The Good Samaritan Window, Chartres Cathedral The Good Samaritan Window, Chartres Cathedral Trade windows first appeared at the cathedrals of Chartres and Bourges between 1205 and 1215. The 176 windows of Chartres present 125 depictions of tradesmen engaged in twenty-five different occupations making, transporting, and selling their products in forty-two windows. Anne Harris suggests that the trade windows at Chartres are an attempt to confront the increasingly pressing challenge which the town’s emerging urban economy presented to the church’s way of life and its understanding of the world. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) complemented by a series of Old and New Testament typologies
The Good Samaritan Window, Chartres Cathedral 1 and 2 picture them at work cutting leather and making cord soles. Panel 3 presents a group of seven individuals presenting a stylized window; the panel is labeled "sutores o[btulerunt?]" (the shoemakers o[ffer?]"). The shoemakers are noted as having had a master in 1210; perhaps the leading figure, dressed in a green and red-brown, represents this master. Some of the figures watch the presentation of the window, others are looking up to Panel 4 where Jesus is delivering the Good Samaritan parable to two Pharisees. In the upper right hand of Panel 3 is the hand with pointing finger