Name: Spec-tacular Glass: Concerning A Pair Of Eyeglasses In The Nine Orders Of Angels Window And Ocular Devotion In Late Medieval York
Start: 2026-06-22T14:00:00+01:00
End: 2026-06-22T15:30:00+01:00
Location: All Saints North Street

Contents

A medieval window with an out-of-place figure
What visitors can expect from the lecture
Date, time, venue and cost
Accessibility details at All Saints North Street

A small fragment of medieval glass at All Saints North Street has a question built into it. Tucked between two figures in the Nine Orders of Angels window is a man wearing folding spectacles, yet a sketch of the same window from 1670 does not show him there.

That mystery is the starting point for Spec-tacular Glass: Concerning A Pair Of Eyeglasses In The Nine Orders Of Angels Window And Ocular Devotion In Late Medieval York, a public lecture in York on Monday, 22 June 2026.

The talk runs from 2:00pm to 3:30pm at All Saints North Street, 18 North Street, York, YO1 6JD. Attendance is free, with a suggested donation of £5 to help cover costs. Booking is recommended. The event is aimed at the general public, especially readers interested in medieval history, stained glass, York churches and the history of vision.

A medieval window with an out-of-place figure

The lecture focuses on a detail that is easy to describe and harder to explain: a bespectacled man placed in the Nine Orders of Angels window at All Saints North Street. According to the event information, the figure is not where he would be expected to be, because he does not appear in a 1670 sketch of the window.

That raises the central question of the afternoon: where did this fragment come from?

Rather than treating the image simply as a curiosity, the talk will use it as a route into late medieval York and the place of eyeglasses in religious and visual culture. The subject sits at the meeting point of local history, medieval craft, devotion and the changing ways people thought about sight.

The speaker is Naoki Matsumoto, who graduated with an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of York and is now pursuing a PhD at the University of Poitiers in France. His research focuses on the representation of people with disabilities in medieval stained glass.

What visitors can expect from the lecture

The event is billed as a lecture, with Matsumoto exploring the possible origins of the glass fragment and the wider history around eyeglasses in late medieval York.

For visitors who know All Saints North Street chiefly as a historic church, the talk offers a close look at one specific object inside it. For those interested in medieval stained glass, the draw is the unusual presence of folding spectacles in a religious window and the question of how that image came to be preserved in its current setting.

The source details identify three main strands: an expert talk by Naoki Matsumoto, an exploration of medieval stained glass history, and a discussion of ocular devotion in late medieval York.

Date, time, venue and cost

Detail	Information
Event	Spec-tacular Glass lecture
Date	Monday, 22 June 2026
Time	2:00pm to 3:30pm
Venue	All Saints North Street
Address	18 North Street, York, YO1 6JD
Price	Free attendance, suggested donation of £5
Booking	Recommended
Audience	General public

All Saints North Street lists its opening hours as 10am to 4pm daily. Donations for the event can be made by cash and card within the church.

Accessibility details at All Saints North Street

The event information says most of the church is wheelchair accessible. The chancel, high altar and anchorhold are not wheelchair accessible, and some floors are uneven because of the historic nature of the building.

Visitors who need step-free access should note those limits before attending. The venue given for the lecture is All Saints North Street, 18 North Street, York, YO1 6JD, with the event scheduled for 2:00pm on 22 June 2026.

Source: Visit York Events