Michael Lassen, stained-glass artist, died on September 8th, aged 61；Almost nothing is known of the men who built the great medieval cathedrals.A mason's mark chiselled on a column; a game of nine-men's-morris scratched on a stone;a gargoyle's half-human face, of foreman or master of works,are all that remind observers of the crowds of labouring souls who raised Canterbury or Winchester, Beauvais or Cologne.The dangers of such projects were legion.Contemporary illustrations show cathedral spires collapsing, vaults caving in, high scaffolding keeling over in a chaos of planks and poles.Casualties were expected, and were many, though the fabric accounts often could not name them.In modern times the labour is no less perilous; but in the days of health-and-safety and hard hats, accidents are rare.Hence the horror in Durham when, on September 3rd, Michael Lassen fell from a ladder as he helped to fix a new stained-glass window in the south quire aisle of the cathedral.He died some days later in hospital.Climbing up in the south quire to look at the traceries originally, he had found them heavily fissured, like all Durham's ancient sandstone.Blocks were missing on the exterior, and one side of the main arch was worn away almost to a skeleton,as though two or three centuries of wild north-east weather had blown through it.
Obituary；Michael Lassen；讣告；迈克尔.拉森；迈克尔・拉森，彩花玻璃艺术家，卒于9月8日，享年61岁；对于建造中世纪大教堂的那些人我们几乎一无所知。一个被刻进圆柱的工匠的标记；一个在石头上乱划的九人莫里斯游戏；一个怪兽状滴水嘴的半人脸，那些工头或者大师的作品，都会让观者想起那些建造坎特伯雷，温彻斯特，科隆或韦伯大教堂的那些千万劳苦大众的在天之灵。这些大项目危险重重。同时代的画作显示了大教堂尖塔的倾倒，拱顶的塌陷，高高的脚手架倒在一片八七八糟的木板和柱子中。尽管凭零星的记录难以命名，但意外事故的确在所难免而且经常发生。时至今日，这种劳动的危险一点也没有减少。因此，在9月3日达勒姆发生了惨案，当迈克尔。拉森帮助修复一个大教堂南边唱诗班席位的彩色玻璃窗时，他从梯子上摔了下来。几天后他在医院里死去。爬到南唱诗班席位上去原本是去看花饰窗格，他却发现他们已经严重破裂，就像所有达勒姆古老的沙岩那样。外围那些石块已经掉了，主拱经过两三百年的东北风吹过，一侧已经破损得只剩一个骨架，
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