Gothic architecture, which evolved from Romanesque architecture before it, became popular in the High and Late Middle Ages, primarily from the 13th to the 16th centuries. This means that Gothic stained glass windows first appeared in the 1200s and remained popular until the 1500s. The brightly colored and translucent glass pieces that made up the windows were sometimes arranged in elaborate designs with no person or event in mind, though most Gothic stained glass windows featured religious scenes.
Although the overall shape and size of Gothic and Romanesque architecture were similar, Gothic architecture featured fancier facades, pointier arches, and longer and wider windows. For a variety of reasons, architects made these windows longer and wider. One of them could have been aesthetics. However, the most common reason for the larger windows appears to be that some Gothic buildings grew much taller than their Romanesque counterparts. Architects used what is now known as Gothic stained glass to fill enormous openings that the buildings, and the people, were not yet accustomed to.
Buildings associated with royalty, nobility, and religion were generally associated with enough wealth to afford stained glass windows. Religion was an everyday part of life at the time. As a result, royal properties such as castles were just as likely as churches, cathedrals, and other religious buildings to be associated with religion.
As a result, most stained glass depicted religious scenes or stories that were religious in nature. The translucent, multi-colored mosaic glass pieces were put together to show people scenes from Bible stories or images depicting a saint’s life. The stained glass pieces used to create such scenes were brightly colored and held together lead cames, or divider bars. Each window could be a scene in and of itself at times. Other times, a group of windows created an entire scene.
However, not all religious scenes were depicted in Gothic stained glass. Some displayed various sizes of brightly colored glass pieces arranged in intricate patterns. In terms of presentation, these patterns were similar to religious scenes. For example, stained glass patterns could be made up of one or more windows, just like the scenes on Gothic stained glass windows that adorned castles and churches. An immaculate pattern of circles, squares, triangles, and other shapes could be displayed in a single window, or the pattern could span several adjacent windows.