Benjamin Franklin
The Freedom of the Word
Stained Glass / View All Windows
Stained Glass Design
Each of the windows in Washington Memorial Chapel have “medallions” depicting scenes or stories. In between those major medallions are smaller “intermedallions” which represent a theme or motif.
Within the tracery (intricate stonework window atop a stained glass window) are sections called daggers (dagger shaped), kites (diamond shaped) and panels (larger sections).
The slider below shows each section within the window.
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![Caedmon at Whitby]()
01 Caedmon at Whitby
Saint Peter, the Apostle to the Jews, stands in the center of a Jerusalem crowd at the first Christian Pentecost.
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![The Death of the Venerable Bede]()
02 The Death of the Venerable Bede
Two haloed figures, St. Paul and St. Barnabas, stand at the right of this scene, St. Paul with his hand raised in the gesture of preaching, and St. Barnabas beside him holding a book or scroll, as if reading or referencing scripture. Gathered around them are several listeners, some holding children; their raised hands and turned faces convey attention to the two apostles proclaiming the Gospel together.
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![Wyclif Translates the Bible Into English]()
03 Wyclif Translates the Bible Into English
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![The First Printed English Bible]()
04 The First Printed English Bible
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![The Burning of the English Bible and Its Translator]()
05 The Burning of the English Bible and Its Translator
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![The Open Bible in St. Paul’s Cathedral]()
06 The Open Bible in St. Paul’s Cathedral
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![The Bible in America - Reading the Bible at Jamestown]()
07 The Bible in America - Reading the Bible at Jamestown
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![Washington Gives the Bible to the Youth of America]()
08 Washington Gives the Bible to the Youth of America
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![Tracery Glass 1 (Panel) Continental Soldier]()
Tracery Glass 1 (Panel) Continental Soldier
Learn the significance of different Continental Army uniform facing and cuff colors throughout the chapel windows.
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![Tracery Glass 2 (Panel) Continental Soldier]()
Tracery Glass 2 (Panel) Continental Soldier
Learn the significance of different Continental Army uniform facing and cuff colors throughout the chapel windows.
1 Caedmon at Whitby
Medallion 1: Caedmon at Whitby
Location: Left lancet, top
Description:
The medallion shows Caedmon reciting his poem to Lady Hilda, the Abbess of Whitby Abbey. The Abbess holds a Bible in her lap and two nuns stand behind her listening. A fourth figure, probably the abbey steward to whom Caedmon reported his dream, sits listening to the recitation.
Background:
In the late seventh century AD, a probably illiterate cowherd working at an abbey in Northern England created a poem honoring God that is the oldest example of (Old) English poetry.
In 657 AD the king of Northumbria, a Saxon kingdom in what is now northeastern England, founded Streoneshalch Abbey, a double monastery of monks and nuns. He appointed Lady (later Saint) Hilda, great-niece of the first Christian king of Northumbria, the first abbess. Sometime between 658 and 680, Caedmon, an illiterate herdsman employed by the Abbey, composed what is now the oldest recorded Old English poem. The text and the music came to him in a dream, and from then on he composed hymns based on Biblical passages. He subsequently became a monk and a religious poet.
Streoneshalch Abbey was laid waste by Danish raiders in the ninth century, was revived as Whitby Abbey, a Benedictine monastery, sometime in the eleventh century, and was finally destroyed under Henry VIII in 1540 during the “Dissolution of the Monasteries.” Caedmon’s poem, now known as Caedmon’s Hymn, has survived, however.
The Reverend W. Herbert Burk placed the story of Caedmon as the first medallion in the Freedom Through the Word Window to illustrate that “the English Bible and English language and literature are inseparably united.” “We go back,” he wrote, “into the past to find our first illustration of this fact - true in the very beginning of national existence as in its later days. For the very first great English song was inspired by the Bible, and was in fact a translation into the vernacular.”
Thus, Caedmon’s authorship of the first recorded Christian hymn in English, albeit Old English, not only further develops Burk’s theme of the spread of Christianity to the nations of the world, specifically the English speaking world, but also sets the stage for the importance of the translation of the Bible into English.
GPP
2 The Death of the Venerable Bede
Medallion 2: The Death of the Venerable Bede
Location: Right lancet, top
Description:
“The Venerable Bede” is lying on a couch, dying, propped up with pillows. The boy scribe, Wilbert, bends over a parchment writing, according to The Reverend W. Herbert Burk’s description, “the last words of England’s scholar and saint, while the lamp of life burns low and the writer’s candle sputters in its socket.”
Background:
Bede produced the first translation of a part of the Bible into English. The “last words” Burk refers to were Bede’s dictation of the last chapter of the Gospel of John. He completed this work on his deathbed in 735 and the account appears in a contemporary letter from a certain Cuthbert to his friend Cuthwin.
An English monk known variously as the Venerable Bede and Saint Bede, Bede (c. 672-735) served in the Abbey of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow in Northumberland. He is best known for his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which drew upon a wide variety of sources to trace the history of England from 55 BC to the late 7th Century. For this five volume book he is known as “the father of English history,” but he also wrote theological works, including commentaries on the books of the Bible and scientific works, including one on the correct dating of Easter. It is to Bede that we owe the story and recording of Caedmon’s Hymn.
Bede was well educated and could read Latin and Greek. The Abbey reportedly was a center of learning, possessing over two hundred manuscripts in its library, many of them brought from Europe. These were the resources Bede used for his theological works as well as his History. But Bede believed that the Word of God should be available to the uneducated in their own language. In a letter to the Archbishop of York in the early 730s, Bede suggested that the scriptures “should be known and constantly repeated in their own tongue by those who are unlearned.” Burk focused on Bede’s translation of the Gospel of John as a key element in his theme of the translation of the Bible into English.
GPP
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