards have been found in the area.

Dr Kennedy: “It is fascinating that a site of such national importance as Dunfermline Abbey has yielded so few glass shards to date.

“This site, Scotland’s national mausoleum, yielded red, white and blue glass samples.

“This site had a highly spiritual connection with St Margaret and we can assume that high-quality narrative glass was at some time installed in the Abbey.”

The two researchers now hoping to win funding to recreate the lost windows which could be showcased across Scotland.

Using similar scientific techniques to trace the origins of the physical glass and historical studies to discover the religious stories they conveyed, the researchers hope to create a modern representation.

Engaging with local communities will also prove vital in their aim to shed light on unknown parts of Scotland’s religious history.

Dr Penman said: “If our research can identify a distinctive Scottish 'palette' and styles for stained and painted medieval church glass, either figurative or decorative, then an artist might be able to recreate the imagery and thus the spiritual and huge emotional effect of such windows on Scottish worshippers before the Reformation.”