Tree of Jesse

Stained glass was a popular medium used in many eras to illuminate the sacred mysteries of the Old Covenant's relationship with the genealogy of Christ in the New Covenant.

Among the famous stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral in Northern France is the Jesse Tree window, of 1140-50, the far right of three windows above the Royal Portal and beneath the western rose window. It derives from the oldest known (and almost certainly the original) complex form of the Jesse Tree, with the tree rising from a sleeping Jesse, a window placed in the Saint-Denis Basilica by Abbot Suger in about 1140, which is now heavily restored.