Just got back from a couple of weeks in Europe. It was amazing. As we walked through cathedrals across England, Normandy, and other parts of France, I was struck by the beauty and elegance of the stained glass windows. Stained glass is beautiful. It is just colored glass, of course, arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way. The glass I saw was designed to tell stories - stories of the Bible, and of Christ, for the most part. But there were other stories portrayed, usually of saints or other significant people, but also sometimes of more mundane topics and characters. From the outside, these windows appeared uninteresting. Just dark, opaque holes in the wall. Sure, some of the rose windows have beautiful stone tracery, which was quite lovely. But that loveliness was really just ancillary - the purpose is to hold up the windows. Actually, this is true of much of the innovation that took place in the Gothic period. Making the buttresses thinner, moving them away from the walls to c