On 17th November 2022 we held the second in our series of online lectures, which was given by Dr Mark Kirby of Lincoln College, Oxford. Dr Kirby is the Child Shuffrey Research Fellow of Architectural History in the college, and is one of three scholars who are writing the history of Lincoln College and its buildings, to be published in 2027, the 600th anniversary of the college’s foundation. Dr Kirby is writing the volume on the chapel and its furnishings; he is an expert on the expression of theological ideas in seventeenth-century ecclesiastical architecture.
In the early seventeenth century there was a move away from strict aniconic Protestantism and towards beautifying church interiors again. John Williams, bishop of Lincoln 1621-41, paid for the refitting of the college chapel, including the installation of new windows made by Abraham van Linge, who worked in Oxford for many years with his kinsman, Bernard, on several college chapels. The side windows contain standing figures of prophets and apostles, partly based on images available in sets of engravings, and the east window is filled with the Gospel narrative together with Old Testament prefigurations of the events in the New. The relaxed and beautiful designs in the east window show van Linge at the height of his powers.
The move back towards Puritanism and suspicion of anything construed as Roman Catholic resulted in the execution of Archbishop Laud and a wave of appalling destructiveness, the results of which are still visible. Oxford, however, suffered less than other places, and we are most fortunate not only in the survival of the glass but to have had Dr Kirby’s lucid and informative exposition of its history.