Details

Object type

stained glass panel

Title

Notker Balbulus of St Gallen

Place Associated

Switzerland (place of manufacture)

Date

17th century

Materials

stained and painted white glass, lead

Dimensions

overall: 166 mm x 166 mm x 10 mm;framed: 183 mm x 183 mm x 12 mm

Description

Stained glass small circular medallion. Roundel depicting Notker Balbulus of St Gallen in the chapel resisting Temptation, the monk is flogging the devil in the form of a dog. The abbot's staff he is using has been broken. Behind him, the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child on an altar, and a custodian Monk, holding a yellow cross against a black background, within a wreath, who has been woken by the noise. The inscription reads: 'B. Notkeer Balbulus S. G. Monach, Daemonum Terror, Triumphator Mirificus Obiit Ao. 912 6 April'.

Translated as 'Blessed Notkeer Balbulus (Of St Gall), Monk, Terror of Demons, The Wonderful and Triumphant, died 6th April 912'. A short text issues from the demon's mouth: Owe mir we. (Woe is me!).

Notker (Notker the Stammerer) (c. 840- 912), monk of the Benedictine monastery of St. Gallen in Switzerland, was famous as a poet and author of a book on church sequences. His temptation by the devil in the form of a dog is recounted in the Bollandist, Acta Sanctorum (Aprilis Tomus Primus pp. 588-9).

Dutch historian Henricus Canisius (d.1610) records that Notker was canonized by Pope Leon X, in 1512 for St Gall and neighbouring churches, and in 1513 for the Diocese of Constance. This is contested, with most authorities recognising this as a beatification, rather than a formal canonization as saint.

Provenance: Gifted to the City of Glasgow in 1944 by Sir William Burrell.

In 1941 Burrell took the opportunity to revise his acquisitions and asked for advice from his long-term stained glass dealer and advisor, Wilfred Drake, in refining his collection. Writing to Drake in July 1941, Burrell listed a series of 33 panels that he regarded as ‘very unimportant and bought about fifty years ago’. On his examination of this series of Dutch, Swiss, German and English glass, Drake advised that this panel be retained for his collection, alongside 45.506, 45.557, 45.530. Another nine examples were also retained, mounted together as 45.532.

Published: William Wells, Stained and Painted Glass, Burrell Collection, 1965, no. 194.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by Sir William and Lady Burrell to the City of Glasgow, 1944

Collection

Burrell Collection: Stained Glass

ID Number

45.529

Location

Burrell Collection