This early 13th-century lancet depicts St Thomas the Apostle, shown standing beneath an architectural canopy and framed by the characteristic red–blue geometric border used throughout the Bourges clerestory. His figure is rendered in the elongated, linear style associated with the first glazing campaign of the cathedral — a moment when apostolic iconography had not yet settled into its later, standardised forms.

Thomas raises his right hand in blessing, while his left hand holds a closed book, signifying his role as a teacher of the faith. Beside him he carries a tall, vertical staff, held upright against the body. This is not a martyrdom symbol or weapon:

The vertical staff reflects an early 13th-century workshop convention in which apostles were equipped with simple mission-staves to enhance the symmetry of the narrow lancet form, rather than with fixed later attributes.

The inscription S. THOMAS appears at the base. The absence of the later medieval attribute of the builder’s square underlines the date of the window: before c.1250 apostolic iconography at Bourges still relied on generic symbolic vocabulary — scrolls, books, and staves — rather than the individualised instruments that would become standard in later Gothic and Renaissance art.

This lancet is part of the wider apostolic cycle in the Bourges clerestory, where each apostle is depicted full-length in isolation, creating a solemn visual procession encircling the high choir.