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
Parable of the Good Samaritan x. 25-37, related to illustrate the meaning of the word "neighbor," possesses a feature which puzzles the student of rabbinical lore. The kind Samaritan who comes to the rescue of the men that had fallen among the robbers, is contrasted with the unkind priest and Levite; whereas the third class of Jews—i.e., the ordinary Israelites who, as a rule, follow the Cohen and the Levite are omitted; and therefore suspicion is aroused regarding the original form of the story. If "Samaritan" has been substituted by the anti-Judean gospel-writer for the original "Israelite," no reflection was intended by Jesus upon Jewish