When Edward I brought
back his bride from Spain, his father, Henry III,
was so delighted with little Eleanor, then in her teens, that he made
the youthful couple a present of a home furnished with glazed windows,
special mention in the narrative of the day being made of the glazing
of the windows.
Pope Pius II, in 1448,
expressed surprise in finding at Vienna church windows fitted with
flat glass.
In 1467 there were ordered, for the
Duke of Burgundy's palace, twenty pieces
of wood with which to make frames to be fitted with paper for
chamber windows.
In the reign of Elizabeth,
the Duke of Northumberland, on leaving
his estate, was warned by his steward that he had better order the
windows taken out of his house and stored in safe keeping until his
return-- a significant illustration of the value and importance of a
few glass windows even in the grandest habitations of that day.
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