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 Ten Virgins Faithful Servant (Matthew 24:42–51). The parable of the Ten Virgins reinforces the call for readiness in the face of the uncertain time of this second "coming." It has been described as a "watching parable." Like the parable of the Lost Coin, it is a parable about women which immediately follows, and makes the same point as, a preceding parable about men. In this parable, Jesus Christ is the bridegroom, echoing the Old Testament image of God as the bridegroom in Jeremiah and similar passages. The awaited event is the Second Coming of Christ. R. T. France writes that the parable