of life." The structural ability to bring light to the interior of the church and thereby, symbolically bring God to His people had to be exploited to the fullest by the builders. Through the encompassing nature of light, the different parts of the church could be unified.
The figures and ornaments in the windows give off light in a manner in which the subject and the source of the light seem to be identical. This gives the scenes, as immediate and alive as some seem, a ethereal quality. It allows the scenes to take on a divine quality. The figures of the Holy family, saints, apostles, patrons are seen to give off light and are joined in the eyes of the mostly illiterate population with God.
The intensity of the colors used also had popular significance. The bright blues, reds, and greens were often compared to jewels. This is significant because in the Middle Ages jewels themselves were thought to be sources of light. The contemporary population compared the visual effects made by the stained glass in the cathedral windows to the light given off by precious jewel stones. This evidenced in the epic verse Aeneid, written by Heinrich von Veldeke. He writes of the effect made by the light shining through the stained glass window of a sepulchral chapel:
This intermingling of color, figures, and light played an important part in instructing the faithf
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