Along the base of the window are the donors, shown kneeling in prayer. The scrolls that flow from their mouths and inscriptions below them are fragmented, though one name can be deciphered below the left panel in the inscription ‘Orate Dogoode’. This refers to John Dogoode, a Scholar of Winchester from 1458 and later a Fellow of the college (1474–85 and 1490–92). At the very top of the window is the Annunciation, above a row of eight female saints, most of them holding identifying symbols. The main lights contain five elongated figures, who stand beneath canopies. From left to right, these are Mary Magdalene, St Helena, the Father of Pity (God holding the body of Christ), St Anne instructing the Virgin Mary to read, and (probably) St Catherine. Details of the window can be viewed on Gordon Plumb’s website.

Although the glass is now back in Thurbern’s Chantry, it has spent almost half its existence in other parts of the school. Structural issues of the tower above the Chantry forced its removal in 1772, around which time it was moved into the east window of Fromond’s Chantry. It was eventually moved back to Thurbern’s in two parts: the donor panels in 1960, and the rest in 1977. Despite the window’s movement between the two buildings, the current arrangement is an almost totally faithful reconstruction of its original appearance at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Location: Thurbern’s Chantry

Literature: Thomas Warton, A description of the city, college and cathedral of Winchester (London, 1760), pp. 39-41; John Dolbel Le Couteur, Ancient Glass in Winchester (Winchester, 1920), pp. 98-102, 107-13; Herbert Chitty and John H. Harvey, ‘Thurbern’s Chantry at Winchester College’, The Antiquaries Journal, vol. 42, no. 2 (1962), pp. 208­­­–25; Sarah Griffin and Eleanor Townsend, Medieval Stained Glass at Winchester College (2021), pp. 11-17.