Window 17: Saints Leonard & Fergus
The seventeenth window in the Creation and the New Creation series of windows at the church of Saints Leonard and Fergus, Dundee.
Taking centre stage in the Summer series is Window 17: Saints Leonard and Fergus, to whom the church is dedicated. As such, various aspects of the parish form the focus of this window. It features elements related to both saints’ lives, references to the former bishop of the diocese to which the church belongs, and to the physical building of the church itself.
St Leonard, praying in his forest hermitage.
According to an 11th century biography, the first saint, St Leonard (or Leonard of Noblac), was born a nobleman in the court of King Clovis I, in the Limousin region of France in the fifth century c.e. He converted to Christianity and became a hermit in the forest of Limousin. Dad portrays St Leonard in a medallion towards the bottom of the window. The scene is Dad’s own medieval-style creation, showing him on his knees, praying in his little hermitage, surrounded by trees. Typical of Dad’s sense of humour, he painted stumps of trees in the foreground so as not to obscure our view of Leonard. Woodland creatures – a boar and an owl – can be seen in the forest, and in the distance are King Clovis and his pregnant wife, the queen. According to legend, when the queen was heavily pregnant, the
king went out hunting (he is depicted here with his bow and arrow) accompanied by his wife. While there, she went into labour and the prospect of her delivering the baby safely was looking bleak. Leonard was passing by, and when he heard their cries, he went to them and prayed for the woman and baby. Miraculously they both survived.
Consequently, he is now the patron saint of women in labour. Among other things, he is also patron saint of captives and prisoners. This is because, as the godson of St Remigius, the Bishop of Reims, Leonard was entitled to visit prisons and was given the authority to free prisoners, which he did in abundance. Dad indicated this aspect of the saint’s life in the red, barbed wire border surrounding the forest hermitage scene. In addition, the tree stumps in the foreground of the scene have a second, more serious, meaning in that they represent bars of the prison cell cut away to indicate freedom for the prisoners.
Window 17: Saints Leonard & Fergus.
Behind this forest scene is a large bishop’s crozier, the decorated staff carried as a symbol of the office of bishop. The length of the crozier runs almost from the top of the main window to the bottom. It represents the second saint, Saint Fergus, a bishop who was a missionary in Scotland in the late 7th – 8th centuries c.e. Not much is known about him. The name, being Pictish in origin, suggests he was from the north-east of what is now known as Scotland. He is thought to have trained in Ireland and is known in Irish martyrologies as St Fergus Cruithneach, or St Fergus the Pict.
Flower design on crozier.
The head of a bishop's crozier representing St Fergus, and the coat of arms of Bishop Vincent Logan (1941-2021).
While Dad was painting this scene, his own Dad, my grandad, was in hospital, approaching the end of his life. When Dad had finished the medallion, he took it into hospital at visiting time to show his Dad. Grandad was drifting in
The Celtic tree of life motif at the bottom of the bishop's crozier and the soft fruits - strawberries and raspberries - of Dundee.
The staff of the crozier is decorated with different emblems. Below Bishop Logan’s coat of arms is a decorative, acid-etched and painted flower design. One of the many bees that feature throughout these windows has been fooled by this flower and has landed on it in search of nectar. Below that is a painted Celtic-style bird. Between the flower and the bird is another bee, who wasn't looking where she was going, and has bumped into the staff (see bottom of the page). Finally, at the foot of the staff, which touches the bottom of the window, is a painted Celtic tree of life motif.
Being the central Summer window, the Celtic latticework background pattern contains the warm yellows and golds of the season but we start to see hints of red to indicate the early beginnings of Autumn. There are also brighter reds appearing - in the aforementioned border to St Leonard’s medallion and in a number of ripe strawberries and raspberries at the base of the window. These fruits have been included because Dundee is at the heart of the main berry growing areas of Perthshire and Angus. They connect back to the first window of the Spring series, Window 8: The Woman at the Well, where the strawberry and raspberry plants are shown in flower; here they are ready to harvest.
Celtic-style bird on crozier.
and out of consciousness at the time, but was aware enough to look at and appreciate the scene of St Leonard and he liked it very much. A very devout and lifelong Catholic, Grandad died not long after, very proud – I’m sure – of his son and his talent and sensitivity.
The head of the beautiful acid-etched bishop’s crozier is based on an 8th century crozier found on the Swedish island of Helgo, believed to be of Irish origin and
chosen by Dad to represent Fergus because of the 8th century Irish connection.
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Below the head of the crozier is the coat of arms of Bishop Vincent Logan, who was the Bishop of the Dunkeld diocese to which this church belongs, at the time these windows were made and installed. It depicts three nails piercing a heart and three lilies. Bishop Logan died from Covid-19 in 2021.
In the transom is a painting of the church of Saints Leonard and Fergus. Behind it is a multistorey block of flats which has since been demolished. The church currently has a house on the side but Dad doesn’t think it had its own house in the 1980s when the windows were made. In any case, if it did, Fr McInally, the parish priest of the church did not live there, he lived in a ground floor flat in the tower block.
Originally the priest wanted an open Bible to be included above the painting of the church, indicating the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Dad wasn’t keen on that idea because there is already an open Bible, St Margaret’s illuminated pocket gospel book, in Window 10: St Margaret of Scotland. Instead, he wrote the motto of Bishop Logan, ‘Verbum Dei Proclamare’, meaning ‘Proclaim the Word of God’. Dad added to this motto ‘Cum Gaudio’, meaning ‘With Joy’ to mark the joy and vibrancy of the priest and the people of the parish at the time. Needless to say, Fr McInally loved it.
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​This transom was the last window in the series that Dad made. He marked it with the name of the parish priest, ‘Fr Hugh McNally’ and the date, ‘Easter 1986’. Although it was the last window he made for this church, there are still 7 more windows in the series to go …
The transom, featuring the church building.
