St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey -
the East stained glass window
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The stained glass in
the east window was installed in 1882/3 during the "beautification" of the
church, when the chancel was lengthened. Before that time, the east window
was a different shape, in three sections. The window was dismantled in WWII for safe-keeping
and was
re-assembled differently in 1950: the grey section with the central pillar and
the two blue and white circles was originally below the characters, just above
the border, not above them.
It is not known whether this was a simple mistake or whether it was done
deliberately.
The story of this window appears to be an amalgamation of a number of different
stories in the Bible. Presumably, the woman in the foreground is intended
to be Mary Magdalen, given the name of the church; she is certainly depicted as
a saint, as she has a halo. The story is principally based on Luke 7:36-50, the verse quoted being
Luke 7:50. In that passage, an un-named "sinful woman" washes Jesus' feet
with her tears and her hair, and then anoints them with perfume from an
alabaster jar (visible bottom right). The same story appears in all four
gospels (see Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9 and John 12:1-8) but only in John 12:3
is the woman named as Mary.
There is another
story in Luke 10:38-42 about Martha getting annoyed because she was doing the
work while her sister Mary sat at Jesus' feet. This looks like what is
illustrated, but in that story there is no mention of washing feet!
There is another issue in that Mary and Martha were the sisters of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised
from the dead (John 11), but they lived in Bethany (John 11:1), close to
Jerusalem. Nowhere is there a link, other than a common assumption, that
Mary sister of Lazarus is Mary Magdalen, who came from Magdala (or Migdal) which
is a village near Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee. (Migdal means "tower",
and an old tower is still visible there today.)
The window was installed in memory of Cyrus Legg, who was churchwarden for a number of years in
the mid 19th C. It is probable that the detailed face of the gentleman on the left is an accurate
representation of Cyrus Legg, as this was a fairly frequent practice then.
This page last updated 1 June 2010
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