The Work
The five Prophet Windows in the south nave of Augsburg Cathedral, Bavaria, are the oldest surviving figural stained glass windows in the world, dated by most scholars to approximately 1065 CE -- a century before the great age of Gothic stained glass at Saint-Denis and Chartres. They depict five Old Testament prophets in monumental frontal pose: Daniel, Jonah, David, Hosea, and Moses, each figure approximately 72 centimeters tall, rendered in mosaic glass with extraordinary formal discipline. The palette is restricted -- deep ruby red, lapis blue, a golden yellow, a warm green -- yet the color combinations achieve a radiant intensity that survives in full force after nine and a half centuries. The figures have the hieratic frontality and simplified modeling of Ottonian metalwork and manuscript illumination, and their survival tells us that the art of figural stained glass narrative was already fully formed in the mid-eleventh century, long before the Gothic period usually credited with its invention.
Biblical Source
The five prophets depicted -- Daniel, Jonah, David, Hosea, and Moses -- represent the range of the Hebrew prophetic tradition, from the Law (Moses) to the Royal Psalter (David) to the great writing prophets of the Assyrian and Babylonian period (Hosea, Jonah, Daniel). Each carries an attribute of their prophetic office or narrative: Moses with the tablets of the Law, Daniel with his vision of the four kingdoms (Daniel 2:44 -- 'the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed'), Jonah with the fish or the gourd. The inclusion of David connects the prophetic programme to the Messianic promise of 2 Samuel 7:16: 'Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me.'
The Artists
The windows were produced by anonymous Bavarian glaziers working in the Ottonian tradition, the same artistic culture that produced the bronze doors and column of Saint Michael's Church in Hildesheim and the brilliant enamel and metalwork that was the glory of the pre-Gothic German church. The technical accomplishment of the Augsburg windows -- the precision of the leading, the quality of the glass itself, the disciplined figure style -- demonstrates that by the mid-eleventh century workshops capable of producing monumental figural glazing were active in southern Germany. The identity of the workshop and its precise technical traditions remain subjects of active scholarly research.
Iconography
The frontal, hieratic pose of each prophet reflects the Ottonian visual tradition's preference for symbolic over naturalistic representation: these are not human figures in space but theological presences, made visible through art. The color harmonies of red and blue that dominate several of the windows -- the oldest surviving examples of these colors used together in glass -- create an intense chromatic field quite different from the narrative complexity of later Gothic windows. Each prophet stands in solitary dignity, identified by inscription and attribute, presenting himself to the viewer as a bearer of divine revelation.
Significance
The Augsburg windows have immense art-historical significance as the oldest surviving examples of their type, demonstrating that the art of figural stained glass was not a Gothic invention of the twelfth century but had achieved full technical and formal maturity in the Ottonian period. They are primary evidence for the sophistication of pre-Romanesque decorative art in German-speaking Europe, challenging the common narrative that places the origin of the medieval stained glass tradition at Saint-Denis. Their survival -- while so many comparable works were lost to iconoclasm, war, and the deterioration of centuries -- is itself remarkable.
The windows' survival through the Reformation is itself historically significant. Augsburg was one of the cities where the tension between Catholic and Protestant communities was most intense -- the Augsburg Peace of 1555, which established the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, was signed here. The cathedral remained Catholic throughout, and its medieval furnishings were preserved while many other German churches were stripped of their imagery. The five Prophet Windows thus survived a period when thousands of comparable works of stained glass were destroyed across Protestant Germany, their preservation an accident of ecclesiastical history that makes them irreplaceable.
The theological choice of prophets to depict -- Daniel, Jonah, David, Hosea, and Moses -- covers the full range of the Hebrew prophetic tradition. Daniel represents the apocalyptic vision that would shape both Jewish and Christian eschatology; Jonah the prophet of unexpected mercy and resurrection (Matthew 12:40 uses Jonah's three days in the fish as a type of Christ's burial and resurrection); David the royal psalmist whose songs frame Christian worship to the present day; Hosea the prophet of divine love that persists despite human unfaithfulness; and Moses the lawgiver whose Torah provided the ethical and liturgical framework for all subsequent biblical religion. Together they represent the whole arc of Israelite prophetic witness pointing toward its fulfillment.
Visiting Info
The Prophet Windows are installed in the south nave of Augsburg Cathedral (Dom zu Augsburg), on the Kornhausgasse in central Augsburg. The cathedral is open daily (free admission). The windows are mounted at eye level in the south aisle, allowing close examination. Augsburg is easily reached from Munich by train (35 minutes) and makes an excellent day trip. The cathedral also contains a rich treasury and a cloister worth visiting. The city of Augsburg is historically significant as an early center of the Reformation -- the Augsburg Confession of 1530 was presented here.