tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33132951434970976082024-03-06T06:12:59.408+00:00Medieval Church ArtVitrearum's Medieval Church Art. Articles, links and features about all aspects of medieval and medieval revival church art.Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.comBlogger229125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-86390733046057785312018-07-18T14:25:00.000+01:002018-07-18T19:24:18.904+01:00All that glisters is gold - the Wymondham Abbey altar screen <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/41064570234/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (9 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (9 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/968/41064570234_aaf9f43a8b_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The parish church of St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury in Wymondham in Norfolk, is all that is remains of a Benedictine Priory founded in 1107 by Wiliam d'Aubigny, which was raised to abbey status in 1448. When Wymondham Abbey was dissolved in 1538 at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the people of Wymondham were granted as their parish church the nave of the abbey church, the part of the church that for four centuries. The eastern arm was then left to fall into ruin and the arch between the nave and the central tower was roughly blocked in and plastered over, it remained that way until the twentieth century.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/26913852187/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (37 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (37 of 58).jpg" height="640" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/949/26913852187_85292c1bcd_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The nave is a splendid piece of Norman architecture dating from 1130, each arch decorated with a different motif and with the whole structure rising to some height through a Triforium and Clerestory. The eastern end of the nave with it's temporary blocking looked rather plain and mean compared to the surrounding architecture and was not a fitting setting for the high altar. In the 1920 Ninian Comper, on the recommendation of Sir William St John Hope, was called in to find a solution to the issue. His solution was to add to the wall an altar screen, with a tester and rood and it is one of his most monumental works. The main part of the work was completed in 1921, although the work of colouring and gilding the reredos was not completed until 1934. The inspiration for the altar screen was no doubt the surviving medieval examples at Winchester, St Albans and Southwark cathedrals. A few years after completing the work here at Wymondham, Comper was to work on the screen at Southwark. The inspiration for the arrangement of the tester and the rood was the pre-Reformation high altar arrangements at Westminster Abbey, as depicted in the Islip roll that records the funeral of Abbot John Islip of the 1532.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/26913726867/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (10 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (10 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/956/26913726867_a31e8cd6f0_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Let's have a look at Comper's arrangement here in Wymondahm in more detail. Just as the Eucharist is the foretaste of the heavenly banquet, so Comper intended his altar screen to be a visual foretaste of heaven. The central focus of the screen is therefore a twice life-size image of the Majestas, Christ in Majesty. Christ is seated, his right hand raised in blessing, his feet resting on cherubim and he emerges from heaven in a Mandorla of clouds, his presence emphasised by rays of glory. He gold a book on which are written Alpha and Omega. There are censing angels on the four corners of the panel to herald Christ's appearance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/40882721675/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (38 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (38 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/963/40882721675_482eb5f394_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Around the central image of Christ are two tiers of canopied niches with images of the company of heaven. In the upper part St George, St Etheldreda, St John the Baptist, St John the Evangelist, St Andrew and St Michael.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/26913862377/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (40 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (40 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/969/26913862377_fcff560ff4_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the lower tier the central image is an image of the Virgin and Child, Mary being one of the joint patrons of the church. Following medieval precedent here figure is emphasised by being slightly larger than the others. To her right is a figure of the other patron of the church St Thomas of Canterbury. Then from left to right a series of other figures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/41740694422/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (13 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (13 of 58).jpg" height="640" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/982/41740694422_3c1665b7c6_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Starting from the left and set over two tabernacles, is a delightful Annunciation. The figures of Mary and Gabriel have swaying s-shaped postures similar to figurative work of the fourteenth century and they almost look to be about to step out of their niches.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/41064588314/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (17 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (17 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/949/41064588314_79396f546a_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">St Peter is the next figure along from the Assumption and then moving over to the other side of the Virgin and Child, there are figures of both St Alban and St Paul. The four figures that flank the Virgin and Child turn inwards towards her. The whole sequence ends on the right hand side with another composition over two niches the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, again both figures have the delightful Gothic swaying posture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/41064549054/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (1 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (1 of 58).jpg" height="640" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/828/41064549054_09def67b64_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Comper chose a predominately late medieval Gothic and Perpendicular architectural language for this altar screen, but by the 1920s Comper is less rigidly Gothic in his aesthetic expression and here he blends Gothic with Renaissance forms. Next to the screen is an important terracotta sedilia of the 1520s or 30s, entirely Renaissance in detail and Comper was not blind to that. At the top of the screen, just below the coving, each compartment of the screen terminates in a little round headed arch filled withed with Renaissance scalloped decoration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/41781783661/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (35 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (35 of 58).jpg" height="640" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/969/41781783661_75d5cad045_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/41740755932/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (33 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (33 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/903/41740755932_a525c1d918_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Projecting from the top of the screen and partly suspended from the medieval roof, is the altar tester. The tester's underside is decorated to give the impression that we were seeing through a window or opening into heaven. In the centre is image of the Holy Spirit, as though about to descend on the altar below, with rays of glory and red droplets of fire issue forth - the pneumatic force of the Holy Spirit. There are also seven scrolls issuing from the central image of the dove, on each is written one of the seven gifts of the Spirit. In the four corners of the panel and witnessing to the power of the Spirit, are four six winged cherubim. Above on the top of the tester are figures of angels with trumpets, heralding the Spirit's descent. It's an unusual and inventive composition.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/26913876717/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (42 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (42 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/904/26913876717_6eecc086fe_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the front of the tester is a Latin inscription: <i>'Dicit in Nationibvs Regnavit a Ligno Devs' </i>- <i>'We see God ruling the nations from a tree'</i>, taken from the hymn Vexilla Regis by Vernantius Fortunatus.</span><br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/41781804621/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (43 of 58).jpg"><span style="font-size: large;"><img alt="untitled (43 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/830/41781804621_0e14886389_k.jpg" width="640" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As we absorb this inscription, the image Christ reigning from the tree comes into view above, for one bay forward of the screen is a rood beam and on it a rood group.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/6619623951/in/photolist-s6cph-b5Xizr-9jCHAW/" nbsp="" title="Westminster high altar Islip"><img alt="Westminster high altar Islip" height="640" src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7002/6619623951_e95b45ea6b_b.jpg" width="491" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Christ Crucified is here flanked as usual by Mary and John and on either side two Seraphim standing on wheels. As stated above, Comper's inspiration for the tester and the rood arrangement was the high altar at Westminster Abbey as shown in the Islip roll of 1532. The arrangement of the rood with the Seraphim is taken directly from the Islip illustration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/27913560428/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (21 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (21 of 58).jpg" height="426" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/976/27913560428_02b897e2a1_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The polychromy and gilding of the altar screen wasn't completed until 1934. As withe the iconography the colouring is masterly and is carefully considered to give a rich but not overwhelming effect set within the whiteness of the Norman abbey church. Comper has used both flat and burnished gold and gold leaf with different dominant hues for the gilding. He uses cooler yellow gold for the tabernacle and architectural work and a gold with a red base for the drapery of the figures. Except for the odd bit of heraldry here and there and the flesh tones of the figures, the gold of the drapery provides the only injection of red tones into the whole of the screen's decoration. All the grounds for example are in various tones of blue and there is sparing use of a rather muted brown-murrey and a toned down green in certain areas. It is the combination of the different tones of gold and their finishes and the varying blue grounds, that give the work it's richness - but it is not an overpowering richness. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/40882709235/in/album-72157696236982475/" nbsp="" title="untitled (34 of 58).jpg"><img alt="untitled (34 of 58).jpg" height="640" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/954/40882709235_a2243f87e7_b.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-73517772780584000842018-07-06T14:09:00.000+01:002018-07-06T17:33:38.160+01:00Medievalism and Ritualism - Part 1: Percy Dearmer and the scholarly context of the Parson's Handbook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9rnDqUm0xlFZiIYYhygvs63WqgJCYTVEe1hBHfPE0z1kEXViQ5zTxKlYcKOM9bMXN_kfU3bIhyphenhyphenYxhOEdlBRPaZcnxGZD6NsQGC3vIC8Ee0HXZWgu0MNpBjU-h9gvA9AOBMz3rJNhnhboi/s1600/chancels+shall+remain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1041" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9rnDqUm0xlFZiIYYhygvs63WqgJCYTVEe1hBHfPE0z1kEXViQ5zTxKlYcKOM9bMXN_kfU3bIhyphenhyphenYxhOEdlBRPaZcnxGZD6NsQGC3vIC8Ee0HXZWgu0MNpBjU-h9gvA9AOBMz3rJNhnhboi/s640/chancels+shall+remain.jpg" width="416" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Medievalism and Ritualism – A Discussion of the Background and Context of <i>The Parson’s Handbook</i>, and of the ‘English Use’</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By the second decade of the twentieth century Ritualism, which had been growing steadily as a force in the life of the Church of England, had polarised into two very distinctive groups. There were those within the C of E who attempted to find what they considered to be the inherent catholicism within the Book of Common Prayer. They were keen to restore arrested continuity, by attempting to discern the original intentions of the sixteenth century reformers. Then there was another group who wanted to move the church forward to the liturgical and aesthetic position it might have adopted had the Reformation never occurred. The ethos of the former, which has generally been known as the 'English Use' or 'Sarum' camp, is summed by Percy Dearmer’s work <i>The Parson’s Handbook</i> (hereafter referred to as <i>The Handbook</i>). Those who advocated this approach generally adopted a medieval aesthetic in church furnishing and vesture. The latter, who were usually characterised by the terms ‘western use’ or ‘Anglo-Papalist’, had the rally cry ‘Back to Baroque’ and adopted the aesthetic of contemporary Roman Catholicism.[1] </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is the development and origins of the 'English Use' that this two part article sets out to examine. In this first part of the article, I will focus on the liturgical and aesthetic ethos of Percy Dearmer, as laid down in t</span><span style="font-size: large;">he <i>The Handbook </i>an</span><span style="font-size: large;">d his other works, before moving on to examine the background to his work among the scholarship of his colleagues and contemporaries. In the second part of this article (published as a separate post) I will examine, in brief, the underlying origins of medievalism within the ritualist movement of the Church of England and thus the wider historiographical context of the development of the 'English Use'.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dr Percy Dearmer photographed in 1911 in his doctoral robes. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Part 1: Percy Dearmer and the scholarly context of the Parson's Handbook</u></span></div>
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Although Percy Dearmer was one of the foremost personalities of the early twentieth century Church of England, he had a rather unconventional career in the church. Dearmer was the son of a professional artist and was educated at Westminster School and then Christ Church, Oxford. During his time at Oxford he came under the influence of Charles Gore and for a time worked as his secretary at Pusey House. Dearmer was ordained on the twentieth of December 1891 in Rochester Cathedral and over the course of the next decade would serve as curate at three successive London churches, combining his pastoral role with journalistic work for the Christian Socialist movement. In February 1901 he received what was to be his first and only incumbency, when he was inducted as vicar of St Mary’s, Primrose Hill in north London. He would remain in Primrose Hill until 1916. In 1911 he received his DD from Oxford. During the First World War Dr Dearmer resigned his living and spent time working for the YMCA in Serbia and France and after the war in India. Returning to England 1919, he found himself without any work and would remain without an official post in the Church of England until 1931. He was however, given the newly created chair of Ecclesiastical Art at King’s College, London, a post he held in conjunction with a college lectureship until his death. In 1931 he was finally preferred and became a residentiary canon of Westminster. He died in that post in May 1936.[2] <br /><br />Dearmer first published the <i>The Handbook</i> in 1899 at the beginning of his career, when he was still assistant curate at St Mark’s Marylebone Road in London.[3] The book was an immediate success and by the end of 1899 it had run to three impressions. In 1902 a new expanded edition (called the ‘fourth’ but in truth really a second edition) was published, followed by a further expanded ‘sixth’ edition in 1907. The ‘sixth’ edition, with minor modifications remained in print until 1932 when a revised ‘twelfth’ edition was published. The ‘twelfth’ edition was as popular as previous editions and remained in print until 1962.[4] A print run of sixty three years, is an extraordinary testament to the enduring value and usefulness of the work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In 1965 Cyril Pocknee produced a revised and rewritten ‘thirteenth’ edition.[5] </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Handbook</i> was unlike any other Anglican ceremonial guide published to date. It was not just concerned with the minutiae of Anglican ritual practice and ceremonial alone, but also its moral and legal basis and every other aspect of church management, from the layout of church buildings, the arrangement of altars, the form of furnishings and the type, colour, origin and use of vesture. Its starting point was a strong ethos; the book set out to rectify what Dearmer identified as three major faults in the conduct of public worship in the Church of England: <i>'confusion, lawlessness and vulgarity'</i>.[6] His view was that all three faults could be rectified by a <i>‘loyal obedience to lawful authority’</i>, by discerning and following the original Reformation ethos of the Book of Common Prayer. [7] The hinge piece of legislation that Dearmer used as the basis of his obedience, at least in terms of the externals of worship, was the so-called ‘ornaments rubric’, which appeared in the first Elizabethan prayer book and appears also in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. It states that: <i>‘such ornaments of the church, and of the ministers thereof at all times of their Ministration, shall be retained, and be in use, as were in this Church of England by the Authority of Parliament, in the Second Year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth … and the chancels shall remain as they have done in times past.’</i> Dearmer and many others at the time argued that this legislation in effect ordered the retention of both the medieval physical arrangements of a church building and the late medieval ornaments and vesture.[8] True obedience to the prayer book required a return to the forms of vesture and ornaments in use in 1548, when the young King Edward VI was still maintaining Henrician Catholicism in the Church of England. Therefore the medievalism of the Handbook was not mere antiquarianism, but was a by-product of this loyal obedience to the ‘ornaments rubric.’ It also just happened that medieval forms of vesture and ornament appealed to Dearmer’s own artistic eye. It was convenient to him, therefore, that the full medieval surplice appeared more graceful than the Italian cottas that some earlier ‘Ritualists’ had introduced and that the alb and amice apparels worn in the Middle Ages, were to his eye, better aesthetically than the lace applied to albs on the continent.[9] The use of a full Gothic chasuble as worn in the Middle Ages, was doubly justified because it was of a type that was not only<i> ‘more beautiful’</i> but was also <i>‘truer to [Anglican] traditions’</i> than the <i>‘undignified and stiff’</i> Latin chasubles worn abroad.[10] In terms of church arrangements the command for chancel’s to remain as they were in the ‘times past’ was still logical in a modern context, it meant the use of furnishings that were in accord with the medieval church buildings that the majority of church communities in England were still using the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dearmer applied this medievalist system way beyond the externals of worship. He argued that the prayer book liturgy derived ultimately from the liturgical ‘uses’ of medieval England (such as Sarum, York, Hereford and Lincoln) and that, in effect, the Prayer Book was but a uniform and reformed vernacular replacement for them - and unified 'English Use'. Consequently the rather meagre ceremonial rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer could be augmented, justifiably, by reference to Pre-Reformation service books.[11] The meagerness of the prayer book rubrics themselves was in fact an indication to Dearmer that the sixteenth century reformers had intended clergy to perform prayer book services according to the ceremonial they already knew.[12] So in summary Dearmer argued in the <i>The Handbook</i> that loyalty to the authority of the prayer book resulted in a worship that had catholicity, because it had dignity, authority and continuity.[13] <br /><br />To describe this whole ceremonial and aesthetic system Dearmer invented a new term, the ‘English Use’, but despite inventing this descriptive term, very little of the content of the <i>The Handbook</i> actually originated with Dearmer himself. Dearmer was not writing in his own little intellectual bubble, but within an established scholarly milieu. Cyril Pocknee notes in his introduction to the revised <i>Handbook</i> of 1965, that the work was in effect a <i>‘haute vulgarisation’</i> of the scholarship of the previous thirty years.[14] <i>The Handbook</i> was popular, not because of its particular novelty, but because it transformed turgid, antiquarian liturgical scholarship, into a passionate and vibrant system that could be practically applied and set forth, as Dunlop argues, with <i>‘admirable clearness.’</i>[15] <i>The Handboo</i>k made the scholarship of the ‘English Use’ available, as Pocknee notes, to the <i>‘ordinary parish priest who had not the time and inclination to delve into the researches that were required.’</i>[16] Dearmer was the first to admit that <i>The Handbook</i> was intended to popularise the work of others and the work is full of copious footnotes. In the preface to the ‘fourth’ edition, written in 1902, he claims that his debt to other scholars was such that it was <i>‘not so much his own work as that of others more worthy of acceptance’</i>.[17] So who were these other scholars that underpinned his work? In Dearmer’s preface to the ‘fourth’ edition, he names some of them, expressing his indebtedness in particular to Vernon Staley and W. H. Frere.[18] In the preface of the ‘twelfth’ edition of 1932 he extends his credit to include John Wickham-Legg and Sir William St John Hope.[19] </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vernon Staley (1852-1933)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Vernon Staley (1852-1933) was the first of the men that Dearmer credited in <i>The Handbook. </i>From 1901-1911 Staley was provost of Inverness, but he went on to be rector of Ickford in Buckinghamshire until his death. He produced a number of solid ceremonial works very similar to those of Dearmer. Staley’s <i>Ceremonial of the English Church</i> was first published in 1899, the same year that T<i>he Handbook</i> first appeared and in essence it is identical. It’s principles and conclusions are in all fundamentals the same, the ceremonial it suggests is near-identical, its arguments on vesture and ornament all come from the same late medieval aesthetic, on the same premise of obedience to the ‘ornaments rubric’ of the Book of Common Prayer. [20] His work includes reference to other contemporary scholarship, but a heavier reliance on mid nineteenth century scholarly works, some of which will be encountered in the second part of this article. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Although remaining in print until 1911 Staley’s work does not quite have the same journalistic flair as Dearmer’s and that probably accounts for its less popular appeal. For example while Dearmer outlines his ethos in an impassioned introduction, Staley begins his work with a series of long essays on the ‘moral principles of religious ceremonial’, ‘the relation of ceremonial to doctrine’ and the ‘relation of ceremonial to devotion and conduct’.[21] Staley’s influence on the 'English Use' movement was primarily through other works. In his <i>Studies in Ceremonial</i> published in 1901, he continues the theme of <i>Ceremonial of the English Church,</i> providing a series of case-studies on particular ceremonial issues, including posture, bowing at the name of Jesus and the use of popular ritualist ornaments such as the continental biretta.[22] Staley also added significantly to the counterblast against opponents of the ‘English Use’, in his reediting, expansion and reissue in 1902 of J. F. Russell’s <i>Hierurgia Anglicana</i>, which was first published by the Cambridge Camden Society in 1848.[23] This volume successfully laid down the areas of continuity between the Pre-Reformation church and the Church of England of the early nineteenth century. The similarity between the work of Staley and Dearmer was, it seems, purely coincidental. Dearmer himself states in the 1902 preface of the ‘fourth’ edition of <i>The Handbook</i> that the two men <i>‘were working in ignorance of each other’s labours.’</i>[24] After discovering one another's work, Dearmer and Staley began to collaborate on other projects. Dearmer contributed two articles ‘Church Vestments’ (which was illustrated with pictures of him dressed in vestments) and ‘The Altar and its Furniture’ to <i>Essays on Ceremonial by Various Authors</i> published in 1904 as part of a series edited by Staley <i>The Library of Liturgiology and Ecclesiology for English Readers</i>.[25] <br /><br />One of the contributors to Staley’s <i>Essays on Ceremonial</i> was John Wickham-Legg (1843-1921). Wickham-Legg was a physician by profession, who in 1887, after giving up his medical work for health reasons, devoted the rest of the life to the energetic study of liturgy.[26] In 1879 he had founded the St Paul’s Ecclesiological Society, in essence a revival of the Cambridge Camden Society, which will be discussed below.[27] In 1890 Legg was also one of the founders of the Henry Bradshaw Society, which was established to reprint liturgical manuscripts <i>‘on an historical and scientific basis’</i>, and he contributed the first publication of the society, a three volume facsimile edition of the fourteenth century Litlyngton Missal in Westminster Abbey.[28] In 1897 Legg, with four other laymen, H. B. Briggs, W. H. St John Hope and J. T. Micklethwaite founded the Alcuin Club, in order to <i>‘promote the study of the history and use of the Book of Common Prayer and allied disciplines’</i>.[29] The first publication of the Club <i>The Ornaments of the Rubric</i> set out its liturgical and aesthetic standpoint fairly firmly; the Club was founded with the <i>‘object of encouraging the practical study of Ceremonial, or the arrangement of Churches, their Furniture and Ornaments in accordance with the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer; strict obedience to which is the guiding principle of the work of the Club.’</i>[30] <i>The Ornaments of the Rubric</i> was written by the architect J. T. Micklethwaite and it’s persuasive content was to form the basis of much of Dearmer’s legal arguments in <i>The Handbook</i>.[31] Dearmer was himself actively associated with the Alcuin Club, by 1901 he was already on its committee and would remain on it for the rest of his life. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arthur Duncan-Jones </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the 1920s the Alcuin Club started publishing ‘tracts’ of their own that provided direct ceremonial guidance. These tracts were published at a time when the Club was under the chairmanship of Arthur Duncan-Jones and they included a two-part <i>Directory of Ceremonial</i> (first published in 1921 and 1930)[32] and a <i>Servers Manual</i> (1935).[33] Duncan-Jones, who succeeded Dearmer as vicar of St Mary’s Primrose Hill and later went on to be Dean of Chichester, was considerably more antiquarian in his liturgical leanings than Dearmer and that shows.[34] The second part of the <i>Directory of Ceremonial</i>, which concerned itself with the liturgical seasons provided liturgical rubrics that were based on <i>‘practices which obtained in some English Cathedrals during the Middle Ages’</i>.[35] </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bishop Walter Frere (1863-1938)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Walter Frere (1863-1938) was another prominent early member of the Alcuin Club and went on to be its President. One of the founders, with Charles Gore, of the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, Frere was for a time its superior and was from 1923-1935 bishop of Truro.[36] In 1898 and 1901 he added to the corpus of medieval liturgical scholarship with a two-volume edition of the <i>Sarum Consuetudinary and Customary</i>, which was to provide a good deal of the rubrical background to <i>The Handbook</i>, particularly the ‘fourth’ edition.[37] Frere was also one of a number of men of his era who was responsible for the recovery of the plainchant tradition in the Church of England, based, principally on Sarum precedents. Frere’s work as a musicologist had began in 1894 when he published a facsimile of a thirteenth century <i>Sarum Gradual</i> for the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society, work that was to be followed by a publication in twenty six fascicules of the <i>Sarum Antiphonary</i> between 1901 and 1925.[38] In 1903 Dearmer and Frere collaborated to produce an ‘English Use’ altar book called <i>The English Liturgy</i>, to which Frere contributed the chant for Holy Communion, adapted from the Use of Sarum and the pointing for the lessons.[39] Frere had first put this antiquarian interest into a practical liturgical application with the publication, in 1902, of a <i>Manual of Plainsong for Divine Service</i>. This was a collaborative effort with H. B. Briggs (who had died in 1901), who was both the founder of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society[40] and one of the lay founders of the Alcuin Club. <i>The Manual of Plainsong</i>, which contained the psalms and canticles for morning and evening prayer from the Book of Common Prayer set to Sarum tones and intended for practical use both in the Community of the Resurrection and beyond. The work continued in print throughout the first half of the twentieth century and in a revised edition from 1951. [41] In the preface of the Manual, Briggs and Frere note that much of its basis was in no small part founded on the pioneering plainsong research of the Revd. Dr G. H. Palmer.[42] Palmer was the choirmaster at St Barnabas Pimlico and throughout the 1880s and 1890s he had been adapting Sarum tones to English words for practical use and some of this work was published.[43] In 1900 the Sisters of Wantage published a number of volumes of adaptations of Sarum music for the mass, including <i>Offices and Grails and Alleluyas for Sundays and Festivals</i> and in 1904 the more extensive <i>Offices or Introits for Sundays</i>.[44] In 1901 Dr Palmer was invited by Percy Dearmer to be choirmaster at St Mary’s Primrose Hill where he worked with Francis Burgess, another chant scholar.[45] </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William St John Hope</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />The last scholar credited by Dearmer was William St John Hope. Hope was principally an architectural historian, but the antiquarian study of medieval ecclesiology and liturgy were inevitable side interests.[46] In 1899 he produced the very first Alcuin Club collection <i>English Altars from Illuminated Manuscripts</i>, a series of illustrations of altars from medieval English sources, with accompanying notes.[47] Hope’s specific interest was the study of liturgical colours and in 1889 he had presented a paper on the subject to the St Paul’s Ecclesiological Society, which Wickham Legg had re-founded. Dearmer poured all of Hope’s knowledge into his section in <i>The Handbook</i> on liturgical colours and it was due to Hope’s work that Dearmer advocated the revival of unbleached linen Lenten array.[48] In 1918, in conjunction with E. G. Cuthbert Atchley who was an equal authority on the subject, Hope produced the definitive work on the subject: <i>English Liturgical Colours</i>.[49] <br /><br />Dearmer wasn’t entirely a populariser of other people’s works. He added himself to the corpus of medievalist antiquarian scholarship that fed into the ‘English Use’ movement. Most of his contributions were art historical and were intended to effect practical changes to the visual aspects of church arrangement and liturgical action. In 1903 the Alcuin Club published a reproduction of a series of sixteenth woodcuts of the mass called <i>Dat Boexken Van Der Missen</i>, with an introduction and description by Dearmer.[50] This was published, as Jagger notes, with the purely antiquarian aim in mind to: <i>‘offer a valuable visible commentary on the ceremonial used at High Mass of the period.’</i>[51] In 1910 they published a similar volume edited by Dearmer: <i>Fifty Pictures of Gothic Altars</i>, a collection of images from manuscripts and woodcuts; primary source material brought together with a more practical purpose: <i>‘for the benefit of architects and of others concerned in the arrangement and decoration of churches’</i>.[52] </span><span style="font-size: large;">From 1908 Dearmer was the editor of a series of volumes for Mowbrays under the title ‘The Arts of the Church’, to which he contributed the first volume </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The Ornaments of the Ministers</i><span style="font-size: large;">.[53] The volumes were intended to provide interesting and accurate information on liturgical art for the </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">‘average intelligent man who has not had the time to study’</i><span style="font-size: large;"> the subjects himself.[54] </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Dearmer was quite different from the scholars that surrounded him in that he excelled in the practical application of the visual principles of the ‘English Use’. Dearmer was concerned with the re-invigoration of artists in the enterprise of the church. In 1902 he wrote critically of clergy who in adorning their churches thought on <i>‘purely commercial lines’</i> and criticised the whole Church of England for failing, since the Reformation, to <i>‘call to her service the great artists and craftsmen’</i> of the age.[55] In his view art had to have a social conscience and the commercialisation of art led to vulgarity and cheapness and cheapness led, ultimately, to the production of goods in unfair conditions. In a memorable passage he betrays himself to be very much a man of his own age, demonstrating his Christian Socialist and Arts and Crafts credentials: </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>‘cheapness means the tyranny of the sweater. A modern preacher often stands in a sweated pulpit, wearing a sweated surplice over a cassock that was not produced under fair conditions, and, holding a sweated book in one hand, with the other he points to the machine-made cross at the jerry-built altar, and appeals to the sacred principles of mutual sacrifice and love.</i>’[56] </span></blockquote>
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Dearmer put his principles into direct practice at St Mary’s Primrose Hill, but he also found other means to ensure that they could be rolled out elsewhere. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dearmer in vestments made by the St Dunstan's Society</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />In 1901 he established a workroom, which traded under the name of the St Dunstan’s Society, to make vestments in fair conditions to approved, i.e. medieval patterns.[57] In 1912 he established, in conjunction with Mowbrays, the Warham Guild, which not only provided vestments but also church furnishings. The Guild had an advisory committee under Dearmer’s chairmanship, that included other prominent members of the Alcuin Club. To encourage the re-connection of artists to the church, the Warham Guild had a policy of employing young artists and architects. The architects W. H. Randoll Blacking (1889-1958) and F. E. Howard (1888-1934) started their careers in the employment of the Guild. F. E. Howard was an expert on medieval woodwork and that study informed his ecclesiastical work.[58] </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Guild also used a number of prominent young Arts and Crafts artists, including the metalworkers Harold Stabler and Charles Ashbee of the Guild of Handicraft, the sculptor Gilbert Bayes and C. M. Gere, a book illustrator and designer who had worked for William Morris at the Kelmscott Press.[59] As a consequence of the employment of a range of independent artists, a lot of the work of the Society of St Dunstan and the Warham Guild is medieval in feel but contemporary and Arts and Crafts in detail.[60] Dearmer’s practical influence was also felt through his encouragement of others, notably of Dr Francis Eeeles, who went on to be the first secretary for the Council for the Care of Churches which created in time the present diocesan advisory system.[61] </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Other men were achieving practical applications of medievalist aesthetics independently of Dearmer and the Alcuin Club group. The designer J. N. Comper (1864-1960) is particularly notable. From the early 1890s, Comper had been restoring church interiors, adding lavish furnishings and decoration based entirely on late medieval English and German models. One of the hallmarks of many of his early schemes was the inclusion of an enclosed altar surrounded by riddel posts, based on precedents taken from manuscript illustrations. He was the first person to use this arrangement since the Reformation, and Comper himself coined a name for it that stuck, calling the arrangement the ‘English altar'. It wasn't of course a peculiarly insular arrangement at all, but was found right across western Europe in the Middle Ages.[62] Micklethwaite, St John Hope and Wickham Legg had been among Comper’s early supporters and he was one of the first members of the Alcuin Club committee, although he had ceased to be a member by 1906.[63] Dearmer too was a champion of the ‘English altar’ arrangement and the Warham Guild usually adopted this style of altar by preference. Dearmer was always generous to Comper and was always careful to credit the origins of this arrangement back to him, who he considered to be the utmost authority on it. In <i>Fifty Pictures of Gothic Altars</i> Dearmer referred back to Comper’s written works, which he described as<i> ‘the best account of the treatment of the Gothic altar in art.’</i>[64] It would seem, however that Dearmer and Comper never got on. Dearmer thought Comper was a mere copiest and Comper thought Dearmer was a populariser and debaser of his ideas and found his socialism distasteful. Comper who had a strong view of his own work believed that his work was not slavish copying but <i>‘perfected late-medieval precedent’</i> and was proud that it was free of what he saw was the ‘individualism’ of the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements. In 1933 in Further Thoughts on the English Altar, he accused the work that Dearmer influenced of technicality and a lack of spiritual connection. He argued that Dearmer’s work had resulted in a <i>‘fatal effect upon architecture’</i> and had led to <i>‘commercial degradation to the level of church furnisher.’</i>[65] Anthony Symondson, who is convinced of Comper’s originality over and above all contemporary work and takes Comper's rhetoric entirely at face value, rather overstates the differences between Comper and Dearmer and creates a sense of friction that probably didn’t wholly exist. He writes, with little balance, that the <i>‘purity’</i> of the medievalism of Comper was <i>‘compromised by Dearmer, who popularised and plagiarised their ideas, removing the sting from their fervent Anglo-Catholicism, trivialised their principles and opened the door to commercialisation.’</i>[66] </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dearmer was working within a strong and vibrant scholarly community, he added to that scholarship himself both academically and practically. He did not invent what he termed the ‘English Use’, but <i>The Handbook</i> popularised the work of the scholarly community. His work, both in the <i>The Handbook</i> and through the Warham Guild, made the medievalism of the ‘English Use’ movement mainstream and he injected into it a practical approach that incorporated an ‘Arts and Crafts’ ethic. With this extensive antiquarian and scholarly base, it was inevitable that the work of Dearmer and those of the ‘English Use’ school would be parodied by its detractors. From the 1920s onwards their work was criticised, notably by those who advocated ‘western’ ceremonial, as <i>‘British Museum Religion.’</i>[67] However, what Dearmer and his associates were doing was not particularly novel. As I will argue in the second part of this article, the basing of a ceremonial system on scholarly, antiquarian research, was something that had strong precedent and was not at variance with Anglican Ritualism as a whole, but was an fundamental part of Ritualism from the very beginning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u>Notes</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">[1] For an overview of the differences see both: N. Yates, <i>Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain 1830-1910</i> (Oxford, 1999), pp. 336-339 and S. Gaselee, ‘The Aesthetic Side of the Oxford Movement’ in N. P. Williams and C. Harris (eds.) <i>Northern Catholicism Centenary Studies in the Oxford Movement and Parallel Movements</i> (London, 1933), pp. 423-445.<br />[2] This biographical note is reliant both on Dearmer, N. <i>The Life of Percy Dearmer</i> (London, 1940) and D. Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer, A Parson’s Pilgrimage</i> (Norwich, 2000) <br />[3] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 37.<br />[4] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 47.<br />[5] C. Pocknee (ed.), <i>The Parson’s Handbook Practical directions for parsons and others according to the Anglican use, as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer on the basis of the twelfth edition by Percy Dearmer, D.D.</i> (Oxford, 1965).<br />[6] P. Dearmer, <i>The Parson’s Handbook</i> (fourth edition, London, 1902), pp. 1-6.<br />[7] Dearmer, <i>The P</i><i>arson’s Handbook</i> (1902), pp. 6-7.<br />[8] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), pp. 18-20. <br />[9] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), pp. 122 and 135.<br />[10] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), p. 137.<br />[11] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), p. 36.<br />[12] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), pp. 10-11.<br />[13] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 45.<br />[14] C. Pocknee, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;">, p. ix.<br />[15] C. Dunlop, <i>What is the English Use?</i> (Alcuin Club Prayer Book Revision Pamplets 11, 1923), p. 27.<br />[16] C. Pocknee, <i>The Parson’s Handbook</i>, p. ix.<br />[17] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), p. vii.<br />[18] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), p. vi.<br />[19] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 51.<br />[20] V. Staley, <i>The Ceremonial of the English Church</i> (London, 1899). <br />[21] V. Staley, <i>The Ceremonial of the English Church </i>(London, 1911), pp. 3-34.<br />[22] V. Staley, <i>Studies in Ceremonial Essays Illustrative of English Ceremonial </i>(London, 1901)<br />[23] V. Staley (ed.) <i>Hierurgia Anglicana. Documents and Extracts Illustrative of The Ceremonial of the Anglican Church After the Reformation</i> (3 parts in 2 vols, London, 1902)<br />[24] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), p. vii.<br />[25] V. Staley (ed.), <i>Essays on Ceremonial by Various Authors </i>(London, 1904)<br />[26] M. Dudley, ‘J. Wickham Legg’ in C. Irvine (ed.) <i>They Shaped Our Worship Essays on Anglican Liturgists</i> (Alcuin Club Collections 75, 1998), p. 22.<br />[27] A. Symondson, ‘Theology, worship and the late Victorian Work’, in C. Brooks and A. Saint, <i>The Victorian Church, Architecture and Society</i> (Manchester and New York, 1995), pp. 212-213.<br />[28] M. Dudley, ‘J. Wickham Legg’ in C. Irvine (ed.) <i>They Shaped Our Worship Essays on Anglican Liturgists</i> (Alcuin Club Collections 75, 1998), p. 23.<br />[29] P. J. Jagger, <i>The Alcuin Club and its Publications 1897-1987</i> (Norwich, 1986), pp. 6-7.<br />[30] The volume was re-published in 1901 and for this essay the author has seen it in it’s 1901 version. J. T. Micklethwaite, <i>The Ornaments of the Rubric</i> (Alcuin Club Tracts 1, 1901), p. 81.<br />[31] Micklethwaite, <i>The Ornaments of the Rubric</i>. <br />[32] <i>A Directory of Ceremonial</i> (Alcuin Club Tracts 13, 1921) and <i>A Directory of Ceremonial, Part II (Seasons)</i> (Alcuin Club Tract 19, 1930).<br />[33] <i>A Server’s Manual for the Holy Communion</i> (Alcuin Club Tracts 21, 1935).<br />[34] J. Hawes, C. Kitching and B. Almond, <i>The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill</i> (London, 2002), p. 10<br />[35] <i>A Directory of Ceremonial, Part II (Seasons)</i>, p. 5.<br />[36] C. S. Phillips, <i>Walter Howard Frere Bishop of Truro</i> (London, 1948),<br />[37] Phillips, <i>Walter Howard Frere</i>, p. 206.<br />[38] Phillips, <i>Walter Howard Frere</i>, p. 212.<br />[39] N. Dearmer, <i>The Life of Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 177. P. Dearmer, W. H. Frere and S. M. Taylor, <i>The English Liturgy: being the Office for Holy Communion with additional Colects, Epistles, and Gospels for the lesser holy-days and for special occasions</i> (London, 1903). <br />[40] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 50.<br />[41] The author knows it in the revised edition of 1951, which retains Briggs’ and Frere’s original preface: J. H. Arnold, H. B. Briggs and W. H Frere (eds.) <i>A Manual of Plainsong of Divine Service</i> (London, 1951).<br />[42] Briggs and Frere, <i>A Manual of Plainsong of Divine Service </i>, p. vii.<br />[43] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, pp. 68-69.<br />[44] G. H. Palmer, <i>Offices, Grails and Alleluyas for Sundays and Festivals from the Sarum Gradale</i> (Wantage, 1900) and G. H. Palmer, <i>The Offices, or Introits for Sundays and Festivals with the musical notation from the Sarum Gradale [sic].</i> (Wantage, 1904)<br />[45] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 68.<br />[46] Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 50.<br />[47] Jagger, <i>The Alcuin Club and its Publications</i>, p. 22. <br />[48] Dearmer, <i>Parson’s Handbook</i> (1902), pp. 106-116 and 442. <br />[49] W. St John Hope and E. G. C. Atchley, <i>English Liturgical Colours</i> (London, 1918)<br />[50] P. Dearmer, <i>Dat Boexken van der Missen: ‘The Booklet of the Mass’</i> (Alcuin Club Collections 5, 1903)<br />[51] Jagger, <i>The Alcuin Club and its Publications</i>, p. 24. <br />[52] P. Dearmer, <i>Fifty Pictures of Gothic Altars</i> (Alcuin Club Collections 10, 1910), p. 7. <br />[53] P. Dearmer, <i>The Ornaments of the Ministers</i> (London, 1908)<br />[54] Dearmer, <i>The Ornaments of the Ministers</i> (London, 1908), p. vii.<br />[55] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), pp. 4-5.<br />[56] Dearmer, </span><i style="font-size: x-large;">The P</i><i style="font-size: x-large;">arson’s Handbook</i><span style="font-size: large;"> (1902), pp. 5.<br />[57] N. Dearmer, <i>The Life of Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 114. Illustrations of some of their work an be found in P. Dearmer ‘Church Vestments’ in Staley, <i>Essays on Ceremonial</i>, pp. 179-192. <br />[58] F. E. Howard and F. H. Crossley, <i>English Church Woodwork a Study of Craftsmanship During the Medieaval Period A. D. 1250-1550</i> (London, 1917)<br />[59] Hawes, Kitching and Almond, <i>The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill,</i> pp. 22 and 30-31. <br />[60] Take for example Stabler’s designs for altars, which include the contemporary use of beaten copper for riddle sconces and altar ornaments. See: P. Dearmer ‘The Altar and Its Furniture’ in Staley, <i>Essays on Ceremonial by Various Authors</i>, pp. 197 and 199. <br />[61] C. Pocknee, <i>The Parson’s Handbook</i>, p. xv.<br />[62] Comper wrote two papers on the subject: J. N. Comper, <i>Practical Considerations on the Gothic or English Altar and Certain Dependent Ornaments</i> (Edinburgh, 1893); J. N. Comper, <i>Further Thoughts on the English Altar, or Practical Considerations on the Planning of a Modern Church</i> (Cambridge, 1933) <br />[63] Comper’s name occurs as a committee member in 1901 along with Dearmer. Micklethwaite, <i>The Ornaments of the Rubric</i>, p. 81. He disappears by 1906. S. C. Lomas, <i>The Edwardian Inventories of Huntingdonshire</i> (Alcuin Club Collections 7, 1906), p. 59.<br />[64] P. Dearmer, <i>Fifty Pictures of Gothic Altars</i> (Alcuin Club Collections, 1910), p. 11.<br />[65] A. Symondson and S. Bucknall, <i>Sir Ninian Comper</i> (Reading, 2006), p. 36. <br />[66] Symondson, ‘Theology, worship and the late Victorian Work’, p. 218.<br />[67] Gray notes that the term ‘British Museum Religion’ was in fact coined by Dearmer’s friend James Adderley as a compliment not a term of derision. Gray, <i>Percy Dearmer</i>, p. 2. </span></div>
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-87978460538839672642018-05-17T15:30:00.005+01:002018-05-17T15:31:34.233+01:00Heneage chapel Hainton, Lincolnshire<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/5104672666/" title="Hainton, Lincolnshire by Vitrearum (Allan Barton), on Flickr"><img alt="Hainton, Lincolnshire" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1180/5104672666_12c89a2f37.jpg" height="333" width="500" /></a> <br />
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Hainton is one of those rare places, a manor that has been in the possession of a single family for much of its recorded the history. The church of St Mary stands in the grounds of Hainton Hall, which was and still is the home of the Heneage family. The chancel and north chapel contain an unparelleled and virtually unbroken sequence of family monuments dating from the fifteenth century.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/5104094167/" title="Hainton, Lincolnshire by Vitrearum (Allan Barton), on Flickr"><img alt="Hainton, Lincolnshire" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4112/5104094167_85f6559b9b.jpg" height="500" width="333" /></a><br />
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The earliest Heneage monument are the brasses to John Heneage (died 1435) a and his wife Alice on the chapel floor. John, who is portrayed in civilian dress, was a yeoman and it was he that managed to acquire a share of the manor of Hainton that established the family in Hainton. The family fortunes were further bolstered in the early sixteenth century when the family profitted from the acquisition of former monastic lands. It is interesting that although they benefitted from the monastic pillage of the 1530s, the family remained Recusants, resolutely devoted to the old faith. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/5104682994/" title="Hainton, Lincolnshire by Vitrearum (Allan Barton), on Flickr"><img alt="Hainton, Lincolnshire" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1258/5104682994_1a2b12bc9d.jpg" height="333" width="500" /></a><br />
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The impressive later sixteenth century monuments at the west end of the chapel, to John Heneage (died 1559) and his sons William died (1610) and George (died 1595) are evidence of this new found wealth. William's monument, showing him and his wives kneeling at prayer has a two little panels on the top showing the Fall, with Adam and Eve standing next to the Tree of Knowledge and the resurrection of Christ. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/5104090673/" title="Hainton, Lincolnshire by Vitrearum (Allan Barton), on Flickr"><img alt="Hainton, Lincolnshire" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1367/5104090673_4486b527ac.jpg" height="333" width="500" /></a><br />
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George Heneage is commemorated by a particularly lavish monument, a freestanding tomb chest with a painted alabaster effigy showing him an full armour lying on a rolled-up mat. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/5104680774/" title="Hainton, Lincolnshire by Vitrearum (Allan Barton), on Flickr"><img alt="Hainton, Lincolnshire" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1067/5104680774_6d4a4f59a7.jpg" height="500" width="333" /></a><br />
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The east end of the chapel has later monuments. One is a tablet by William Stanton commemorating grandfather, son and grandson, all called George. It is topped by a flaming urn and incorporates garlands and skulls and crossbones. Next to it is the wall monument to great grandson also called George Heneage (died 1731) by Bertucinni. His his bust set under a canopy with swags and his wives (both of good recusant families) are commemorated by busts flanking his and separate little tablets. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/5104095807/" title="Hainton, Lincolnshire by Vitrearum (Allan Barton), on Flickr"><img alt="Hainton, Lincolnshire" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1329/5104095807_c6785fbea0.jpg" height="333" width="500" /></a><br />
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With such an impressive array of monuments you almost forget about the church itself. The bottom of the tower is early Norman, but the rest of church is essentially by E J Willson who made all things new sometime between 1847 and 1848. Willson, who is buried in the churchyard, was a close friend of A W Pugin and the building is Puginian in its archaeological correctness. <br />
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For more images from Hainton, have a look in <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/sets/72157625216283830/with/5104094167/">my Flickr set</a>Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-29924340816817758682018-05-15T14:21:00.004+01:002018-05-15T14:21:58.307+01:00Landscapes and townscapes<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/28147575908/in/album-72157668819773078/" nbsp="" title="untitled (2 of 43).jpg"><img alt="untitled (2 of 43).jpg" height="348" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/956/28147575908_3626c6d64f_b.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Hillesden church in north Buckinghamshire is an impressive church, a pure, Perpendicular glass house, a coherent whole, all built in a single campaign.<br />
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We know that in 1493 the previous church was somewhat ruinous and that provides a <i>terminus post quem</i> for the structure, which appears to have been built in stages up to c.1510. For such an <i>à la mode</i> late medieval church, you would expect there to be an obvious patron. There is no precise evidence whatsoever of who the patron of this great work was, though it has been suggested that it might have been the wealthy Augustinian Abbey of Notley, who were the impropriators of the living.<br />
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In my view I would be surprised if Notley Abbey rebuilt the whole thing and would suggest that they only rebuilt the chancel, with it's delightful internal frieze of angels holding musical instruments and scrolls. <br />
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The building work appears to have been completed by c.1510 and was then glazed. There are significant remains of the original glazing surviving and some of it is still <i>in situ</i>. In the south transept are a series of narrative panels recounting episodes from the life of St Nicholas of Myra as recorded in the Golden Legend. This glass is as aesthetically cutting edge as the building itself and is of the highest quality. English made glass around this time was having something of a revival after a generation or two of declining in quality. Both Henry VII and Henry VIII in their major glazing schemes brought over continental glaziers from the Low Countries and settled them in Southwark and that injection of new skill and new ideas, transformed the quality and characteristics of English glass. The work here at Hillesden, is either by one of these continental craftsman, or was by an English craftsman who was very conversant with the latest Flemish fashions.<br />
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The east windows of the chancel and the north chapel still retain fragments of glazing, which were also by an Anglo Flemish glazier too. The main figurative glazing has gone, but what has been left behind are the tops of the lights and that's what I want to showcase for you here. Each light top has a little landscape or townscape, with hills, cliffs, trees, church towers and castle turrets and the odd Dutch stepped gable. The scenes are all painted on blue glass and highlighted with touches of yellow stain and the odd inclusion of a white turret here and there. In many cases birds swirl around the turrets and in one panel an angel carries a scroll bearing a clear line of plainsong. In their feel, they are reminiscent of the smoky landscapes produced by such masters as the Flemish manuscript miniaturist Simon Bening. Although conceived as a subsidiary part of a now lost composition and although in some cases broken, each panel is a delightful work of art in it's own right. I do hope you enjoy them.<br />
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<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-58240073614538026522018-05-10T17:05:00.001+01:002018-05-10T17:05:28.196+01:00‘Here I am, given to the worms'<br />
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/37162046591/in/photolist-YQzoya-YQzo5z-YemtXY-YBTcKe-YBTdWx-YBTdqc-YBTcQV-YQzhwk-YBTbUg-YBTbwH-YBTcwD-YBTaX6-YQzhZK-YQzggK-YQzixt-YQzgJD-YxD33W-YxCYPG-YxD1sw-YxD2k3-rvgeN-YxCZw3-rvg9R" nbsp="" title="Oddington, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Oddington, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4345/37162046591_3c8a77ad61_h.jpg" width="339" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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In the centre of the chancel at Oddington in Otmoor, in eastern Oxfordshire, is a large purbeck marble slab into which is set one of the most unusual monumental brasses from late medieval England. The brass consists of an effigy, a corpse in a tied shroud, with it's hands in the attitude of prayer. The corpse is skeletal and well through the process of putrefaction and issuing out of the body cavity, from between the ribs, leg bones and from the sockets of the eyes, are wriggling maggots or worms. Such<i> memento mori </i>were not unusual in late medieval England, both shroud brasses and transi tombs were common from the middle of the fifteenth century and survive in some quantity, but this example is particularly grisly and intense.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/37162046921/in/photolist-YQzoya-YQzo5z-YemtXY-YBTcKe-YBTdWx-YBTdqc-YBTcQV-YQzhwk-YBTcwD-YBTbUg-YBTaX6-YQzhZK-YBTbwH-YQzixt-YQzgJD-YQzggK-YxD2k3-YxD1sw-YxD33W-YxCYPG-YxCZw3-rvgeN" nbsp="" title="Oddington, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Oddington, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4378/37162046921_ccfcebf4b8_b.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Below the effigy is an inscription that identifies the persons commemorated, it asks for prayers for Master Ralph Hamsterley, a fellow of Merton College Oxford and Rector of Oddington. Issuing from the mouth of the Hamsterley's cadaverous effigy, is a scroll, a Tudor speech bubble, with the following Latin rhyme:<br />
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<i>Vermibus hic donor et sic ostendere conor<br />quod sicut hic ponor: ponitor omnis honor.</i></blockquote>
This can be translated as:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> Here I am, given to the worms, and thus I try to show<br />That as I am laid aside here so is all honour laid aside.</i></blockquote>
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Here laid before us is in brass is Hamsterley 'given to the worms'. The brass must have been erected within Hamsterley's lifetime. He died in 1518, but he actually ceased to be Rector of Oddington in 1508 and it is likely that the brass was erected before that time. As we will see, Hamsterley wasn't actually buried here. Space has been left for the inclusion of Hamsterley's date of death in the inscription, but this still remains blank, because he was buried elsewhere and ceased to have a connection with the place, nobody bothered to come and add his date of death. <br />
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So here ten years before his death, Hamsterley was clearly contemplating his own mortality and if this brass is anything to go by, seemingly thinking on the sheer futility of human vanity and honour. If you think that indicates that Hamsterley was a humble man, think again, people are always much more complex than that, aren't they? In life Master Ralph Hamsterley was a man of great ambition. Although he held a number of parochial livings, he was primarily career scholar in Oxford. At the time the Oddington monument was being laid down, with all it's self-deprecating imagery, Hamsterley was in the process of contemplating the latest move in his progression up the Tudor academic career ladder. <br />
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Born in the 1450s, he was a native of Durham, but by the late 1470s was a fellow of Merton college Oxford. He was a proctor on 1481 and served as principal of St Alban's hall, next door to Merton and since incorporated into it. He spent the next twenty years in Oxford as a fellow at Merton and in both 1507 and 1508, he came very close to being elected Warden of Merton, but was defeated and the post went to others. Not to be downhearted, he then started looking elsewhere in Oxford for a similar position. In May of 1509 he decided to give a gift, of some sort, to University College. Although we don't know precisely what the gift was, it was generous enough for the Master and fellows of University College to consider Hamsterley as a benefactor of the college and add his name to the obit roll of the college, so that his gift would be remembered for perpetuity. This gift, presumably financial, seems to have been part of calculated campaign to secure the Mastership at University College. It worked, very soon the Master of the college died and in September 1509, Hamsterley was duly elected as Master. His election was not without controversy, the college statutes stated that only fellows of the college could be elected Master and as fellow of another college, he was an outsider, and some of the fellowship resented his presence. His election was contested and he had to seek recourse to Archbishop Warham to be confirmed in the role and thereon in had trouble controlling the fellows. Nevertheless the ambitious Hamsterley remained as Master of University College, until his death in 1518.<br />
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After laying the brass at Oddington, Hamsterley began what can only be described as a campaign of a memorialisation across Oxford. The brass at Oddington was to be the first of a series of four brasses that Hamsterley would lay down in his own memory in his lifetime. The other brasses at Durham, University and Merton colleges are all now lost, but Anthony Wood the Oxford antiquarian, saw the University and Merton brasses in the 1650s and transcribed their inscriptions.<br />
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At University College, Hamsterley had a brass laid down right smack the middle of the college chapel. Wood tells us that<i> 'on a small marble stone, was the effigies of a man in a gown'</i>, below was an inscription invoking prayers for Hamsterley's soul and stating that he was fellow of Merton and Master of University college. He wasn't going to have his great benefaction of May 1509 forgotten and unusually the inscription on the brass records the obit, stating that his obit should be kept on the second feria after the feast of the Holy Trinity - forever!<br />
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The brass he laid at Merton college, his <i>alma mater</i>, was also rather unusual. It was in the south transept of Merton and was not just a memorial to Hamsterley but also commemorated a friend, colleague and rival. Wood tells that that on the same stone, there were two brass effigies of men side by side and below them a double inscription. The first portion of the inscription invoked prayers for the repose of the soul of Thomas Harper, who was Warden of Merton between 1507-1508, the man Hamsterley had lost out to in the 1507 election. The second portion of the inscription asks for prayers for Hamsterley himself, who is referred to here as Master of University college, as well as a fellow of Merton, indicating that the brass was erected after September 1509, well over a year after Harper's death. Were Harper and Hamsterley friends, or was erecting this double monument to a former Warden and rival, an attempt by Hamsterley to ingratiate himself with the Merton fellowship and further his career? Although Harper was buried in his living in Bristol and not here, when Hamsterley died he appears to have been buried underneath this brass at Merton. He was determined he would not be forgotten in his old college and he endowed a chantry priest 'Hamsterley's chaplain', to sing masses for his soul at the altar of St Catherine in the chapel at Merton. It was probably before that altar that the brass was placed.<br />
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These three brasses laid down by one man, reveal an awful lot about his personality, his piety and his ambition. Ralph Hamsterley was a man of clear contradictions, well aware of his own mortality and prepared to invest in his memorialisation well before his own demise; he was clearly a man of significant ability too, an ambitious man who was determined to make his mark and to be remembered in Oxford. <br />
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<u>Sources</u><br />
Details of the brasses in Merton and University Colleges are found in: J. Gutch (ed.), <i>The History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls in the University of Oxford: by Anthony Wood </i>(Oxford, 1886), pp. 26-27 & 62. <br />
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Sources on the life of Hamsterley and his career:<br />
G. C. Brodrick, <i>Memorials of Merton College </i>(Oxford, 1885), pp. 162 and 240.<br />
J. M. Fletcher and C. A. Upton, 'Destruction, Repair and Removal: An Oxford College Chapel during the Reformation' in <i>Oxoniensia </i>48 (1983), p. 122<br />
R. Darwall-Smith, <i>Early Records of University College, Oxford </i>(Oxford, 2015), p. xvi<br />
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-83940470176980075652018-05-02T09:00:00.000+01:002018-05-02T09:00:05.564+01:00The Fritton screen donor images. <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/39971593520/in/album-72157695550336434/" nbsp="" title="untitled (32 of 34).jpg"><img alt="untitled (32 of 34).jpg" height="640" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/963/39971593520_c2ad7e4eaf_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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On the day I came to Fritton it was already mid afternoon and I had that morning visited some Norfolk heavy-weights. I had begun the day at East Harling, before moving on to Attelborough and Wymondham and was heading now to Shelton, which I was keen to get to before I went on to Norwich. As I passed towards Shelton, I came through Fritton and as I saw the village sign and in the back of my mind I remembered that there was something significant here. I couldn't remember what it was, but decided to stop at the church anyway.<br />
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I'm glad I did, Fritton is a beautiful Norfolk round-tower church, set in a secluded churchyard away from the village it serves. When I was there in mid April the churchyard was full of daffodils. Inside there is a painted rood screen and it's the screen that I had remembered. It's not one of the better examples and is rather battered and bruised by the centuries, but is important as incorporated into its decoration are kneeling figures of the donors who paid for the screen to be decorated in the early sixteenth century. There are quite a few screens that have inscriptions referring to donors, but only two or three that have donor images incorporated into them in this way.<br />
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The donor panels on this screen are on the far left of the dado, up against the wall and are obscured by the modern pulpit. The left hand part of the dado is divided into three divisions, each in turn divided into two panels. There are two panels of donors: a man and his twelve sons and a woman and her three daughters. The inscription above the panel reads <i>'Orate pro animabus Johannes Bac...'</i> indicating that these images are of the family of a man who was perhaps called John Bacon?<br />
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The family are all fashionably dressed and were clearly people of substance in this place, John Bacon himself is clad in a fur-lined coat over his doublet. In his hands is a string of paternoster beads, rock crystal strung on a vibrant red cord. One of the sons behind him also has a set of beads. His mode of dress suggests a date of c.1510-20.<br />
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The image of Bacon's wife and daughters similarly shows them to be people of substance and devotion. Bacon's wife is also dressed in fur, over a scarlet gown and in her hands is a set of paternoster beads of red coral. Behind her daughters kneel in the attitude of the prayer, the eldest one also with beads of coral. The pedimented headdresses worn by all four, confirm a date of c.1510-20 too. <br />
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The two groups of figures are at prayer and their eyes focused on something outside their panels, presumably the images of the four Doctors of the Church in the neighbouring panels.<br />
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These four figures stand dressed in full pontificals and neatly labelled: St Augustine, St Jerome, St Gregory and St Ambrose. As we move along the screen these figures display a lovely counter-change of red-robed figure against green ground and green-robed figure against red. Above is a dark blue star-studded sky. Although the faces of Bacon and his family have been entirely spared, the faces of these four figures, the focus of their devotion, have been ruthlessly scratched away - emblematic as they were of the power of the Roman Church.<br />
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Crossing to the other side of the screen and there are only two figures painted on the dado here, the blank area of the screen may indicate the former presence of a side altar. The figures are of the Apostles St Simon and St Jude, St Simon labelled and holding his emblem a large green fish, with big red eyes. St Simon's face has been rather more half-heartedly scratched away. He is set against a red ground with a robe of red and gold tissue.<br />
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I must not forget to mention the supporting images in this fabulous late medieval scene. It is common in screens of the early sixteenth century in East Anglia, for the tracery above the panels of the screen dado to elaborately carved and inhabited with interesting subsidiary images. Above the heads of St Gregory and St Ambrose are a pair of unicorns, their heads tilted as though they are about to go into battle with one another.<br />
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Above St Augustine and St Jerome, a man with a spear sets out to do battle with a dragon. Altogether this is a delightful screen, giving a fascinating glimpse into the world of late medieval lay piety - Bacon and his family, after five hundred years, are still declaring their substance, their faith and their devotion. It was a joy to come across this treasure, as if by chance and for a time I just sat down in the church on the steps of the pulpit and drank in both the silence of this secluded church as I gazed on these rather wonderful images.<br />
<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-53543344577646580862018-04-29T13:36:00.004+01:002018-04-29T13:36:56.854+01:00The Stanton Harcourt Rood Screen <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35609232984/in/album-72157687247392506/" nbsp="" title="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4348/35609232984_e90369edd3_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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St Michael's, Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, is a treasure house, a fine cruciform church of Norman origin, containing a wonderful array of monuments and important fittings. The Early English chancel, built around 1250, is a space of breathtaking purity and beauty. It's triple lancets are divided by clusters of slender shafts, topped with stiff leaf capitals all still retaining significant traces of their medieval polychromy in rich earth colours. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36444184115/in/album-72157687247392506/" nbsp="" title="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire" height="457" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4336/36444184115_547762b8a9_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Between the thirteenth century chancel and the fourteenth century crossing tower, is the rood screen. It's not just any old, bog standard, rood screen as it's form suggests that it also dates from c.1250. It is therefore among the earliest, if not the earliest, surviving timber screen in a parish church. There are a couple of other thirteenth century screens. There's one at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/stiffleaf/8717138395/in/photolist-ci5P3j-ci5P3b-ci5KT7-ci5KSG-7vsgqm-ci5KSS-ci5GpG-ci5Ab3-ci5GoA-ci5GoC-ci5Ab1-ehiBtn-ci5Gms-ci5KSN-ehiBnB-ehiBxz-ehiBdi-ehpmto-ehpmMC-ehiB8c-ci5Gow" target="_blank">Gilston in Hertfordshire</a>, but it has been heavily restored in the nineteenth century and there is little left now that is old. There is a second one in <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pix_of_brianc/4612288963/in/photolist-82zbPv-cHhA2A-82y3MB-82ChQj-cHhheJ-yHtncN-ajgcUq-cHi6Xu-cHi1n7-dvZyK9-4Gc8wy-cHhXFh-cHhe9b-82Cmww-zBKS9d-29jyGu-82Cevd-cHi33s-7HFtjj-82yYwH-82C4tW-7TcZHP-82y5aP-82C9Bu-M5c9xt-82BXzm-82yMGg-82C5fh-82z4iB-7Th6YB-82yNyv-7TX62W-axj57E-8YhF1Q-9wwrjq-axj4Kq-6mvg5U-6MdUGQ-6u7Jvi-7xHs84-ouMT77-82CbdY-82z1V2-7HAKTR-82yWSK-82C1iL-82C3so-aMpUXe-z7QRqy-82yTs6" target="_blank">Thurcaston in Leicestershire</a>, but it too has been altered and is no longer <i>in situ - </i>in any case it's crude and is not a great work of art.<i> </i>The screen at Stanton Harcourt in contrast is not only very early, but it has been very little altered, is still in it's original position and visually is in perfect harmony with its architectural setting.<br />
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I'm quite used to seeing East Anglian screens of the later fifteenth century and what strikes me immediately with this screen is the relative height of the dado (the portion below the middle rail) to the upper openwork. The dado takes up perhaps 60% of the height of the screen. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35609227074/in/album-72157687247392506/" nbsp="" title="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4414/35609227074_496b614d6d_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35609220584/in/album-72157687247392506/" nbsp="" title="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4371/35609220584_8f6fc481d7_k.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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The openwork consists of three divisions, each containing four openings, the middle division being the doors. The openings are topped with moulded trefoils that are supported by delicate banded shafts, the shafts echo the architectural forms of the Early English chancel itself. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35609225674/in/album-72157687247392506/" nbsp="" title="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4342/35609225674_6ae276acdc_k.jpg" width="372" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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The dado of the screen was clearly updated in the later Middle Ages, with a painted decorative scheme, but all that survives of that painted decoration is a solitary image of St Etheldreda, seated on a seat with her Book of Hours in it's chemise open on her lap.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36444187255/in/album-72157687247392506/" nbsp="" title="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire" height="426" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4372/36444187255_b83cfc40da_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36444188145/in/album-72157687247392506/" nbsp="" title="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire" height="426" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4356/36444188145_da467864b0_k.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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When this screen was first installed in the middle of the thirteenth century the ceremony of the Elevation of the Host, that would become to be touchstone of late medieval parochial religion, had yet to be introduced. The high dado of this early screen would not have been much of a nuisance or an issue for another hundred years or so after it was constructed. By the end of the fifteenth century, however, it had become problematic. Here the solution was a pragmatic one and the whole of the bottom of the dado is pierced with an array of different openings or squints or different shapes and sizes, cut through to allow those kneeling before the screen an uninterrupted view of the Elevation of the Host in the chancel beyond. Many of these are crude openings and were no doubt roughly worked by someone cutting away with a knife. One of them takes the form of a Perpendicular window with panel tracery, which conveniently dates them to the fifteenth century.<br />
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<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-81572332786189284182017-10-24T18:14:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:27:15.968+00:00The Girdle and St Thomas <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/24029587328/in/photolist-ZDe2oo-ZEKks9-ZHwWyi-ZEKoMq-CBpV8N-CBq6hL-ZHwEZx-CBq2Cm-CBpY8f-YCLKjN-CBpTVN-CBpSPj-YBSWPe-ZHwpMP-YBSYKD-YBT816-YBT7EX-ZHwsMg-ZjMGA5-YBSSpn-YCLoEm-ZjMuA3-ZjMxwJ-CBptBN-YBSA22-YBSUdT-ZjMJSE-ZjMRTJ-YBSDu4-YBSHHK-ZjMvVC-YCLgKu-YBSqMk-YBSpx6-ZjMt5N-YBSn3M-83StUM-83St6v-83Vy69-83SsrB-4pPxge-mqJqD-mqJkR-mqJmY-mqJji-mqJ9Q-mqJcV-mqJ8e-mqJ4R-mqJfK" nbsp="" title="Beckley, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Beckley, Oxfordshire" height="800" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4482/24029587328_83f4b214ca_c.jpg" width="681" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div>
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This wonderful panel in a tracery light in the east window of the Church of the Assumption at Beckley church in Oxfordshire, dates from the second quarter of the 14th century. It forms a pair with another quatrefoil showing the Coronation of the Virgin (see below). The iconography is interesting, it shows the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with Our Lady being carried up to heaven by angels. She leans down and drops her girdle to a figure who kneels beside her tomb, St Thomas the doubter. The whole episode is entirely apocryphal and even Jacobus de Voragine the author of the <i>Golden Legend </i>claimed it was of dubious authority, but it's a good elaboration to the story. His text below describes the legend:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And our Lord said to the apostles: What is now your advice that I ought now to do to my mother of honour and of grace? Sire, it seemeth to us thy servants that like as thou hast vanquished the death and reignest world without end, that thou raise also the body of thy mother and set it on thy right side in perdurability. And he granted it. And then Michael the angel came and presented the soul of Mary to our Lord. And the Saviour spake and said: Arise up, haste thee, my culver or dove, tabernacle of glory, vessel of life, temple celestial, and like as thou never feltest conceiving by none atouchment, thou shalt not suffer in the sepulchre no corruption of body. And anon the soul came again to the body of Mary, and issued gloriously out of the tomb, and thus was received in the heavenly chamber, and a great company of angels with her. And S. Thomas was not there, and when he came he would not believe this. And anon the girdle with which her body was girt came to him from the air, which he received, and thereby he understood that she was assumpt into heaven. And all this heretofore is said and called apocryphum.</blockquote>
<i>The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints. As Englished by William Caxton </i>(London, 1900-09), vol. iv, p. 241.<br />
<br />
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/24029583268/in/photolist-ZEKks9-YBTpzt-YCMitY-ZHwJYp-CBpY8f-CBpTVN-CBpV8N-YCLKjN-CBq6hL-ZHwEZx-CBq2Cm-ZHwsMg-ZHwpMP-ZHwrc2-YBSYKD-YBT7EX-YBT816-CBpSPj-ZjMRTJ-YBSDu4-CBptBN-YCLgKu-YBSHHK-ZjMvVC-YCLoEm-ZjMuA3-ZjMxwJ-ZjMGA5-YBSSpn-YBSUdT-ZjMJSE-YBSA22-ZjMt5N-YBSpx6-YBSqMk-YBSn3M-83Vy69-83St6v-83StUM-4pPxge-83SsrB-mqJqD-mqJkR-mqJmY-mqJ8e-mqJ9Q-mqJ4R-mqJcV-mqJfK-mqJji" nbsp="" title="Beckley, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Beckley, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4504/24029583268_0c18261e90_c.jpg" width="572" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-89704822762951649692017-10-23T19:27:00.001+01:002017-11-02T14:27:30.185+00:00The Penn Doom, Buckinghamshire<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36028532991/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="387" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4291/36028532991_979c06c184_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;">High up in the roof space, attached to the east wall
of the nave of Holy Trinity church in Penn in Buckinghamshire, is a very rare
object indeed.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;">Painted on a series of wooden
boards, forming a Tympanum, is a vibrantly coloured Doom painting.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;">It is one of only five Doom paintings on
boards that have survived from medieval England.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 21.3333px;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36028533721/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="427" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4299/36028533721_4e8ccf1dca_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Penn Doom was discovered in 1938, in a series of
events that closely mirror the discovery of the Wenhaston Doom in Suffolk in
1892, a subject of <a href="http://www.medievalchurchart.com/2016/07/the-great-and-terrible-day-of-lord.html" target="_blank">an earlier post on this blog</a>. In the summer of 1938, extensive repairs were
being carried out at Penn church and during the course of the work some
decaying boards, whitewashed and covered in lath and plaster were found above
the chancel arch and were discarded in the churchyard. These boards were further broken up and Mr
Randall a local workman had already taken some to the tip. For some reason he decided to brush off some
of the whitewash and plaster on the boards and he instantly discovered
colour. He reported his discovery to the
vicar, who summoned the wallpaintings expert E. Clive Rouse. Rouse immediately came down to Penn, scoured
the tip for missing pieces and in the local school room he pieced together and
laid out the planks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 21.3333px; line-height: 115%;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36028537921/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="427" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4309/36028537921_f4712ce469_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He came back at a later
date to remove the whitewash and plaster and the Doom emerged for the first
time in many generations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rouse discovered, as he stripped the boards of their
lath and plaster and whitewash, that the painted Doom composition he was
uncovering was in fact a palimpsest.
What initially appeared was a painting with two layers, a later
repainting obscuring an earlier painted scheme with the same iconography. The later scheme was executed in bright
colours with a crude use of line, while the elements of the earlier scheme that
appeared from beneath the later layer, appeared to more subtle in their
execution. Both phases of the work were of the same
subject matter, the Doom, the Last Judgement, but the second phase appeared to
have simplified the iconography of the first.
In carrying out his work, Rouse
attempted to uncover in some areas the details of the first phase that had been
obliterated by the second. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 21.3333px; line-height: 115%;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35322587394/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="534" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4325/35322587394_bb3952a186_c.jpg" width="800" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Iconographically, the composition of the Penn Doom
follows a typical pattern. Christ,
bearing the marks of his wounds, sits on a rainbow at the centre of the
composition, he is judging the world. On
either side of him are angels in albs and apparelled amices, carrying
instruments of the Passion. To either
side of them, are angels sounding the last trump on golden trumpets. Ranging on either side and kneeling on a
green mound below Christ, are figures of the saints interceding for the dead: to
the left the Virgin Mary, to the right St John the Baptist and behind them two
groups of the Apostles. The green mound
they are kneeling on, is a cemetery and at the sound of the trump, figures of
shrouded men and women rise from their tombs.
Unlike the Wenhaston Doom, there is no mouth of Hell and no gates of
Heaven in this composition and we can assume that the scene on the panel was
originally completed by other paintings, probably on the walls. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36120853846/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="427" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4295/36120853846_8c32bdb74f_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the elements that Rouse uncovered from the
earlier painted scheme are a series of scrolls with blackletter text on
them. On his right the text: VENITE
BENEDICTI PATRIS MEI POSSIDETE REGNUM (Come ye blessed of my father, inherit
your kingdom) and on his left: ITE MALEDICTI IN IGNEM ETERNUM (Go ye evil-doers
into eternal fire). Both of these imply
that there was originally a representation of heaven and hell as part of the
original iconographical scheme. Below
the angels with their trumpets, is a text directed at the dead: RESURGITE
MORTUI VENITE AD JUDICUUM (Rise ye dead and come to judgement). These texts were all painted out in the later
scheme. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 21.3333px; line-height: 115%;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35322586344/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="427" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4326/35322586344_58c595b2b2_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another element painted out in the later scheme was a representation
of the Weighing of Souls and Rouse found the remnants of this appearing beneath
the green pigment of the mound below the rainbow (photo above). He carefully uncovered the outline of the head
of Mary and also of St Michael and one of the pans of the scales that Michael
was holding. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35322588254/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="427" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4325/35322588254_2f40b9e9de_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rouse, with the assistance of Professor Francis
Wormald, a leading expert on medieval manuscripts, did try and have stab at the
dating of the different phases. Wormald
suggested on the basis of comparison with manuscripts that the earlier phase of
the world dated from around c.1400. Of
the later phase, Rouse came to the conclusion, primarily on the way the figure
of Christ is treated, that the work was after 1450 and perhaps late in the 15<sup>th</sup>
century. That makes a lot of sense, the
somewhat clunky feel to it feels late 15<sup>th</sup> or early 16<sup>th</sup>
century. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 21.3333px; line-height: 115%;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/36028537921/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="427" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4309/36028537921_f4712ce469_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When the panel was conserved in 1999 the timbers of
the Tympanum were subjected to dendrochronology and this process indicated that
the timber of the panel was felled between 1414 and 1448, pushing the date of
the first phase of the painting forward some way. An analysis of the paint suggested that this
first phase was painted in an oil medium and in using a quite wide ranging and
subtle palette. The second phase was
also painted in oil, but in a more limited palette and with a predominance of
Vermillion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ruth Bubb who conducted the 1999 conservation scheme,
found evidence of a third decorative layer in addition to the two painted
layers. She saw outlines of stars scattered
over the whole surface of the painting, paying no respect to the composition
and iconography. She concludes that tin
stars, glazed with a yellow varnish, were affixed to these spaces. They were probably
pre-Reformation in date, as smoke particles from candles or incense were found
trapped inside the star shapes. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 21.3333px; line-height: 115%;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/35787005260/in/album-72157672720739496/" nbsp="" title="Penn, Buckinghamshire"><img alt="Penn, Buckinghamshire" height="800" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4311/35787005260_32b703d50a_c.jpg" width="534" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The present location of the Doom panel is unusual, it
is placed high up within the roof structure and is difficult to see, it is
difficult to see how in that position it could have been in relationship with
the great rood. In its current location
it isn’t in contact with any of the nave walls and it is difficult to see how
the iconography and composition could have been completed, unless it was close
to the nave walls. The original chancel
arch was removed in the eighteenth century and it seems likely that the
Tympanum, which once fitted into that lost chancel arch, was moved upwards at
that time to be used as a filling for the east wall of the chancel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><u>Bibliography</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">R. Bubb, ‘The Penn Doom: The re-examination and
conservation of an important medieval painting on wood’ in <i>The Conservator </i>27: 1 (2003), pp.64-80. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">E. Clive Rouse, ‘The Penn Doom’ in <i>Records of Bucks </i>17, part 2 (1962), pp.
95-104. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-14616017425992212072017-03-04T15:07:00.003+00:002017-11-02T14:28:52.465+00:00Cerecloth, pledgets and grave goods - the burial of William Lyndwood. <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In January 1852 builders were in the process of demolishing the medieval chapel royal of St Stephen in the palace of Westminster and were removing the walls of the medieval undercroft chapel. As they worked, they discovered an extraordinary burial. In a rough hewn cavity in the thickness of the rubble wall, they found an uncoffined body wrapped up tightly in cloth and looking for all the world like an Egyptian Mummy. Laid across the body diagonally was a wooden crosier or pastoral staff, indicating that the burial was probably that of a bishop. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wXiqmFZQQYEX4zH8cKixpNqdRzyrzVwRiWmsCUOH6ni5n6-nSdfHt6YLsDg1gAdwwmq615Ucmxx5PLUZJ9XkO7CrpXm1dHtP1GxcJKwYeKMGk6OfaPmll8PoV2Oe85i7e6pOW3H69-wM/s1600/684849001.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wXiqmFZQQYEX4zH8cKixpNqdRzyrzVwRiWmsCUOH6ni5n6-nSdfHt6YLsDg1gAdwwmq615Ucmxx5PLUZJ9XkO7CrpXm1dHtP1GxcJKwYeKMGk6OfaPmll8PoV2Oe85i7e6pOW3H69-wM/s640/684849001.jpg" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">© Trustees of the British Museum</span></div>
<br />Rather excited by this unusual discovery Charles Barry the architect, called in the Society of Antiquaries and on Friday the 23rd of January 1852 they sent a delegation of their members to examine the find. They brought with them G. F. Scharf, whose drawings and lithographs illustrate this post. The delegation noted that the burial of the body was unusual, it had been placed in an excavated cavity in the rubble wall and that no attempt had been made to create a vault. It's location was just a few inches below the surface of the chapel floor and directly under a stone bench, that ran round the inside of the chapel. In other respects the body's positioning was indicative of the individual's evident high status, for it was under the window in the north wall, close to the site of the undercroft chapel's altar. <br /><br />The delegation decided that they would come another day to further examine the remains, once they had been removed from the wall. <br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0cEEVg_KrKwuU0IcxZuzIdsU5klkqw_GDnWutRbeIqjLceDRz6RGOtA1fmnmX6_wwzr75dP1COXGTw2Fx6RooNeyKyIWiEc_-FzWrNtXFefVedz5jzWNzi0w4BsKZWoZjRHC7Zyxn4Cm/s1600/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0509.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0cEEVg_KrKwuU0IcxZuzIdsU5klkqw_GDnWutRbeIqjLceDRz6RGOtA1fmnmX6_wwzr75dP1COXGTw2Fx6RooNeyKyIWiEc_-FzWrNtXFefVedz5jzWNzi0w4BsKZWoZjRHC7Zyxn4Cm/s640/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0509.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On further examination it was evident that the body had been wrapped with great effort and care. Between nine and ten layers of cere-cloth dipped in wax were used to cover the body and this had solidified into a mass that had to be cut to gain access to the contents within. The trunk, head and legs were individually wrapped in layers and then the body was secured along it's length with twine, knotted in various points with a half-hitch knot. The upper arms were wrapped in with the torso, but the lower arms appear to have been left free and the delegation concluded that this was in order that the body could be positioned to hold the crosier. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOmUGsOPuf0Swn0AUcJTuH10MoCxYGIZvEUlFAFcLMNPYHA1t7klC1Jhk8a147wjxyt-ZkHCywTBLDT3cFexG9Iudf2sshgt0yJtD3L7aodafa3zfR_FhvahTzeYDHHQ14YIyAawl2O1MF/s1600/Edward+I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOmUGsOPuf0Swn0AUcJTuH10MoCxYGIZvEUlFAFcLMNPYHA1t7klC1Jhk8a147wjxyt-ZkHCywTBLDT3cFexG9Iudf2sshgt0yJtD3L7aodafa3zfR_FhvahTzeYDHHQ14YIyAawl2O1MF/s640/Edward+I.jpg" width="482" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Blake's drawing of the body of Edward I, wrapped in its cere cloth. <br />http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/pid?descId=but1.1.penink.01</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Such tight wrapping in cere-cloth was a known practice for royal burials. When the tomb of Edward I in neighbouring Westminster Abbey was opened in 1774, his body was found tightly wrapped in a cere-cloth as is shown in the image by William Blake above. The crown was placed on the wrapped head of the king and the mortuary sceptres placed on his body, much as the crozier was placed on the body we are discussing here. <br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmCet9rqU73HpfhFel0J3h2A1uEA6Nktu9Tncn8LW8MYFYiOb98x0qEkX4pYvWJFfWA_gOE9pB55ERiQuuUABM083lTctIUrAbzE6zJZPykplB42DSANOM_q5dupJkCjclq-MZpHkEk6Tq/s1600/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0511.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmCet9rqU73HpfhFel0J3h2A1uEA6Nktu9Tncn8LW8MYFYiOb98x0qEkX4pYvWJFfWA_gOE9pB55ERiQuuUABM083lTctIUrAbzE6zJZPykplB42DSANOM_q5dupJkCjclq-MZpHkEk6Tq/s640/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0511.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /><br />The delegation took particular care unwrapping the head. Under the outer layers of cere-cloth, they discovered that the head had been individually wrapped with a layer of canvas forming a kind of mask. This had been tied onto the head with twine. <br /><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2n5tX2Ee4Vn-4HlKReVx_B4NsC1kUYMU-o25DgyAk6HAGEsnMnQGcbh5zVy529fMIf07Wc0pYojAeA1K1B2O3cqD5zvCsI5gOOdsrhv4rebZ8Kw70gUn2qIAqyI78B_nY4hUxORI30sHT/s1600/lyndwood+mask.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2n5tX2Ee4Vn-4HlKReVx_B4NsC1kUYMU-o25DgyAk6HAGEsnMnQGcbh5zVy529fMIf07Wc0pYojAeA1K1B2O3cqD5zvCsI5gOOdsrhv4rebZ8Kw70gUn2qIAqyI78B_nY4hUxORI30sHT/s640/lyndwood+mask.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The death mask. </td></tr>
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<br />When this was removed the perfectly preserved, but blackened face of the individual was revealed. It was the face of an elderly man and his mouth was stuffed with a 'pledget of tow' imbued with wax, which protruded from the mouth. Scharf was able to take a death mask, which is still in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries. On the death mask you can still see clearly the indentation in the cheek where the pledget of wax had pressed into the side of the face. What the purpose of the pledget of tow was is difficult to say, it may have been thought to aid in the preservation process. <br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUhPrzx-EYreFctimrWK3L-WiOhSMwkDyJnTX5mYXjG2UmT0jMl-JkVnfC1vicYUMSpRkdvzAS9f0LiU6eSYSWlQZgDijdcpm7uc3bqWRkM63t2WSq-AdNTrGANMFmaw7uJrZAUOhTra95/s1600/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0505.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUhPrzx-EYreFctimrWK3L-WiOhSMwkDyJnTX5mYXjG2UmT0jMl-JkVnfC1vicYUMSpRkdvzAS9f0LiU6eSYSWlQZgDijdcpm7uc3bqWRkM63t2WSq-AdNTrGANMFmaw7uJrZAUOhTra95/s640/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0505.jpg" /></a><br />The cere cloth was cut away to expose the body, with the hope of finding some grave goods that might help identify the body. Unfortunately there weren't any. What they did discover was that there wasn't any evidence that a solution or dressing had been applied to embalm the body and the entrails and organs were still in place. For the most part the body had turned to grave wax or adipocere. <br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJflm6Wuishbelf0skvNdaz0ep2E1_hK7KVlT36Y37WfQOnx5Z65vB_yCK-jUqIe51I0YO2iZZ21tr1JaDzP9BzVg5CX3QA-A7cvbivuKdEeRgeUZbZaNLqf90AHwM6t3lkxCwsdinHAP4/s1600/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0507.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJflm6Wuishbelf0skvNdaz0ep2E1_hK7KVlT36Y37WfQOnx5Z65vB_yCK-jUqIe51I0YO2iZZ21tr1JaDzP9BzVg5CX3QA-A7cvbivuKdEeRgeUZbZaNLqf90AHwM6t3lkxCwsdinHAP4/s640/archaeologiaormi34sociuoft_0507.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><br /><br />The seemingly deliberate positioning of the pastoral staff was a strong indication that the individual was a bishop. The pastoral staff, which is now in the British Museum, has a carved oak head and a deal shaft. There is no evidence that it was painted or gilded and the use of such cheap materials might suggest that the pastoral staff was specifically made as a mortuary crosier. <br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99rK36KO-tjhYZxFSsZaqiJMf1YTOuTocW_QOB5W9fqn4oZ1kOgA6yI0fSgZ6baWTXQ7EYQKmdu-YcCsizuDPcLe6XNwc5iwTxKc23T_3e-Yb-tKopq67CyFQeZodRQrQee-e5NgFOSpW/s1600/11834001.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99rK36KO-tjhYZxFSsZaqiJMf1YTOuTocW_QOB5W9fqn4oZ1kOgA6yI0fSgZ6baWTXQ7EYQKmdu-YcCsizuDPcLe6XNwc5iwTxKc23T_3e-Yb-tKopq67CyFQeZodRQrQee-e5NgFOSpW/s640/11834001.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><br /><br />The decoration of the head of the pastoral staff is rather conventional. The crook is in the form of a crocketed bent branch, filled with stylised oak leaves. The carving is rather flat and a date in the middle of the fifteenth century seems likely. <br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitqzr6_KaPsTB5Xy899Wf4mpy1PGOZlql0tPlNvcjZbw8xIapEU1oM25v2NESb43-QPI8ol6HOY_h1mqdpz1ZwdKOlvKfidu52pdZB-eZ54EoCor-wnB0kzjoa3gVCZ6EWnZIOpn4jUlNQ/s1600/lyndwood2.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitqzr6_KaPsTB5Xy899Wf4mpy1PGOZlql0tPlNvcjZbw8xIapEU1oM25v2NESb43-QPI8ol6HOY_h1mqdpz1ZwdKOlvKfidu52pdZB-eZ54EoCor-wnB0kzjoa3gVCZ6EWnZIOpn4jUlNQ/s640/lyndwood2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">William Lyndwood (centre) on the brass to his parents in Linwood, Lincolnshire.</span> </div>
</span><br /><br />The burial by its location and the treatment of the body was that of a high status individual, the pastoral staff suggesting that it was the burial of a bishop, but who was he? Given the stylistic date of the pastoral they knew they were looking for someone who died in the middle of the fifteenth century. The delegation from the Society of Antiquaries came to the conclusion that this was the body of William Lyndwood, the canon lawyer and sometime bishop of St David's. The supporting evidence for this conclusion is quite compelling. </span><div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJxCxtKS_TIdH5cb2N7f7QswOEUlOxTver-PFiGxI_qlllNRDPiwEkLh-txEZTpm-6xaKBVs4h_J5AC1yj-MHwJ1iIVxN_PeS827NtgBNhV7R-BiGqhTulgMCjbq7F4r1Dy5AgrwR6NhXn/s1600/lyndwood+cons1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJxCxtKS_TIdH5cb2N7f7QswOEUlOxTver-PFiGxI_qlllNRDPiwEkLh-txEZTpm-6xaKBVs4h_J5AC1yj-MHwJ1iIVxN_PeS827NtgBNhV7R-BiGqhTulgMCjbq7F4r1Dy5AgrwR6NhXn/s640/lyndwood+cons1.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A copy of Lyndwood's Constitutions, in the library of his cathedral church in St David's. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lyndwood was the son of a wealthy Lincolnshire wool merchant and was perhaps the ablest canon lawyer of his generation and his <i>'Constitutiones Provinciales Ecclesie Anglicane</i>', a gloss on English canon law, was for many generations the seminal work. After study at Cambridge and preferred to numerous livings, Lyndwood first served in the household of the bishop of Salisbury, before joining the household of the archbishop of Canterbury, where he was Dean of the court of Arches. Coming to notice of King Henry VI, he was a trusted diplomat and in 1432 became Lord Privy Seal. In 1442 after the king petitioned the pope he was appointed bishop of St David's. Lyndwood was consecrated in St Stephen's chapel, the royal chapel, directly above the place where the body was found in 1852. He didn't visit his see and continued to serve in the royal household until his death. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilRpcAGxVCL-ivpFzLuzNxeE7pizCEXlR6DXTf6sFzRuVkR77Ke62Lmix4G_mi_2XprKrlPsN58vyXqgHWSRoQbiPXyue0Qz02InLwWJ60n84_4KF8XXSOyMOE84BLGNIOklRwtq8LG1XG/s1600/mw124213.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilRpcAGxVCL-ivpFzLuzNxeE7pizCEXlR6DXTf6sFzRuVkR77Ke62Lmix4G_mi_2XprKrlPsN58vyXqgHWSRoQbiPXyue0Qz02InLwWJ60n84_4KF8XXSOyMOE84BLGNIOklRwtq8LG1XG/s640/mw124213.jpg" width="504" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #262727; font-size: 13px; text-align: start;">NPG D24017 </span>© National Portrait Gallery, London</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Lyndwood died in 1446 and wrote a very illuminating will. He left his body:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>'to be buried in the chapel of St Stephen in Westminster, where I received the gift of consecration, in such place as may be agreed upon between the dean and canons of the said chapel and my executors and I wish that the place of my interment may be decently ornamented for at least twelve months after my decease'. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He also asked that his executors establish a perpetual chantry in St Stephen's and the royal licence for that was granted in 1454. The chantry was to be <i>'in bassa capella'</i> the lower or under chapel of the St Stephen's, for the soul of <i>'the said late bishop, whose body rests interred in the said under-chapel'</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was in that very under-chapel that the body wrapped in cere-cloth was found in 1852 and in the absence of evidence of another bishop being buried in the chapel royal in the fifteenth century, the body is likely to be Lyndwood's. As for the body, in time it was reburied in the north cloister walk of Westminster Abbey. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><u>References</u><br />The account of the discovery: 'Report of the Committee appointed by the Council of the Society of Antiquaries to investigate the circumstances attending the recent discovery of a body in St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster' in <i>Archaeologia</i> 34 (1852), pp. 406-30. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">R. H. Helmholz, ‘</span><span class="roman" style="background-color: white;"><span class="headword">Lyndwood, William</span> (<em>c.</em>1375–1446)</span><span style="background-color: white;">’, </span><i style="background-color: white;">Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</i><span style="background-color: white;">, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17264, accessed </span><span style="background-color: white;">4 March 2017]</span></span></div>
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-74599182081745690062017-03-03T18:42:00.000+00:002017-11-02T14:29:06.312+00:00South Creake Lent Array <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">During Lent in many parts of northern and western Europe, it was the custom for churches to be adorned with what has come to be known in modern liturgical parlance as 'Lent or Lenten array' and I have written extensively on the subject in a number of <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=lent+array">other articles on this blog</a>. From the beginning of Lent, the practice was that altars, reredoses and images in church, were covered completely in hangings and veils of off-white material, which deprived the worshipper of the usual colour and ornament of the church building. For want of a better phrase, these veils and hangings forced upon the people a visual fast - they were forced to do without the familiar symbolism of the church for the duration of Lent. Quite often the veils, frontals and dossals were stencilled with imagery, that referred to the image that was beneath, or the dedication of the altar - a tantalising hint of what was temporarily lost from view. The tradition of Lent array was well known to nineteenth century ecclesiologists, but it was only in the late ninteenth and early years of the twentieth century, that it came to be revived within the Anglican church, ostensibly under the influence of the Alcuin Club. Sadly very little Lenten array now survives, it has been more or less systematically replaced year by year by the ubiquitous Purple, which is a shame, as it is a tradition that has a useful symbolic purpose. Today I would like to share with you one striking example of the Use of Lenten Array from those that survive in use. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/33098799221/in/dateposted/"><img height="427" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/736/33098799221_5ffdc25805_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />The parish church of Our Lady St Mary at South Creake is in north Norfolk, close to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Mostly fourteenth and fifteenth century, it is a handsome and noble structure that was built when this part of Norfolk was prosperous. A succession of rectors in the twentieth century, adorned the church with an eclectic set of furnishings, and modern images of the saints sit amid the old stone and woodwork. The aisles, empty since the Reformation, have been topped with altars to form beautiful chapels and the whole place has an air of continuity, as though the despoliation of the sixteenth century never happened. The church has a full set of Lent Array and from the beginning of Lent each altar and all the images are covered in veils and hangings of stout linen. Some of them have been made for South Creake some have been brought in from elsewhere. <br /><br /><br /> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/33069883312/in/photostream/"><img height="225" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3912/33069883312_75f6d9fa28_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />Let's begin at the east end in the chancel, where the high altar has a Lent frontal made (probably in the 1920s or 30s) by the Warham Guild, the business Percy Dearmer established to make this sort of thing. The frontal is unbleached linen with a fringe of black and red and the motifs on it are stencilled. The stencilling is a striking design - a black lattice is formed from thorn, in allusion to the Lord's crown; this lattice encloses a series of motifs. Shields charged with Instruments of the Passion in a band, with above and below, alternating stencils of triple nails and triple drops of blood.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/33226578125/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="427" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/769/33226578125_f8129f960b_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Moving west into the nave, we come to the eastern nave altar, which is dedicated to the precious blood. Here we have a Lenten frontal that was clearly made for South Creake and more recently too. It's a bolder composition, but it takes as it's cue from some of the visual language of the high altar frontal. A blood red cross fleury is set against a ground of droplets of blood. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/32411833993/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="427" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/633/32411833993_5e9522fefd_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span><br />
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Into the south aisle and to the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Again the Lenten frontal appears to have been locally made and is not quite so successful a composition I feel. A central roundel is charged with a winged hear, pierced by a sword - a reference to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a very post-medieval devotion. In the extreme corners of the frontal are crowned MR monograms, which one cannot help feeling should be slightly larger and more centrally placed. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/32411868653/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="427" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2894/32411868653_4e905ffde0_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Crossing over to the north nave aisle and to the altar of St John the Baptist. Again a local product I think, perhaps 1930s or 40s and quite charming. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/33070053202/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="552" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3920/33070053202_788050ff68_c.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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A detailed composition, the <i>Agnus Dei </i>symbol or St John is in the centre, surrounded by eight crosses fleury. The <i>Agnus Dei </i>is a lovely piece of work, in this case painted on to the cloth, rather than stencilled. The work reminds me of the work of Enid Chadwick, the artist and illustrator, who did so much work at nearby Walsingham. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/barryslemmings/14538094445/in/photolist-o9otyv-o9FWZH-o9otyF-o99Chy-nSceL6-nSceTF-nSceGD-o9Fx2c-o9QQX3-o9otz2-nSceQe-o9FWUc-o9otyR-o9ottF-o9FWXt-o9otw6-o9Fx1R-o9FWRM-o9FwWx-o9FwWc-nSceCk-o9FwYM-o9FwYX-o9FWU2-o9FWNR-nSceTk" nbsp="" title="South Creake Church, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake Church, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3876/14538094445_08426bcf6a_c.jpg" width="563" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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South Creake does have a banner by Chadwick and though a hunch, I do wonder if this and the frontal in the Lady Chapel are by her.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/33070271342/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3945/33070271342_f206f254b1_c.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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All the images in the church and there are many, are also veiled, each with an individual linen bag to cover it. On to these is either painted directly or applied to little panels of linen, the attributes associated with each saint. These blood red emblems allow the enshrouded figures to be identified.<br />
St George has a handy cross of St George on a shield.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/32843776870/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3796/32843776870_2ac502d967_c.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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St John the Baptist has the flag of the resurrection, that matches the one held by the lamb of God on the frontal of his altar.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/33185132766/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2904/33185132766_2d6a36d1e5_c.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Our Lady has a crowned MR monogram on her veil.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/33098639211/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/694/33098639211_0c006da42d_c.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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St Margaret has her own image on hers. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/32843897650/in/album-72157679098840331/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3884/32843897650_719517ffb4_c.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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My favourite of all has to be the shrine of King Charles I, blessed Charles the Martyr. His veil has a little block and axe, the instruments of his 'martyrdom'. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/32382667154/in/album-72157679098840331/" nbsp="" title="South Creake, Norfolk"><img alt="South Creake, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/664/32382667154_b2b757847e_c.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div>
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-38865856388443098272016-12-27T19:17:00.001+00:002017-11-02T14:29:39.145+00:00A Medieval Image at Kidwelly in Carmarthenshire <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kidwelly Virgin and Child </td></tr>
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Recently I visited Kidwelly in Carmarthenshire, where in the Middle Ages the ancient parish church of St Mary, was shared by a small Benedictine priory, a cell of Sherborne. High up on a bracket to the south of the high altar, in what was once the monastic quire, is a medieval image of the Virgin and Child, backed by a piece of marble. Carved from alabaster, the Virgin Mary gazes down at us as she holds the Infant Christ on her arm, he playing with a bird. The image is somewhat weathered and mutilated, the head of the Christ Child and her right arm being lost, but despite that the quality of the work is clear. A photograph in Daven Jones' <i>History of Kidwelly</i> published in 1908, shows the image displayed in the body of the church at which point it was clearly more complete than now, with fragments of a lost lower portion displayed along with what now remains. It is difficult to get a sense of the scale of the image in its current position as it is fifteen foot above the floor, but the 1908 photograph gives a sense that the image was monumental, a little over five foot tall and that the Virgin was originally standing.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWcjiN-EBkxsCZXyQmksdbkJZObTWTVX_IIryC6_nh3nxGWGCJZYnLg61rI5UNRyWnLAAeBlkeVuhlOV5OMxhfMQQ94wqPgA1Qlm-EuPflhbCzYhcLGmEmOXoFD2mGKYv6aCcKo9jHdLM/s1600/Kidwelly1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWcjiN-EBkxsCZXyQmksdbkJZObTWTVX_IIryC6_nh3nxGWGCJZYnLg61rI5UNRyWnLAAeBlkeVuhlOV5OMxhfMQQ94wqPgA1Qlm-EuPflhbCzYhcLGmEmOXoFD2mGKYv6aCcKo9jHdLM/s1600/Kidwelly1.jpg" /></a></div>
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When the photograph was taken in 1908 the figure had only recently begun to be appreciated again. Somehow, we don't know why, it survived the iconoclasm of the Reformation, first coming to notice in the 1840s when Daven Jones tells us it was to be found occupying a niche above the south door of the church, where it had been since time immemorial. He tells us that the ladies of the parish were accustomed to curtsey to the image on entering the church. It is hard not to interpret this behaviour as folk memory of the devotion paid to the image in the Middle Ages, though in truth we do not know that this was a cultic image or where the image was originally placed. In 1846 the vicar of the parish, troubled by his parishioners devotion, removed the image from the porch and had it buried it in the churchyard, It remained there until 1875 when it was retrieved and was then placed in the vestry. The present condition of the image is no doubt a consequence of the delicate alabaster enduring thirty years in the damp Welsh soil of the churchyard. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Kidwelly image</td></tr>
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In 1922 the image was placed in its current location, twenty foot above the floor, where it is out of harms reach, but can't be appreciated as a work of art, unless you have binoculars or a zoom lens on your camera. I have the latter, so these images will allow you to appreciate it. As I'm sure the photographs demonstrate, the image though battered, is of outstanding. The swaying s-shaped posture of the image, and the deeply cut drapery, suggests a date in the later part of the fourteenth century.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/75827322@N00/4055449587/in/photolist-7bngEP-r2Nme1-r9nkHc-q5SGNw-7bneSB-7br4CW-7br32S-b2cbWx" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="The Flawford Virgin and Child"><img alt="The Flawford Virgin and Child" height="640" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/3/2486/4055449587_1339923ef2_z.jpg" width="427" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Flawford Madonna and Child </td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: start;"> The closest comparable work to it, both iconographically and stylistically, is the Madonna (illustrated above) that is now in the Nottingham Castle Museum but was found under the church floor at Flawford in Nottinghamshire in 1779. The s-shaped posture, drapery and the position of the Christ Child are very close in form to the Kidwelly Virgin and Child. The Flawford image, being more complete, gives a sense of the original appearance of the Kidwelly image. Like the Flawford Madonna, the Kidwelly Virgin and Child is almost certainly a product of the south Nottinghamshire alabaster workshops. A presence of a product of the Nottingham workshops in in the south of Wales, only serves to demonstrate the lengths medieval people went to to equip their churches and the connectedness of the British Isles in the late Middle Ages.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/29249527395/in/album-72157669830031624/" nbsp="" title="Kidwelly, Carmathenshire"><img alt="Kidwelly, Carmathenshire" height="640" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8396/29249527395_6b85b0cc43_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></span></div>
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<u>Bibliography</u></div>
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Daven Jones, D, <i>A History of Kidwelly </i>(Carmarthen, 1908), p. 72 and plate XV</div>
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Ambrose Jones, D. 'Figure of the Blessed Virgin at Kidwelly' in <i>Archaeologia Cambrensis, </i>7th series 2 (1922), p. 415. <i> </i></div>
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-48631244084459618402016-07-18T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:29:18.779+00:00over my dead "carkas", you will not dismantle my tomb. I love late medieval wills, they are so full of interesting information that tell us about contemporary attitudes towards death, burial memorialisation, about interpersonal relationships and the duty felt by people to provide for those they left behind. I'm currently doing a bit of research on gentry display and memorialisation in Derbyshire, which is taking me into the interconnected world of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century society and a lot of that depends on the evidence of wills. As I was doing this I came across the will of Thomas Babington of Dethick, a Derbyshire landowner, lawyer and member of parliament, who died in 1519. I had first come across his will about sixteen years ago when I was working on the patronage of Derbyshire's medieval stained glass. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The <a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4943082" target="_blank">tomb of Thomas and Edith Babington</a> at Ashover in Derbyshire. <br />© Copyright </span><a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/118660" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px;" title="View profile" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Michael Garlick</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;"> and licensed for </span><a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/reuse.php?id=4943082" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px;">reuse</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;"> under this </span><a about="http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/04/94/30/4943082_5c0d3500.jpg" class="nowrap" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" rel="license" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px; white-space: nowrap;" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Licence">Creative Commons Licence</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;">.</span></td></tr>
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The county of Derbyshire, particularly the northern part, was made up of enormous country parishes, covering great stretches of upland and consisting of lots of small townships. Dethick, the township where Thomas had the centre of this estates, was part of the parish of Ashover. Also in the parish of Ashover was the town of Lea, home to the equally wealthy Rolleston family. For burial purposes these major families were expected to resort to the parish church of Ashover and the eastern bays of the north and south aisles were given over to the two families for their use. The eastern bay of the north aisle was the 'Rolleston quire' and the eastern bay of the south aisle was the 'Babington quire'. As well as containing their graves, these spaces were decorated with heraldic stained glass that referred to the families and their alliances and in effect privatised the space. The 'Babington quire' was dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury and St Katherine and contained a perpetual chantry founded in 1511 by Thomas, at about the time his wife Edith Fitzherbert had died. <br />
Babington appears to have had a particular attachment to St Thomas of Canterbury, his name saint and in his will he bequeaths his soul to 'oure lady, saint John Baptist and Seint Thomas of Canterbury' that they might pray for him. Glass in the windows here and in the clerestory of the nave referred to Thomas Babington and Edith and also to their son Sir Anthony. Sadly it has all gone. <br />
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This demarcation of separate space is not to suggest that the Rollestons and the Babingtons were at loggerheads or were in competition with one another, they were not. Thomas Babington's sister Anna was married to James Rolleston of Lea and they are commemorated by a brass in the church. Towards the end of Thomas Babington's life his nephew Thomas Rolleston was in charge of the Lea estate. The demarcation of separate space was to do with status and esteem, more than competition. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The <a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4943082" target="_blank">tomb of Thomas and Edith Babington</a> at Ashover in Derbyshire.<br />© Copyright </span><a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/118660" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px;" title="View profile" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Michael Garlick</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;"> and licensed for </span><a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/reuse.php?id=4943082" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px;">reuse</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;"> under this </span><a about="http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/04/94/30/4943082_5c0d3500.jpg" class="nowrap" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" rel="license" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px; white-space: nowrap;" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Licence">Creative Commons Licence</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;">.</span></td></tr>
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As well as providing a chantry for this soul, he also erected during his own lifetime a tomb over the grave of Edith and this still remains in the Babington quire. Their tomb is a fabulous, fashionable and expensive alabaster monument, with recumbent effigies of Thomas and Edith in secular dress in the attitude of prayer. He has a gold chain of office around his neck and a large purse at his waist, a wonderfully conspicuous way his wealth and political authority. The effigies have been wonderfully recoloured to give the impression of their original appearance. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;">The <a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4943082" target="_blank">tomb of Thomas and Edith Babington</a> at Ashover in Derbyshire.<br />© Copyright </span><a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/118660" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px;" title="View profile" xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#">Michael Garlick</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;"> and licensed for </span><a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/reuse.php?id=4943082" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px;">reuse</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;"> under this </span><a about="http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/04/94/30/4943082_5c0d3500.jpg" class="nowrap" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" rel="license" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Verdana, Arial, serif; font-size: 14.4px; white-space: nowrap;" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Licence">Creative Commons Licence</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "verdana" , "arial" , serif; font-size: 14.4px;">.</span></td></tr>
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Their many children occupy the sides of the tomb chest as weepers. In form it strongly resembles the <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/3321660063/in/photolist-9d6vqg-9d9yRQ-9d6ubg-9d9wdh-9d6rmR-64AC5j-64ABTJ-64ACqG-64wnZg-64ACfL-64ADay-64wnP6-64AD2J-64ACz3-oYTdg-oYTm6-oYTBd-oYTuK-oLEDw" target="_blank">monument of his father-in-law Ralph Fitzherbert of Norbury</a>. On the west end of the monument, Thomas and Edith are shown kneeling on either side of figures of St Katherine and St Thomas of Canterbury, images that reflect Thomas' personal devotion and the dedication of the chapel. Thomas Babington was clearly in direct control of the creation of the monument.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnhawes/7631862338/in/photolist-cCpiqC-cCpik3-cCpgMs-cCpgUy-cCph1Q-cCphUY-cCphro-cCpi1C-cCphyf-cCphMq-cCpgy1" nbsp="" title="Ashover, Derbyshire"><img alt="Ashover, Derbyshire" height="427" src="https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8428/7631862338_167883c591_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Although Edith was buried below this wonderful monument, it seems that Thomas wasn't buried underneath it, in fact his extraordinary will expressly forbids it:</div>
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<i>'I will my body be buryed in my parish church of Ashover, nere by wif Edith, it it fortune me to deceas within xx. myles of the same. And ells in such place as shalbe thought by them that shalbe wt me at the tyme of my diceas; But I will not that the Tombe which I have made in the Church of Ashover be broken or hurt for my carkas, but that it be leyde nere the same, and over that place that I shall lye in, a stone with a scripture after myne executors and supervisour myndis or the more parte of them to be leyde'. </i></blockquote>
So in other words, he doesn't want the monument to be dismantled just to admit his body to a grave below it, as he is worried it would damage it, the monument was costly and he was evidently proud of it. Instead he asks to be buried close to the tomb under a flat stone with an inscription, the inscription to be devised by his executors and executors, if they can agree on it!<br />
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<u>Sources</u><br />
On the chantry and the choirs the source is: J. C. Cox, <a href="https://archive.org/details/notesonchurcheso01coxjiala">Notes on Derbyshire Churches</a>, vol. 1, p. 33 and vol. 2, p. 183. On the glazing: A. B. Barton 'The Stained glass of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire 1400-1550', unpublished PhD thesis, York, 2004, pp. 107-111. The will of Babington is published in<i> Derbyshire Archaeological Journal</i> 19, pp. 80-93. </div>
Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-90056353933456744962016-07-17T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:29:18.782+00:00Into the charnel house they go<div>
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Following on from a post about <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/intramural-burial-in-medieval-churches.html" target="_blank">burying the dead in church buildings</a> in late medieval Britain, I now offer a post about digging up the dead. As a historian I have long been perplexed by the modern notion that churchyards can be become 'full' and that we are running out of burial space for the dead. The idea that our historic churchyards with the marked graves of long-forgotten Victorians and Georgians, cannot be reused for the burial of modern people, is a bizarre notion and is at variance with the traditions and ideas of past generations, including the Victorians and Georgians who now dispossess our generation of the right to be buried in God's acre. In the past the grave was not considered to be private, alienable property that could be occupied for perpetuity, the churchyard was considered a communal space that individuals borrowed to enable the clean and efficient decomposition of their shrouded corpses. Human remains would be kept within the confines of the church and churchyard for perpetuity, but the concept that an individual grave space was yours and yours alone, was unknown. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/417963566/in/photolist-HXGZo-CWfTS-CWb9G-CWaDs-CWbmw-CWbf2-CWdho-CWcYH-CWd5m-CWaTd-CWb1o-CWaL6" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Christ Church, Gleadless"><img alt="Christ Church, Gleadless" height="424" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/168/417963566_c61e09ef5e_z.jpg?zz=1" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The leaning grave in the centre is that of my great, great grandparents. They died in the 1890s and they and their neighbours continue to block up space that would be better reused for the burial of their descendants.</td></tr>
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When I was Rector of a benefice in Norfolk, one pleasant September afternoon I went to conduct my first funeral in one if my four medieval churches. My first act as incumbent was to deal with a rather fine specific of a human jaw bone, complete with an excellent set of gnashers, which was presented to me by the churchwardens. After I had conducted the funeral in the churchyard, the jaw bone was popped back into the ground as part of new grave's infill. That was the way we operated in this church, one of my predecessors had the good sense to start to re-use part of the churchyard that had last been used in the eighteenth century. When new graves were cut the bones of the dead were quite often disturbed and were usually added to the infill of the new grave by the gravedigger to one side of the new coffin. In doing that we were to all intents and purposes following the pattern that persisted in past centuries. The defleshed bones of the long dead, made way for the freshly dead corpses of the current generation. This whole process was both pragmatic and sensible and a churchyard never came to be filled. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6r9vzYgA5jEW58fddn8LuZNezu7hbc55ioCstBKndR9xjGYkzMCKVkHMjHEdHVKdrypfAsMpoaXZ4e8pQvLcU2MfOTLIOaZXecVIJBCZeqzThJlwNBHdK2874OFadeLbSGf9BWSARfBC/s1600/The+Hague%252C+MMW%252C+10+F+17%252C+73r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6r9vzYgA5jEW58fddn8LuZNezu7hbc55ioCstBKndR9xjGYkzMCKVkHMjHEdHVKdrypfAsMpoaXZ4e8pQvLcU2MfOTLIOaZXecVIJBCZeqzThJlwNBHdK2874OFadeLbSGf9BWSARfBC/s640/The+Hague%252C+MMW%252C+10+F+17%252C+73r.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://manuscripts.kb.nl/show/manuscript/10+F+17" target="_blank">The Hague, MMW, 10 F 17, 73r. </a> from a French Book of Hours, c. 1490. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhptd7516vKfUbQfJDejBeKKEaORCwt2gFzXPKcrAzt04ejWlcFDrFQn7ecByKmbEnUSJu1arT6-hr5nVjYpEUlZsFVzAJH5OzjB7jhmqZ0XfHtY3mdtQE0eCOD-KP6uvIoej6le0DsWkGA/s1600/Morgan+m199.172ra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhptd7516vKfUbQfJDejBeKKEaORCwt2gFzXPKcrAzt04ejWlcFDrFQn7ecByKmbEnUSJu1arT6-hr5nVjYpEUlZsFVzAJH5OzjB7jhmqZ0XfHtY3mdtQE0eCOD-KP6uvIoej6le0DsWkGA/s640/Morgan+m199.172ra.jpg" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Title&SEQ=20160715083253&PID=0k60NjZcLmsNCb5cCUea2pmxn&SA=Book+of+hours+(MS+M.199)." target="_blank">Morgan Library MS M 199, f. 172r</a> From a French Book of Hours, c. 1460. </td></tr>
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In many medieval images of the burial of the dead from illuminated manuscripts you can see such a process being undertaken, though with a bit less dignity and decorum than in my former parish churchyard. In the French images I share on here of that subject matter, the gravediggers manhandle shrouded corpses into their last resting place in a shallow grave, while around the graves, lying on the ground are the skulls and bones of those accidentally exhumed in the process. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCSzr_zWTNYiu6ym70Agl2nyvk69lL-_Z2yJv7kBf-MSjPfD38cWHnkSwQb4QqCLBYn18jGf-i2fKI7TiNPEVybx58pkdLGtpeL9ZNYnVPz4OoBIMSbh9jaP1Q0Fu_5nm736JHanV6icg/s1600/Morgan+m169.099ra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCCSzr_zWTNYiu6ym70Agl2nyvk69lL-_Z2yJv7kBf-MSjPfD38cWHnkSwQb4QqCLBYn18jGf-i2fKI7TiNPEVybx58pkdLGtpeL9ZNYnVPz4OoBIMSbh9jaP1Q0Fu_5nm736JHanV6icg/s640/Morgan+m169.099ra.jpg" width="438" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Title&SEQ=20160715083134&PID=Nbb3Ajv0VxwBpGuPkM3OsH7nE&SA=Book+of+hours+(MS+M.169)." target="_blank">Morgan Library, MS M 169, f. 99r. </a> From a French Book of Hours, c. 1470</td></tr>
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Notice in the image above the little painted grave markers that mark the burial place. For both economical and for practical purposes, these were made of wood. Intended to last a generation or two at the most, they lasted just long enough for the deceased pass out of mind. Unlike the stone headstones favoured in the recent past, they were designed to decay and to be temporary. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfordshire_church_photos/2487486494/in/photolist-4MP25b-8pZpc8-hELLw-5sV46G-GvtP2j-s9cMLv-65kTZo-5ASogV-nPKqJg-oh5h1g-ox4Teo-9niypK-dNK6nx-wrmC4G-bMjvc2-EYvSDk-nvtuGy-Mpnsj-nwhjok-78gTeN-aimJFD-4s1jhW-aBk1hr-e2VLw-bCfrmc-cNYYsh-aiMur3-aipyFW-oXQYUn-5AWypd-2qE3wx-son6nN-s7kHet-sqEvoX-song89-sqD1HZ-sqvoBA-rtS4tp-s7kYSc-rtS5QT-s7kMFK-rtE2tY-s96vKW-5AWyDC-s94GXN-s94Szd-aimLwe-rtSh3H-s9cRVc-nKVqLN" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Rothwell, Bone Crypt"><img alt="Rothwell, Bone Crypt" height="427" src="https://c7.staticflickr.com/4/3176/2487486494_7557f31361_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">image copyright Martin Beek</span></td></tr>
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Rather than returning the bones to the ground as part of the grave infill, it was quite common in the later medieval period, for the bones disinterred during the digging of graves, to be added to a communal bone hole or a structure called a charnel house. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUR3Y_L6tpgGdwb97nNU6ipfy8_P_9nufXkJul9dsx3K4ZSrzpUQq-MCKBcaBTLrn1nadt6pp9hvFNs3IHl5W15Lcp11wQXaeu3zLA1JiPYsBENbRw7VMRntAC28ZaNvbnS5raGur0OrYm/s1600/Yates+Thompson+46+f.+156v+-+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUR3Y_L6tpgGdwb97nNU6ipfy8_P_9nufXkJul9dsx3K4ZSrzpUQq-MCKBcaBTLrn1nadt6pp9hvFNs3IHl5W15Lcp11wQXaeu3zLA1JiPYsBENbRw7VMRntAC28ZaNvbnS5raGur0OrYm/s640/Yates+Thompson+46+f.+156v+-+a.jpg" width="600" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=8133" target="_blank">BL MS Yates Thompson 46, f. 156v. </a> French Book of Hours, c. 1410-20. How many clergymen does it take to bury one body?</td></tr>
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The fabulous illuminated image above, is taken from an early fifteenth century French Book of Hours now in the British Library. The scene is the same as in the other manuscript images I've shared, the burial of the corpse in a shallow grave, In the background of the scene is a building with a pitched roof, this is a 'charnel' house, stacked to the rafters with the grinning skulls. A number of medieval charnel houses remain in British churches, some have their grisly contents, some don't. Some are subterranean structures, some like that in the French manuscript illustration are constructed above ground as freestanding structures. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/oxfordshire_church_photos/2487258143/in/photolist-4MP5em-4MP3KN-4MP25b-4MN3Aa-4MMRc6-6dwYWm-6q6AV4-7d1pKx-7SfsNP-82AytG-4MRTjU-4MMEQv-4MMCLZ-4MRVeS-4MRX4w-4MRYUA-4MKDW6-4MKCEv" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Bone Crypt, Rothwell, Northamptonshire"><img alt="Bone Crypt, Rothwell, Northamptonshire" height="456" src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/4/3175/2487258143_02a5a94de6_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rothwell bone hole, image copyright Martin Beek. This Northamptonshire charnel house was reorganised and the last century. The skulls have all been neatly placed on shelves and the long bones stacked in a large pile in the centre. </td></tr>
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There are two subterranean charnel houses in Britain that are known to still retain their contents. I say known, as there are no doubt others that have not been discovered or opened. The known ones are are at Hythe in Kent and Rothwell in Northamptonshire. The one at Hythe is a vaulted tunnel under the chancel. The one <a href="http://www.rothwellholytrinity.org.uk/thebuilding.htm" target="_blank">At Rothwell </a>(illustrated above) is a vaulted chamber under the south nave aisle. This charnel house contains the remains two and half thousand (2500) of Rothwell's inhabitants, mostly dating from between the thirteenth and the sixteenth century.<br />
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The current neat arrangement of the chamber with skulls on wooden shelves and bones sorted into type dates only from 1912. As the image above shows, the earlier arrangement was less ordered ans more shocking to behold. The bones were originally arranged in heaps against three walls of the chamber. Long bones in stacks, skulls on the tops of each heap. In the Middle Ages the walls of the end wall of the chamber was painted and in the nineteenth century there were still faint traces of an image of the Resurrection of Christ, wonderful fitting for a chamber devoted to those awaiting the general resurrection. </div>
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Of the many freestanding charnel house standing in churchyards, few now remain and those that do have long been emptied of their contents and turned to a different use. In south Pembrokeshire, there are a couple.</div>
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/27557548365/in/album-72157669043586072/" nbsp="" title="Carew Cheriton"><img alt="Carew Cheriton" height="427" src="https://c6.staticflickr.com/8/7689/27557548365_e4a44438ae_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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The first is at Carew Cheriton and is a fourteenth century whitewashed building to the west of the main church. It consists of an upper Chapel, over a barrel vaulted charnel chamber. I haven't been inside, but I understand there is a Piscina in the upper chamber, indicating its ecclesiastical former use. This charnel house has survived because it continued to have a purpose for many years. Following the Reformation, still no doubt with its grisly contents intact, it was used as a parish school room and continued being used as such until the twentieth century.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/27458819252/in/album-72157669043586072/" nbsp="" title="Carew Cheriton"><img alt="Carew Cheriton" height="427" src="https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7638/27458819252_2d49846cf5_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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There is a door into the lower chamber from the west end, but on north and south wall there are two curious round openings at ground level. Presumably these were primarily for ventilation, but they could also have been used for depositing human remains into the chamber without the need to enter it.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/27459006292/in/album-72157669077317661/" nbsp="" title="Angle, Pembrokeshire"><img alt="Angle, Pembrokeshire" height="427" src="https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7656/27459006292_61a5f11a62_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Down the road from Carew at Angle, is a second churchyard charnel house. This little fifteenth century,structure known as the 'Seamen's Chapel' or the chapel of St Anthony, is smaller, but similarly constructed to the Carew charnel house. The lower chamber is a vaulted charnel chamber, entered by a door in the east end.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/27485524971/in/album-72157669077317661/" nbsp="" title="Angle, Pembrokeshire"><img alt="Angle, Pembrokeshire" height="427" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7056/27485524971_a9a1ccd771_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Above is a beautiful barrel-vaulted chapel, restored in the early twentieth century with an Arts and Crafts altarpiece by Coates Carter. A plaque in the chapel records that the Chapel was founded in 1447 by Edward de Shirburn of Angle, I've not been able to find any evidence of that. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/27459006412/in/album-72157669077317661/" nbsp="" title="Angle, Pembrokeshire"><img alt="Angle, Pembrokeshire" height="427" src="https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7367/27459006412_017c170ac3_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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As at Carew the charnel chamber is ventilated by two openings in the north and south walls.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/7426739824/in/album-72157630252327618/" nbsp="" title="Tunstead, Norfolk"><img alt="Tunstead, Norfolk" height="427" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7126/7426739824_4cc23d9e3e_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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At Tunstead in Norfolk there is a raised platform at the east end of the vast fifteenth century chancel, which forms an extraordinary backdrop for the high altar. This platform, which also formed the support for the high altar reredos and was in the shadow of a monumental east window (now blocked) is raised over a narrow vaulted chamber. The chamber is entered through a small door in its western face and it has an opening on its roof protected by a metal grille. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/7426758548/in/album-72157630252327618/" nbsp="" title="Tunstead, Norfolk"><img alt="Tunstead, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7267/7426758548_bbccb71bbd_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Although this chamber is now just the repository for an old plastic swivel chair, it is almost certainly an internal charnel house, I can't see what else it could be. Some fanciful suggestions have been made like it's a repository for relics, or was built as platform for the performance of mystery plays! What hogwash, it's a charnel house. Perhaps the bones is contained were brought up to surface when the chancel was constructed? It is curious to have such a space created within the church building, but it was probably put here for practical reasons. The chancel at Tunstead goes right to boundary of the churchyard and there would have been no space for one outside the east wall of the chancel. What an extraordinary setting for the parish mass this would be. The fifteenth century parishioners of Tunstead would have witnessed the mass, with its prayers for the departed and all its supposed efficacy for the souls of the faithful, in front of the communal grave of the parish faithful. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/356833329/in/photolist-xwSeB-xwS7M-8Fec5e-82PDnG-82PCLh-82PBL5-7gpHSP-7gpFAn-7gtzrG-EMnK2-EMoFN-EMozA-xwSbs-xwShf-xwS1Z-xwS4S-wZYvx-wZYzJ-wZYVN-wZYQT" nbsp="" title="Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire"><img alt="Dorchester Abbey, Oxfordshire" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/156/356833329_3b54c4ed4b_z.jpg?zz=1" width="424" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Internal charnel houses that shape the liturgical arrangements of a church building are not unique. The extraordinary nave altar at Dorchester Abbey in Oxfordshire, with its fourteenth century painted reredos is built on the roof of a substantial charnel vault. The altar, which in the Augustinian Abbey church was the parish or 'peoples' altar, is raised up on a flight of steps built up over the remains of the dead. As the people of Dorchester worshipped, they worshipped with the physical remains of those who had passed that way before them. </div>
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-17573191968272388102016-07-16T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:30:01.884+00:00Waterbougets on a chasuble?<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4821381548/in/photolist-8m3QL5-8kZEBD-8kZEhB-8kZGXF-8kZG7F-8m3Sf9-8kZDPT-8kZDgt-8m3Rkb-8m3T61-8m3TFJ-8jjd2H-8jjciv-8jjcGz-8jj8xD-8jj9ev-8jnpHu-8jj7Kz-8jnmYY-8jj9Bg-8jj8hx-8jnpmE-8jjbS2-8jjbBV-8jj8R4-8jnpW9-8jjbiK-8jnoXo-8jnkqq-8jnmhy-8jnjff-8jj4YV-8jnjz7-8jnhXf-8jj6gX-8jnjN7-8jj6HH-8jj71D-8jj64V-8jniqW-8jnhES-8jj32P-8jngqo-8jrKgL-8jrKQS-8jrKs9-8jovdk-8jrLbw-8jowtX-8jrK19" nbsp="" title="Blyborough, Lincolnshire"><img alt="Blyborough, Lincolnshire" height="427" src="https://c5.staticflickr.com/5/4142/4821381548_745c9648c0_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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This fabulous effigy of a fifteenth century priest, is in the north chapel of Blyborough church in north-west Lincolnshire. The inscription around the base of the effigy tells us that it commemorates Sir Robert Conyng, who was rector of Blyborough between 1424 and 1434 and died on the 3rd of May 1434. We know very little of Robert Conyng's life, except in the official records of the church. We know he was presented to the living of Blyborough by the patrons the Prior and Convent of Durham on the 2nd of June 1424 <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftn1">[1]</a> At that time he was rector of Orsdall in Nottinghamshire, having acquired the living in 1418 and was also a prebendary of the Minster church at Southwell.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftn1">[2]</a> It was a fair exchange, in the 1292 Taxatio Ecclesiastica both livings were worth £20 a year.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftn1">[3]</a> £20 was a good clerical income in 1292, and unless the rectorial glebe had been mismanaged in the hundred year period since the Taxatio, in the early fifteenth century when his turn came to hold the living, Conyng would have ample money to provide himself with a monument on his eventual demise.<br />
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Conyng's monument is currently in a curious position, it is placed north south in the north chancel chapel, occupying a position that was once, I imagine, occupied by a side altar. It hasn't always been in its present position. On the 12th of September 1835, William John Monson (later the 6th Baron Monson) visited Blyborough church in Lincolnshire and described the monument and its then position:<br />
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<i>'A fine tomb of brown sand stone under the arch which divides the chancel from the north chapel on which is the figure of a priest in cope and stole with a cross down the breast, on which are four water bougets</i>'<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftn1">[4]</a></blockquote>
<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4830274529/in/album-72157624586021008/" nbsp="" title="Blyborough, Lincolnshire"><img alt="Blyborough, Lincolnshire" height="640" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/5/4095/4830274529_93de3f5346_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><br />
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So it seems that the effigy was originally in the thickness of the wall under an arch between the chancel and the north chapel. An ogee-headed arch remains in the south wall of the chapel and there is a corresponding arch in the north wall of the chancel. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4830278495/in/album-72157624586021008/" nbsp="" title="Blyborough, Lincolnshire"><img alt="Blyborough, Lincolnshire" height="640" src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/5/4077/4830278495_f47a1a299a_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><br />
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The opening is now closed up and it is likely that the tomb was removed and opening filled in 1877, when the chancel and much of the rest of the church was thoroughly restored by James Fowler of Louth. Fowler appears to have played with the floor levels at the east end of the chancel and inserted two steps for the altar to stand on. So it would appear that Conyng's fine monument, on its tomb chest, occupied a position of honour in the church building; close to the high altar at which he would have celebrated mass during his time as rector. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4820757549/in/photolist-8kZDgt-8m3Rkb-8m3T61-8m3TFJ-8jjd2H-8jjciv-8jjcGz-8jj8xD-8jj9ev-8jnpHu-8jj7Kz-8jnmYY-8jj9Bg-8jj8hx-8jnpmE-8jjbS2-8jjbBV-8jj8R4-8jnpW9-8jjbiK-8jnoXo-8jnkqq-8jnmhy-8jnjff-8jj4YV-8jnjz7-8jnhXf-8jj6gX-8jnjN7-8jj6HH-8jj71D-8jj64V-8jniqW-8jnhES-8jj32P-8jngqo-8jrKgL-8jrKQS-8jrKs9-8jovdk-8jrLbw-8jowtX-8jrK19-8jrJ8u-8jrJJ7-8jrFhC-8jota8-8jrHnU-8jrHR7-8jorQx" nbsp="" title="Blyborough, Lincolnshire"><img alt="Blyborough, Lincolnshire" height="427" src="https://c6.staticflickr.com/5/4123/4820757549_d5fae0f6dc_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Turning to look at the monument itself, let's look at it in a bit more detail. Conyng's recumbent effigy is of a tonsured priest in full mass vestments. He head is supported on a cushion by two crouching figures of angels, sadly headless. His feet rest on a dog, also headless. His vestments consist of alb with apparels, appareled amice, stole and maniple with a full, flowing chasuble. The chasuble is curious. On the front is cross-shaped orphrey and this is decorated with heraldic devices, four <i>waterbougets</i> - heraldic water buckets, or water carriers. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4820778519/in/album-72157624586021008/" nbsp="" title="Blyborough, Lincolnshire"><img alt="Blyborough, Lincolnshire" height="640" src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/5/4101/4820778519_8549a2687f_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4820776717/in/album-72157624586021008/" nbsp="" title="Blyborough, Lincolnshire"><img alt="Blyborough, Lincolnshire" height="427" src="https://c6.staticflickr.com/5/4114/4820776717_5297e22a6f_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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The tomb chest is decorated with a series of shields of arms, including the arms of England, there is also a shield which shows three <i>waterbougets</i> on a field and a second with a cross charged with four waterbougets. As my volumes of the excellent Medieval Ordinary are in my office, I will have to wait a while before I can work out whose arms they are, if I can, given that no tinctures are shown! Clearly, given the decorative <i>waterbougets</i> on the chasuble orphrey, the arms with the <i>waterbougets</i> on the tomb chest must be of some significance to Conyng himself. Was he from an armigerous family, or did he enjoy the patronage of an armigerous family that he was keen to commemorate? <br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftnref1">[1]</a> <a href="http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ead/dcd/dcdregr3.xml">http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ead/dcd/dcdregr3.xml</a><br />
[2] <a href="http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/monographs/ordsall1940/ordsall19.htm">http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/monographs/ordsall1940/ordsall19.htm</a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftnref1">[3]</a> <a href="http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/taxatio/index.html">http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/taxatio/index.html</a><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftnref1">[4]</a> J. Monson (ed), Lincolnshire Church Notes made by William John Monson, FSA 1828-1840, Lincoln Record Society 31 (1936), p. 44.<br />
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-82818687200460629762016-07-15T11:22:00.003+01:002017-11-02T14:30:20.389+00:00'Elegant economy' - the Jesus college candle-stocksThe object illustrated below is in the collection of the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=43750&partId=1&searchText=1965,0403.1&page=1" target="_blank">British Museum</a>. It is a wax candle-stock, an artificial candle. It's one of a pair and it's identically decorated fellow, is now in the possession of Jesus College Cambridge. At fifty four (54) centimetres tall, these stocks when they were first made, would have fitted onto a pair of pricket candlesticks, perhaps a pair of altar candlesticks. How did they work? Well you have to imagine a metal ring or fitting on the top of the wax stock, in which a smaller candle would have been attached. Candle stocks enabled the economic use of wax, while giving the appearance from a distance, that a larger candle was being burnt. <br />
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The stocks are elaborately decorated, bands of colour spiral around them, a barbers pole of gilding, powdered red flowers, green bands and white trailing foliage. The stocks are usually dated by most authorities to the fourteenth century, but are they? The decoration on them and the colour palette is reminiscent of the decoration on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/albums/72157630314443014" target="_blank">East Anglian rood screens</a> and would not be out of place in the later part of the fifteenth century.<br />
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This particular candle stock was bought by the British Museum in 1965 from the Kett family. It came with a family tradition attached to it that was found by George Kett during a renovation of a Norfolk church. George Kett was a skilled carpenter who had come to the notice of A.W. N, Pugin in the 1840s. Pugin used him extensively in the interior work of the Palace of Westminster. Kett would eventually go into partnership with James Ratee and establish the Cambridge firm of Rattee and Kett, who were involved in many east Anglian church restorations.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2eGcorBQv53W9jrGz7KyNEb0DtFB93HJ9L2wqB1Z8JMqUp_YRhyphenhyphen3dLvKA3oML3BgrSkXEANXDX4vDtbbFAiJCRkOO9-o0NrgP00KE0eNtBSDzqteJOtoR7V0ektaiQ4C9BKXUfcL3Kzg/s1600/cambridge-jesus-college-chapel_6707656_l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2eGcorBQv53W9jrGz7KyNEb0DtFB93HJ9L2wqB1Z8JMqUp_YRhyphenhyphen3dLvKA3oML3BgrSkXEANXDX4vDtbbFAiJCRkOO9-o0NrgP00KE0eNtBSDzqteJOtoR7V0ektaiQ4C9BKXUfcL3Kzg/s640/cambridge-jesus-college-chapel_6707656_l.jpg" width="500" /></a></div>
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The provenance of the other candle-stock now in the possession of Jesus College Cambridge, gives a much more likely origin for the pair. The Jesus College stock was given to the college in 1945 by Sir Ninian Comper. According to Comper, his stock had been found by Pugin in a recess in Jesus college chapel, during the restoration he had undertaken between 1846 and 1849. Both Kett and James Rattee are known to have worked under Pugin at Jesus College and it was there that their partnership was forged. So both Kett and Pugin were in the same place at the same time and though circumstantial evidence, it seems that Jesus college chapel is the most likely origin for both stocks. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 22.68px; text-align: left;">© Trustees of the British Museum</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 22.68px; text-align: left;">.</span></span></td></tr>
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The context of use within the chapel of Jesus college, makes sense of them. Jesus college Cambridge was founded by Bishop John Alcock of Ely in 1496, but the chapel is the former monastic church of the small Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund. Unless these items were part of the chapel stuff acquired in the fifteenth century when Alcock founded the college, it is likely that the stocks were originally used in the earlier monastic context, the use of candle-stocks makes sense in this context. From the beginning, St Radegunds was a poorly endowed priory and was beset with financial problems and a whole host of other issues. In 1277 the bell tower of the church fell down and by 1373 during an episcopal visitation, the buildings were said to be ruinous and the prioresses management ineffective. To add insult to injury in 1376 the house burnt down and in 1389 the repaired buildings were badly damaged by a storm. In the fifteenth century the house was frequently in debt. In 1459 Bishop Gray of Ely found the church in a ruinous condition and the ornaments of the church in need of repair, offering forty days indulgence if anyone helped the nuns accomplish the repairs. However, things didn't get any better, which is why John Alcock, the diocesan bishop, took the place into his own hands. In 1496 he moved the remaining two nuns elsewhere, dissolved the priory in favour of the foundation of a new Cambridge college. These candle-stocks if they were in the priory's possession, would have added a welcome splash of colour to the altar of this poorly endowed and rather bleak little convent, while enabling the already cash-strapped nuns to save on candle wax. "Elegant economy!" as they say in Cranford! </div>
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<a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=43750&partId=1&searchText=1965,0403.1&page=1">http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=43750&partId=1&searchText=1965,0403.1&page=1</a></div>
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J. Alexander and P. Binski, <i>Age of Chivalry </i>(London, 1987), pp. 243-244. </div>
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<a href="http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol2/pp218-219">http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol2/pp218-219</a></div>
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<a href="http://millroadcemetery.org.uk/george-and-sarah-kett/">http://millroadcemetery.org.uk/george-and-sarah-kett/</a></div>
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-89064819533381460112016-07-14T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:30:44.813+00:00Intramural burial in medieval churches, some thoughts <div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Intramural burial of a shrouded corpse in a medieval chapel. The tiled floor of the chapel has been lifted to enable the body to admitted to a shallow grave. <a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=96&ti=51,96&Search%5FArg=%22ms%20m%2E28%22%20ica&Search%5FCode=GKEY%5E&CNT=50&PID=emPB6RM2Jipk43KNvxKGa_LEmPg&SEQ=20160710121832&SID=1" target="_blank">MS M. 28, f.111r Morgan Library</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Intramural burial was a common practice in late medieval England,
not only for the socially elite on a county or national level, but for the
local elites too, the leading clergy, townsmen, tradesmen and householders. As England headed towards the Reformation, the
trend seemingly increased, a trend motivated by a
complex mixture of ideas. Among the pressures that led to the rise were the social pressures of fashion and prestige, but there were also more spiritual
motivations at work too. There was a sense that burial in church gave the deceased a beneficial
proximity to the holy, the closer the burial of the body to the chancel and the high altar
and to the Body of Christ reserved in the <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-hanging-pyx-some-manuscript-images.html" target="_blank">hanging pyx</a>, the better. There may also have been a sense that burial
in church, with or without a marker, gave public exposure to the burial place,
which would enable a more lasting form of memorialisation than was possible in
the anonymity of the churchyard. Both the proximity to the holy and the possibilities for memorialisation, had spiritual benefits for the soul of the deceased, trapped in the pains
of Purgatory. The fashion for intramural
burial was in earlier times discouraged by the church, however, by the late fifteenth century it seems to have been encouraged by the local church authorities. The higher fees charged for burial in church,
as opposed to the churchyard, produced a source of useful (and reliable) revenue
for the churchwardens’, that could be used to benefit the religious life of the whole community. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/2226778298/in/photolist-57g1Zi-572ohw-572mBG-57kbcm-56XbZa-57fZRV-572mdJ-56Xcit-56XaCM-572nQW-4X7QgT-57kkHL-4Xc8EA-4sjYRx-4X7Qrz-57gakr-4Nt9pK-4oLPNh-4oLPBh-4sp1ch-4sjYkZ-4soZGb-4sjRd2-4sjSgv-4soZfA-4sjSZD-4soS6G-4sjULR-4sjQUX-4sjSEt-4sjThD-4sjV3t-4sjWxr-4soSsE-4soYnG-4soVSL-4sjWdV-4soY6W-4soUb3-4sjU2a-4soTSo-4soWLL-4sjQzt-4sjP86-4sjPwt-wRpxB-wRpmo-wRpsJ-kCCTh-p49Ww/" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="My title parish - Louth, Lincolnshire"><img alt="My title parish - Louth, Lincolnshire" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2278/2226778298_5e087d2f7e_z.jpg?zz=1" width="424" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The parish church of St James Louth. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">In the absence of parish registers, early
churchwardens’ accounts give a good indication of the ubiquity of the practice
and the sliding scale of fees involved.
Take for example the Lincolnshire market town of Louth, where the
churchwardens’ accounts survive from the period 1500 to 1524. During this period the number of burials in
the church ranged from six (6) to thirty two (32) each year and in that entire quarter century, around two hundred and thirty (230) people are recorded as paying fees to be buried in graves within the church building. Of these twenty (20) are buried in the <i>'south kirke porch'</i> in front of the main
church door. I was curate at Louth for a time and walked through that porch every day and it is a tiny space about 16ft square. It was evident that they were packing them in! Burials in the church were a tidy source of
income for the churchwardens’ of Louth who would receive 6s, 8d for a burial in
the church. It was cheaper to be buried in the 'south kirke porch', it only cost you 3s and
8d for the privilege of being constantly trampled under foot.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/7724581662/in/album-72157630928702952/" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Heydon, Norfolk"><img alt="Heydon, Norfolk" height="427" src="https://c7.staticflickr.com/9/8432/7724581662_f58240acbe_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">Packing them in at Heydon in Norfolk. A whole series of medieval and early Modern graves are clustered at the east end of the nave in front of the rood screen. Close to the chancel and in full view of their neighbours, these are the burials of the social elite in Heydon, the Dynne family and their associates. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Of course there were practical consequences to such high levels of
intramural burial. The constant lifting of
the floor and relaying of tiles, stones and other pavers to admit burials, must have been disruptive.
Certain areas, in front of the rood screen, in the centre of the chancel,
in side chapels before altars, were hotspots for burial, but they were also busy
parts of the building, in constant use in the liturgy of the church. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/18731675354/in/photolist-uxppwr-vufhXe-uxpxAn-vcEKdQ-vrWDcm-uxp6ha-vuf65B-vtGWfS-vrWqDW-uxpcT6-vuAxip-vcEmgC-uxp76V-vcEvhU-vuf9R4-vuAPVH-vrWssq-vcN8Q8-vtGXpq-vuf5b2-vcN6Z4-uxpbZT-vuAB4F-vtGNko-vcMJzR-uxp3gk-vcML3a-vcEsjC-vrW9ss-vcFXcL-uxehhN-vuAiae-uxoNLK-vueGiz-vcEmBA-vuAbfx-vcMHwZ-vuAjrc-vrVUZL-uxebGj-vcMva4-vueETF-vcFNnd-vtGiLj-vrXDF5-vcFQJ7-vcMrZr-vcE8tm-vtJ9dN-uxfJtU" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Cley, Norfolk"><img alt="Cley, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c3.staticflickr.com/1/446/18731675354_980fa94c33_z.jpg" width="380" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The brass of John Symondes at Cley in Norfolk, portrayed in the shroud he was buried in in 1512. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The physical consequences of the usual
English practice of burying corpses in shrouds in shallow graves, must have
created great discomfort for the living.
The putrid smells and effervescence emanating from hundreds of
decomposing shrouded corpses, must have made some churches in busy and populous
parishes, intolerable to linger in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/6311615801/in/album-72157628050534724/" nbsp="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Salthouse, Norfolk"><img alt="Salthouse, Norfolk" height="427" src="https://c2.staticflickr.com/7/6040/6311615801_557f7e9431_z.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">The chancel floor at Salthouse in Norfolk, the series if slabs in a line at the centre of the floor are medieval and a post medieval burials with markers, but the undulations and dips of the pavement are almost certainly evidence of grave collapse after the burial of shrouded corpses. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The physical consequences of solid floors that were supported only
by soil and decomposing human remains, must have been felt for generations, as floor
levels over burials dropped, slumped and became uneven. The evidence of the effects of shrouded
intramural burial, can still be seen to day in the undulating floors of some of
our medieval churches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3313295143497097608#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> R. C. Dudding, <i>The First Churchwardens’ Book of Louth
1500-1524 </i>(Oxford, 1941)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-86169144079855883002016-07-13T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:31:05.892+00:00'the minister lifts the chasuble on his shoulder' - the adjustment of the Chasuble during the late medieval massIn 1903 Percy Dearmer edited for the Alcuin Club, a facsimile of an extraordinary early sixteenth century treatise. <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/datboexkenvande00deargoog" target="_blank">Dat Boexken Vander Missen</a> </i>or the Booklet of the Mass, is a treatise on the purpose of the Mass and of its ceremonial. Written in Old Dutch, it was said to have been written by an Observant Friar called Gherit Vander Goude (Gerard of Gouda) and the earliest surviving old Dutch edition was printed in 1506 in Antwerp by Adrian van Bergen Part of it consists of a block-book, in which the ceremonial of the mass is divided into thirty three articles, illustrated by thirty seven extraordinary woodcuts which show in great detail the different ceremonial elements of the mass. In the intense religious environment of northern Europe there was a ready market for such a book, there were old Dutch editions in 1506 and 1507, a French edition in 1528, an English edition in 1532 and a Flemish edition in 1538.<br />
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The article within <i>Dat Boexken</i> that I'm interested in drawing to your attention today, is the eighteenth article, which describes the ceremonial preparation for the consecration of the oblations of bread and wine at mass. The woodcut illustration (above) shows the Priest at the altar, holding the Host in his right hand, with his assistants the Deacon and Subdeacon kneeling on the step below. However, the caption describes other actions in addition to those that are illustrated. This is Dearmer's translation of the Old Dutch caption: </div>
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<i>'How the priest takes the Host in his hand, and the minister lifts the chasuble from his shoulder, and then the priest prepares himself to consecrate and to offer the Holy Sacrament of the Body of our Lord'. </i></blockquote>
I want to focus more closely on one bit of this text and bring to your attention this clause: '<i>the minister lifts the chasuble from his shoulder, and the prepares himself to consecrate'. </i>To start with I think Dearmer has actually mistranslated the Old Dutch here. The Old Dutch which Dearmer translates as 'from his' are the words 'op sÿn'. Dearmer has I think got this wrong, these words don't mean 'from his', but rather <u>'on his'.</u> So the bit of the caption that I want to focus on is this<br />
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'<i>the minister lifts the chasuble <b>on his</b> shoulder, and prepares himself to consecrate'. </i></blockquote>
What appears to be described is a common, but rather obscure bit of ceremonial, that is missed out of the rubrics of the Missals. Incidentally those acquainted with the rubrics of medieval Missals will not be surprised at such an omission, the rubrics are sparse. In the later Middle Ages the chasuble worn by the priest was still in its full form. In order for the priest to be prepared to perform the manual acts and also the elevation of the Host and chalice, which necessitates the raising of the arms, there is a brief pause to ensure that the chasuble is not in the way. <i>Dat Boexken</i> suggests that the sides of the chasuble were folded neatly over the shoulders of the Priest. The fact that the word 'minister' is used to describe the person doing this, while the word priest is used to describe the priest's actions, suggests that the Deacon or Subdeacon undertook this role. In fact it's difficult to see how the Priest could perform this himself without some assistance.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/429114092/in/album-72157600013063110/" nbsp="" title="Elevation of chalice"><img alt="Elevation of chalice" height="471" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/177/429114092_50bb0eeaa0_z.jpg?zz=1" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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If you don't believe me that the action of folding the chasuble over the shoulders is meant here, look at the illustrations for article twenty of <i>Dat Boexken, </i>the illustration of the the elevation of the chalice. It is evident as the priest elevates the chalice, that the sides of the chasuble have indeed been folded over the shoulders to free the arms.<br />
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I said earlier that this ritual recorded in <i>Dat Boexken </i>was a common piece of ritual, but how do I know that? Well there is ample late medieval visual evidence to prove that the this little bit of ceremonial is not just some obscure bit of Dutch liturgy, but was common practice in many parts of Northern Europe.<br />
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From a French context we have this illustration of the Mass of St Gregory from the early sixteenth century <a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Title&SEQ=20160709151745&PID=Xm9Lq_HexrhoNEf_RsuHu9KdeDx&SA=Book+of+hours+(Ms.+Henry+VIII)" target="_blank">Hours of Henry VIII</a> in the Morgan Library in New York. The saint is wearing a gold chasuble, which has been turned over his shoulders to reveal a green lining. </div>
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Then from a Netherlandish context, there is the superlative image of the Mass of St Giles, which shows St Giles celebrating mass in St Denys in Paris. His chasuble, captured in such great detail, appears to be of black velvet, but the luscious pink lining of the vestment is revealed, because the material of the chasuble is folded over the shoulders. The folding shown here cannot be the consequence of the priest getting himself caught up wrongly in the vestment, but only through deliberate placement. </div>
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/6034524395/in/photolist-acikcw-acijkY-acfrdk-acfuyx-acimLo-acfvS4-acftdT-acimwh-acikKf-acfsGZ-acfrHZ-acigpq-acftpt-acigP9-acftEr-acijLq-acijAG-acfsye-acfv7e-acihJw" nbsp="" title="Gresham, Norfolk"><img alt="Gresham, Norfolk" height="640" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/7/6123/6034524395_c5771c26f5_z.jpg" width="592" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div>
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Then from an English context we have some of the delightful images of the mass from Seven Sacrament fonts. The font at Gresham in Norfolk, seems to show the celebrant, a bishop, with a folded chasuble. </div>
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/11727976536/in/photolist-iSmWQ1-iSmWQm-JgJJDT-38DLPQ-38GEmA-38GEmu-cUsyeE-38z6Q4-DPh7g1-8pt9oN-3e1ZqG-38DLPh-3e287s-5qtg6t-3e2875-38DLPs-4o1DCV-3dWjdF-5qxh65-3e286S-mEUzy-3e287j-9HDCNv-3dWjdr-3e2877-38z6Rx-HRMsbR-JhZ9q2-Ja9uFn-38z6PV-HKrbp2-3dWq74-HEhoyo-JAS4E1-J7RCGE-HQm5GS-JAS48j-HWchx6-HZBmqA-3e1Zqu-4o1DCc-5qt3GP-4o1DDP-5qsZe4-3e1ZqC-38z6Rc-3dWq6M-3dWq6V-mEUxB-3e1Zqy" target="_blank">The font at Cley</a> is a very clear example, with arms of the priest free as he elevates the host. The best is perhaps the font at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkodyssey/7908492778/in/album-72157631358997080/" target="_blank">Westhall in Suffolk, </a>which still retains traces of colour and where the red lining of the chasuble is revealed.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/310302222/in/photolist-4Qaqru-4sum3d-2NMAsy-2NMCVU-2NHepD-tqo1p-2NHdBF-2NHiZR-2NMF2Q-2NMFSU-2NMDRQ-2v3K3F-NNwVh-NS6Av-NNZu8-NNZnH-NNx8s-NNZ8M-DVojU-DVkYF-BeiEj-tqo85-tqo5F-tqo3j-tqnVg-s6cix-s6cgB-nx1y6-kQ3eX-idc2Q-kCCk8-kCCyY-kCCFE-kCCQ9-kCCw2-kCCCc-kCCtg-kCCp3-kCCL6-4Mhxt7-oco41-ocnC3-ockDP-ockCC-onHsd-ocktk-oiJjx-onHw3-onHzC-ocnZa" nbsp="" title="All Saints, North Street, York - Sung Mass, Elevation of the Host"><img alt="All Saints, North Street, York - Sung Mass, Elevation of the Host" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/102/310302222_9743ef8433_z.jpg?zz=1" width="425" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script></div>
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How long this informal ceremony persisted is quite unclear. The chasuble of course evolved on the continent from the full medieval form into the Latin form (image above), which in effect is a form of the chasuble with all the excess material that was once folded over the shoulder, permanently removed. That change would have rendered the action obsolete. </div>
<i><br /></i>Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-34050830747379019152016-07-12T07:30:00.001+01:002017-11-02T14:31:05.868+00:00The Wymondham BurseIt was excellent to see <a href="http://www.wymondhamabbey.org.uk/visiting/parish-archives/parish-treasures/" target="_blank">an article </a>this month on the website of Wymondham Abbey about this extraordinary object within their collection.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOQiqwAco11TK8z7WhUP9sdPfqud5tzPAJRCeBQLu7bwLPruPFjK4js0mD77zgSiqEPuk2ommY4eqkuskLRfe-NUvp3h_Sez96q8bolATPnUNxx_RBev1ipBmkaIWljkFntzq5Dk7TUzDe/s1600/Wymondham+burse1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOQiqwAco11TK8z7WhUP9sdPfqud5tzPAJRCeBQLu7bwLPruPFjK4js0mD77zgSiqEPuk2ommY4eqkuskLRfe-NUvp3h_Sez96q8bolATPnUNxx_RBev1ipBmkaIWljkFntzq5Dk7TUzDe/s1600/Wymondham+burse1.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">This is a medieval burse, or Corporas case. The burse is a piece of liturgical equipment, consisting of two hinged pieces of stiffened fabric. They were used in the Middle Ages to store and transport a 'pair' of linens corporals, the two cloths used at the altar during the Mass. One of these corporals was placed under the chalice and on it the body of Christ was consecrated, hence the name; the other was folded to cover the top of the chalice. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcm_N_mZeQcS7R4EH48mHEr5JXnyhXGUM20jZdK9pi0cGSABJLDw0ieTFG8vJFV7eRAtcTdW_3ySXg2ciRAXLKxLpp50KTSR54RzYBwDniiyJ6IaF5cbwa50NOIoleQyShWYNn8746TsE1/s1600/Wymondham+burse2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcm_N_mZeQcS7R4EH48mHEr5JXnyhXGUM20jZdK9pi0cGSABJLDw0ieTFG8vJFV7eRAtcTdW_3ySXg2ciRAXLKxLpp50KTSR54RzYBwDniiyJ6IaF5cbwa50NOIoleQyShWYNn8746TsE1/s1600/Wymondham+burse2.jpg" /></a></div>
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The Wymondham burse is a rare survival. Worked in silk thread, it is primarily decorated with a 'tree of life' pattern and this dates the piece to the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century. This is accompanied by a series of shields of arms, which have been identified as those of the Warrenne, Say, Molintune, Gurney and Leuknor family. A group of families all connected in turn to the powerful Bigod family, Earls of Norfolk. The piece on the abbey website suggests that the Burse might have been an apprentice piece, I doubt it. The work is of the highest quality and its continued use and repair over a two hundred year period suggests that it was part of a important and treasured set of vestments. The burse may originally have been part of a set of vestments given by the Bigods to the important Benedictine Abbey of Wymondham. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi316iEOBS1OAa5KSZtPE7BTQ-AiOilRwVQbtvjvPSAtc3ywS0dau6BqfJ6NtJJEsWsNZ7h1IkBniv5ox8xBugmExHkTgqFRskNxu0_gsNWhobdVRjIw4UIpPP5OjO9iMo-Y4Me4dnDujkJ/s1600/Wymondham+burse+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi316iEOBS1OAa5KSZtPE7BTQ-AiOilRwVQbtvjvPSAtc3ywS0dau6BqfJ6NtJJEsWsNZ7h1IkBniv5ox8xBugmExHkTgqFRskNxu0_gsNWhobdVRjIw4UIpPP5OjO9iMo-Y4Me4dnDujkJ/s1600/Wymondham+burse+3.jpg" /></a></div>
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The vegetable dyes used in the silkwork have faded over time and it is suggested that the reconstruction above is close to the original colour scheme. How this object survived the ravages of the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Reformation is anybody's guess. One suggestion is that it fell to the bottom of a chest full of books and documents, whatever the the truth, it surfaced again in the eighteenth century. </div>
<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-475620683690151632016-07-11T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:31:05.877+00:00The hanging pyx - some manuscript images<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The following article is a follow on from my previous articles on the hanging pyx and sacramental reservation in late medieval Europe. You will find the <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/hanging-pyx.html" target="_blank">first of these articles, which introduces the concept here</a>. There are a number of secondary articles on the Blog about the mechanism of the <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-dennington-hanging-pyx.html" target="_blank">hanging pyx</a>, on a <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-swinburne-pyx.html" target="_blank">silver medieval pyx</a>, and a medieval <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-bristol-pyx-case" target="_blank">pyx case or container</a>. </div>
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Medieval images of the hanging pyx from an English context are extremely rare indeed. The one I know, showing the high altar at Westminster Abbey, I have shared on my <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/hanging-pyx.html" target="_blank">earlier post</a> on the subject. Images of the hanging pyx from illuminated manuscripts produced on the near continent, in France and the Low Countries, are very common and here is a series taken from fifteenth and early sixteenth century manuscripts. Some are <a href="http://ica.themorgan.org/list" target="_blank">manuscripts in the Morgan Library</a> in New York, some from the <a href="http://manuscripts.kb.nl/" target="_blank">Royal Library in the Hague</a>. The prevalence in illuminated manuscripts of images of altars with hanging pyxes suspended above them and the total absence of images of tabernacles on altars, is fairly clear evidence that this arrangement for the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament was normative in Northern Europe. It is interesting to note that in the majority of such illuminations I have seen, the tent-like canopy that is suspended over the pyx in its case, is made of green cloth. I wonder does this represent contemporary useage, or is it just an artistic conceit? </div>
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<img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvROmKdqUz5C7muPPZMzcpb-T_znQmPRojCtgL2cGK5wlPl-8ChOG3owJDxm1ljqiEsJMH7jB7Er12_Hzyor844Hkawb2tWeDBxaPOzQODS1Wj9zjvizXg1vVIE_sWufnmOBAH9B3jI_jS/s640/g1.I.149ra-morgan.jpg" width="380" /></div>
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Morgan <a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBRecID=76958&v1=1&SEQ=20160709082104&PID=zwE7ZSECryNBknnfsX2TKNseJ" target="_blank">MS G.1, f. 149r</a> is illustration from Book of Hours, illuminated in the Loire Valley Use of Paris and dates from the mid 1470s. This illumination is at the beginning of the text of the 'Placebo' the office of Vespers for the dead. We see the office being sung in the presence of the deceased, who is in a coffin under the pall in the centre of the quire. Beyond a quire screen we see an altar raised on a wooden footpace, hung with blue hangings, frontal and riddel curtains. <b>Above the altar the golden pyx case can be clearly seen hanging underneath a green cloth pyx canopy. </b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuFz5O9leeIqcqZeeaD0pPKIfjIr8jXUZwCnHnGZFcmp9l60_0XhTBWNLQ6GWrEypBmvk7CtTX0HkwABeBOcWG5yMpBWt3hpKgG2vjTc-Kpz-n4Rad8sLqqriBhHzxIbJSuBOFaANeFSb/s1600/m8.189ra-morgan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeuFz5O9leeIqcqZeeaD0pPKIfjIr8jXUZwCnHnGZFcmp9l60_0XhTBWNLQ6GWrEypBmvk7CtTX0HkwABeBOcWG5yMpBWt3hpKgG2vjTc-Kpz-n4Rad8sLqqriBhHzxIbJSuBOFaANeFSb/s640/m8.189ra-morgan.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Morgan <a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=1&hd=1,1&CallBrowse=1&SEQ=20160709112325&PID=R9jE6WWkEQ53UiCUF4BA90YpQ&SID=2" target="_blank">MS M. 8, f. 189r.</a>, this a page from a Southern French Breviary dating from c. 1510. A book used by a secular cleric, it shows the singing of a choir office. The Gothic quire stalls are full of the sort of secular ecclesiastics who would have used the book, all dressed in surplices. Two rulers of the choir sing from a central lectern and there are lecterns in front of the stalls containing large antiphonals. The altar is surrounded by riddel posts topped with angels with purple curtains. <b>The golden pyx, or its case, appears in the middle of its canopy, which is purple to match the altar hangings. </b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJa9U4HVDvXcxg2EgL7FQtQxVtWGwExtkYw_I8lWM24lJHBWvT8gVfM6AC7cFHzWbOvr5QciCroDPlIpGjk-zGThSpPG54bVui2qE3utvZlZ479Eu9C1G9uaQowrglVnmM551ZPlkf3wdd/s1600/m104.112ra-morgan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJa9U4HVDvXcxg2EgL7FQtQxVtWGwExtkYw_I8lWM24lJHBWvT8gVfM6AC7cFHzWbOvr5QciCroDPlIpGjk-zGThSpPG54bVui2qE3utvZlZ479Eu9C1G9uaQowrglVnmM551ZPlkf3wdd/s640/m104.112ra-morgan.jpg" width="454" /></a></div>
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Morgan <a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=11&ti=1,11&Search%5FArg=%22ms%20m%2E104%22%20ica&Search%5FCode=GKEY%5E&CNT=50&PID=0hhT2Kcpyid6rMbNUCFRM7OmZ&SEQ=20160709113245&SID=1" target="_blank">MS M. 104, 112r,</a> is a page from Book of Hours produced in the 1450s or 60s in Mons in Belgium. Again this is the opening of the 'Placebo' Vespers of the Office of the Dead. We see a Priest in a red cope assisted by a server, reading the Office over the palled coffin. There are three mourners in black sat in the quire stalls. Here the altar is less distinct, with a red frontal and a gold reredos. <b>The pyx. all you see of the pyx is the green cloth canopy, there is no sign of the pyx or its case. </b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KdaGJ7RI6S0ailysRtFWMsjOhgzMQMbkoU8H7xtmjL0k6G8INJzntA3I5SY6VJnrw7JMO8LxtDKWdAbVL67-G3Y-vJp05kTQFGFR2rHqF2ahfPaENcEUsbsWFsxhrlFDF7bkVZKtynSf/s1600/m157.129va-morgan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9KdaGJ7RI6S0ailysRtFWMsjOhgzMQMbkoU8H7xtmjL0k6G8INJzntA3I5SY6VJnrw7JMO8LxtDKWdAbVL67-G3Y-vJp05kTQFGFR2rHqF2ahfPaENcEUsbsWFsxhrlFDF7bkVZKtynSf/s640/m157.129va-morgan.jpg" width="392" /></a></div>
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Morgan <a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=28&ti=1,28&Search%5FArg=%22ms%20m%2E157%22%20ica&Search%5FCode=GKEY%5E&CNT=50&PID=xtIhHJb5HyKAps_HIApQUueH9&SEQ=20160709113803&SID=1" target="_blank">MS M. 157, 129v</a> is a page from Book of Hours illuminated in northern France, perhaps in Britanny. Again we have part of the Placebo, Vespers for the Dead. The text 'Dilexi quoniam exaudiat', is the opening of psalm 114. Although this accompanies the text of the office, this interesting and detailed illustration is of a Requiem mass. The mass is taking place in a vaulted church and the coffin is covered in a pall and surrounded by a wooden hearse. The priest in a murrey coloured chasuble elevates the host, while the rulers of the choir sing the propers from a Gradual on a lectern. The altar has riddel posts topped with candles standing round it and dark blue curtains. <b>The pyx is shown in considerable detail. It is suspended by a cord from the vault and is a gold vessel under a green cloth canopy with a red lining. On the top of the cloth canopy is a golden ball, which may be a pulley or counterweight device. The suspended pyx rather than being simply a case, is a vessel with a bowl and a foot. </b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRt4cUMqVYB_RsL6g_5UyqQ3NOquSlPZYZRVYLoZbCd2awDFUZk11ZFeUCO6ms0P7lTHbXcpHZ0YAfGGXqpVNapGHDKpjVZ6koxOASHFGnJFqTLfOGNYzzBv0AvGKxjJPmNuZSZp9kdZM9/s1600/m293.120ra-morgan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRt4cUMqVYB_RsL6g_5UyqQ3NOquSlPZYZRVYLoZbCd2awDFUZk11ZFeUCO6ms0P7lTHbXcpHZ0YAfGGXqpVNapGHDKpjVZ6koxOASHFGnJFqTLfOGNYzzBv0AvGKxjJPmNuZSZp9kdZM9/s640/m293.120ra-morgan.jpg" width="382" /></a></div>
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Morgan <a href="http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=17&ti=1,17&Search%5FArg=%22ms%20m%2E293%22%20ica&Search%5FCode=GKEY%5E&CNT=50&PID=4FDXYsmDcu1ipQFaRNwZMInYG&SEQ=20160709123043&SID=1" target="_blank">MS M. 293, f. 120r</a> is a page from a Book of Hours illuminated in Besancon in around 1430. This image like the last, is of a funeral mass and accompanies the opening of the Placebo. The deceased is in a palled coffin in the centre of the church, surrounded by a fabulous wooden framed hearse covered in candles. A priest stands at the altar in a blue chasuble with his hands in the orans position, he is praying. The altar has a golden altarpiece with an image of the Crucifixion on it, two lit candles and a chalice. <b>Here only the pyx canopy is shown, a gold canopy with a multi-coloured fringe. No pyx itself is shown, but the suspension is shown, the canopy is suspended from the centre of the chancel vault and once again there is a golden ball, a counterweight mechanism or pulley. </b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLG7TTJ1yTxFjoJjsRswOf2KO4wbPAYhT_zxxE5suzwzVoeyCs9-s1WgnfmQkK8J20scF61SeGaxomMiJ7oMYFx6djATGLa0zJ0KjtKcM9-IbxfLmoGIbWuWJZF2sLC5Yy2mpkn-WYJlPY/s1600/m632.100v-morgan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLG7TTJ1yTxFjoJjsRswOf2KO4wbPAYhT_zxxE5suzwzVoeyCs9-s1WgnfmQkK8J20scF61SeGaxomMiJ7oMYFx6djATGLa0zJ0KjtKcM9-IbxfLmoGIbWuWJZF2sLC5Yy2mpkn-WYJlPY/s640/m632.100v-morgan.jpg" width="394" /></a></div>
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Morgan <a href="http://ica.themorgan.org/manuscript/page/42/76851" target="_blank">MS M. 632, f, 100v.</a> is from a Book of Hours, illuminated in Paris around 1520. This curious monochrome in its Renaissance fame is really instructive. Again what we have in this scene is the the Office of the Dead, which is being conducted around an elaborate hearse. The altar at the east end of this glazed church is hung with black and it appears to be set under a Baldachino, for four classical pillars are shown that would have supported its top, which is out of sight. <b>The pyx arrangement is show here, a cloth canopy from which hangs the pyx case. The pyx case is either made of openwork or is glazed and inside you can see a standing pyx with foot. </b></div>
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The Hague, <a href="http://manuscripts.kb.nl/show/manuscript/10+E+2" target="_blank">RMMW, 10 E 2, f. 14v6</a>, Our last image is a page from a Book of Hours produced in Flanders c,1450. The scene is another funeral mass and the blue palled coffin is in the centre of the choir, surrounded by clerks singing the propers and black-robed mourners sitting in a row on a wooden bench. A man in secular dress kneels at a prie-dieu praying. The priest, dressed in a red chasuble, is at the altar celebrating the mass, the altar has a blue reredos with an image of the Crucifixion, There is a Corporal, chalice and pall on the altar. <b>Above the altar is the hanging pyx, it is hanging from a wooden gallows-bracket fixed to the wall. The gold pyx case can be seen under a small green cloth canopy. </b><br />
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<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-85293190251810383692016-07-10T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:31:05.889+00:00The Bristol pyx case<br />
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The medieval object in the photograph above no longer exists. It belonged to the church of St Peter in Bristol, which was sadly blitzed in the Second World War and object perished. As you can see it's a circular box with a slightly domed lid, that is rather ill-fitting. The box itself has been turned from a single piece of wood and the whole thing has been painted white. You will notice that it securely clasped in iron at the bottom and the top and that the lid (possible hinged) was secured with a hasp and lock. The lock seems to be have been opened only with three keys as there are three keyholes. On the top of the lid is a metal suspension loop, so the object was clearly designed to be hung up. <br />
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It had long been the parish tradition at St Peter's that this curious box was used for the reservation of the Sacrament, that it was part of a hanging pyx. All the modern antiquaries that saw it doubted that tradition and assumed that it was a 'host box' or a box to contain a precious object. P. G. Cobb, writing about the object in 1995 in the <i>Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society</i>, accepted the parish tradition and concluded that this object was a rare survival of a 'medieval wooden pyx' into which the consecrated Host was placed and suspended above the altar. Certainly the extraordinary lock on this object suggests that the item it contained, whether the Sacrament or another object, required stringent security measures and the suspension loop on the top of the box makes little sense unless the object is to be suspended.<br />
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I too believe that this object was part of the mechanism of a hanging pyx, but I have my doubts that this object is the a pyx itself. It's more likely, on balance, to be a wooden case into which a pyx made of precious metal was placed. There is evidence and Cobb cites this of the use of wooden pyxes in the late Middle Ages. Henry VII's will refers to use of them in poor parishes, a 'foul' practice he calls it and he offers each parish with one, a new pyx of silver. St Peter's Bristol was a large, relatively wealthy city church, it could have afforded a metal pyx, so I think it was hardly likely to have been using a wooden box alone to store the consecrated Host. Henry VII is quite right that a wooden pyx is a 'foul' way of reserving the consecrated Host. It was deeply impractical and unhygienic way of storing the Sacrament and I can only see a church using one if it really couldn't afford a metal one. If the Host was placed directly into a wooden box like this, one that is badly sealed and is then hung up in the damp environment of an unheated medieval church, within hours the Sacramental wafer would become limp, unpalatable and indeed 'foul'. The fact that the case is locked with three keys suggests that the pyx was not being opened every day for the Sacrament to be refreshed. <br />
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I think the size of the object also indicates that this object is intended to contain another vessel. The box measured six inches in height and was six inches in diameter and half an inch thick. This is a much bigger vessel than is needed to contain the consecrated Host. It is ample space in which to contain a fairly sizeable metal pyx could be placed. This container with its slightly domed lid, could accommodate a pyx of of around four and three quarter inches inches in diameter and slightly greater in height. The vast majority of the <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O102930/pyx-unknown/" target="_blank">medieval metal pyxes </a>that survive could easily fit within it with room to spare. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/28003806766/in/dateposted/" nbsp="" title="godsfield pyx"><img alt="godsfield pyx" height="600" src="https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7119/28003806766_8be1a26a01_z.jpg" width="484" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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The English Godsfield pyx in the V & A, is 4 1/2 inches tall and 3 inches in diameter, so would have fitted in our Bristol case with plenty of room around it. It could have been easily removed from the case and replaced when needed. <br />
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Further reading: The whole of P. G. Cobb's article <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjT2oXw9N7NAhWEvRQKHRxFCFkQFggeMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww2.glos.ac.uk%2Fbgas%2Ftbgas%2Fv113%2Fbg113179.pdf&usg=AFQjCNF_0fCTX6TFALuUyLF3-nefPat7PQ&sig2=QUsXG3sAef4JJAPi4TMWwQ" target="_blank">can be read here</a>. </div>
Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-81233311524090978602016-07-09T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:31:05.881+00:00The Swinburne pyx<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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There are some objects that make me jump up and down with glee and this is most certainly one of them. This glorious parcel-gilt silver box, made in East Anglia sometime between 1310 and 1325, is the Swinburne pyx. It is one of only two surviving medieval pyxes from medieval England and it was used either to reserve the Blessed Sacrament hung above the high altar as at Dennington, or for transporting the <i>Viaticum</i> to the sick <i>in extremis</i>. <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O128706/pyx-unknown/">It's now in the V & A </a>and the images here are © Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Please don't reproduce them unless you have express permission.<br />
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The pyx was bought by the V & A in 1950, after it had been brought to the Museum by Mrs L. G. Swinburne. The pyx appears to have been in the possession of her husband's family, the Swinburnes, for generations and Charles Oman has suggested that their ancestors the de Reymes, a Suffolk family, commissioned the pyx as part of their private chapel gear. The Swinburnes were Recusants and it seems that the pyx continued to be used and treasured after the Reformation, which is how it miraculously survived. </div>
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Let's have a look at its extraordinary decoration. The pyx is engraved inside and out with a series of images. Originally it appears that the box was enamelled using a <i>basse-taille</i> technique and was brightly coloured. Traces of a blue enamel can be found on the outside and in, but how the enamel came to be lost is not clear. Though the circular faces of the pyx are intact, the side decoration has also been defaced at some point too. </div>
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The images on the four circular faces of the pyx all allude to the Passion or the Incarnation of Jesus, to the physicality of Jesus and are therefore suitable for the purpose of this box as a container to hold within it the <i>Hostia</i>, the Eucharistic victim, the Body of Christ. </div>
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The image on the bottom of the outside of the box is the <i>Agnus Dei</i>, the Lamb of God, the sacrificial Lamb, an allusion to Christ the sacrifice. On the outside of the lid, the image is of the <i>Virgin and Chil</i>d, Christ Incarnate, God and Man, bodily, physically held by his Mother. </div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Inside the pyx, the lid is engraved with a scene of the </span><i style="text-align: center;">Nativity</i><span style="text-align: center;">, alluding to the Incarnation. Our Lady is </span><i style="text-align: center;">'in gesyn'</i><span style="text-align: center;">, as medieval people would have called it, in bed. Joseph is asleep on his arm and the Ox and Ass adore the physical presence of the Christ child in the manger. The bottom of the box is engraved with the Vernicle, Christ's head full frontal; the image that, by tradition, was impressed on Veronica's handkerchief as Christ paused on the Via Dolorosa in his way to the cross. As the priest laid the body of Christ into the pyx after the Mass, which in the Middle Ages don't forget was celebrated as an unbloody version of Christ's bloody sacrifice, he would have laid it upon this image of Christ going to his Passion. Of course the use of the Vernicle on an object that comes into direct contact with the Host, the Body of Christ, was not that unusual. As we seen elsewhere on the blog, it was common for the paten, on which the consecrated Host was placed at Mass </span><a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/patens-medieval-examples.html" style="text-align: center;">to be engraved with a Vernicle too</a><span style="text-align: center;">. </span><br />
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<i>Further reading</i>: Charles Oman, 'The Swinburne Pyx' in The Burlington Magazine, Vol 92, no. 573, December 1950, pp.337-341. You can find it on <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/870648?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">JSTOR</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 16.5px;">.</span><br />
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Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-18428996901469599142016-07-08T07:30:00.000+01:002017-11-02T14:31:05.865+00:00The Dennington hanging pyx<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/18808835479/in/album-72157654831038721/" nbsp="" title="Dennington, Suffolk"><img alt="Dennington, Suffolk" height="427" src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/1/405/18808835479_42463b9419_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Followers of this blog over the years will be well aware of how much I love idiosyncratic details from medieval church buildings, particularly when they shed some light on the way that church buildings were used. In the past I have blogged about an important bit of kit that most medieval churches had, the hanging pyx, which enabled the Sacrament to be suspended above the altar and reserved, both for devotional purposes and for Communion in extremis. I have blogged about the hanging pyx elsewhere and do follow <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/hanging-pyx.html" target="_blank">this link</a> if you want to learn more about the medieval evidence for its use. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/18989471822/in/album-72157654831038721/" nbsp="" title="Dennington, Suffolk"><img alt="Dennington, Suffolk" height="640" src="https://c7.staticflickr.com/1/468/18989471822_f4dd906d37_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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At Dennington in Suffolk, a hanging pyx was <a href="http://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XX%20Part%202%20(1929)_Excursions%201%20G%20L(ombard)_233%20to%20236.pdf" target="_blank">restored to use in the 1920s.</a> The following pictures are of that restored pyx, which hangs prominently over the high altar and in front of the vast Decorated east window with its reticulated tracery. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/18372331744/in/album-72157654831038721/" nbsp="" title="Dennington, Suffolk"><img alt="Dennington, Suffolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/277/18372331744_396fa82ceb_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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As you will see the restored pyx consists of three elements. Firstly a canopy, which is surmounted by a tall crocketed wooden pinnacle, that has been attached to a new castellated base. Secondly a cloth that hangs from that canopy and hides the third element, the pyx container itself. <br />
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The wooden pinnacle of the canopy is the only part of the hanging pyx that is old. It appears to be fifteenth century and if you zoom in closely on Flickr at the photograph above, you will see that it has significant traces of gilding and polychromy.<br />
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The third element of the hanging pyx, the pyx case is hidden by the cloth and hangs from the canopy. If you reach into the cloth you can pull down the counterweighted container towards the altar. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/18374238443/in/album-72157654831038721/" nbsp="" title="Dennington, Suffolk"><img alt="Dennington, Suffolk" height="640" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/1/531/18374238443_5de0e04806_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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This wooden case has a hinged door and the pyx, the vessel containing the Blessed Sacrament was kept inside it. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/28003806766/in/dateposted/" nbsp="" title="godsfield pyx"><img alt="godsfield pyx" height="600" src="https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7119/28003806766_8be1a26a01_z.jpg" width="484" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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The pyx itself was usually a silver gilt or copper gilt box, with a hinged lid. The late fourteenth century <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O110443/the-godsfield-pyx-unknown/" target="_blank">Godfield pyx in the Victoria and Albert Museum</a>, which is gilded copper, gives the general impression of their form.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/18807234648/in/album-72157654831038721/" nbsp="" title="Dennington, Suffolk"><img alt="Dennington, Suffolk" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3879/18807234648_4f73edfbe8_z.jpg" width="427" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Now for what it's worth I think the Dennington hanging pyx is an extraordinary and inventive reconstruction and it gives a strong impression of the sort of arrangement for sacramental reservation that prevailed in a medieval parish church. Unfortunately, I am not at all convinced that the wooden pinnacle, the only medieval work within the current arrangement, is part of a hanging pyx at all. I would be more inclined to think that it's the top pinnacle of a font cover than it had such a specific purpose! However, I'm more than happy to be proved wrong of course if someone can find me the evidence to the contrary. <br />
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<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-25552404181864743752016-07-07T07:30:00.000+01:002016-07-07T12:35:40.263+01:00'hoc campanile' - inscriptions recording building work. <a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4117322571/in/dateposted/" nbsp="" title="Saundby, Nottinghamshire"><img alt="Saundby, Nottinghamshire" height="233" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/3/2598/4117322571_afcd392a16_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Inscriptions dating parts of medieval church buildings are relatively rare, so it's always nice to find one. At St Martin's church in Saundby in North Nottinghamshire, there is an inscription on the base of the tower. It's worn lead letters attached to the stonework, seem to mark the foundation of the tower, reading:<br />
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'Anno Domini MCCCCC</div>
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[...] fundatum hoc campanile'</div>
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Annoyingly the last numerals of the date have been lost, but it is believed to have been 1504.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4117327019/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="Saundby, Nottinghamshire"><img alt="Saundby, Nottinghamshire" height="640" src="https://c4.staticflickr.com/3/2534/4117327019_226ae0f637_z.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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It's a good solid ashlar 'campanile', everything you would expect from the last gasp of the Perpendicular.<br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4117320933/in/photostream/" nbsp="" title="Saundby, Nottinghamshire"><img alt="Saundby, Nottinghamshire" height="161" src="https://c6.staticflickr.com/3/2517/4117320933_fbe5ffb7f6_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Here at Saundby you've got a second inscription that speaks of foundation, for there is a monumental brass in the nave floor that talks about the foundation of the chantry chapel. <br />
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Hic jacet Will[ielmu}s Saundeby d[omi]n[us] de Saundeby et Elizabeth</div>
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u[xo] ei[us] qui obiit xii die maij A[nn]o d[omi]ni MCCCXVIII fundator</div>
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istius cantarie quorum ani[m]abus propicietur deus Amen.</div>
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<i>Here lies William Saundeby lord of Saundeby and Elizabeth</i></div>
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<i>his wife who died on the 12th day of May 1418 founder</i></div>
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<i>of this chantry may God have mercy on his soul. Amen</i></div>
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/4117311111/in/photolist-7gQmyc-7gQnST-7gQm4X-7gUbpC-7gQi9B-7gQjJB-7gU97G-7gUdwS-7gQkAi-7gQe42-7gQg5k-7gU7p5-7gU6xJ-7gQ8W8-7gU73b-7gTt7f-7gU4g9-7gPxTk-7gU4D7" nbsp="" title="Saundby, Nottinghamshire"><img alt="Saundby, Nottinghamshire" height="640" src="https://c8.staticflickr.com/3/2579/4117311111_09165bc4e3_z.jpg" width="426" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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Well the monument is clearly not in it's original position, but on the north side of the nave is a small chapel. It connects to the nave north wall with a little fifteenth century arch, that is disconnected from the thirteenth century north arcade to the west. It's windows are all Perpendicular. Perhaps this little space was the Saundeby chantry in which William and Elizabeth were buried?<br />
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<br />Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3313295143497097608.post-42210198779135589662016-07-06T07:30:00.000+01:002016-07-06T07:30:07.177+01:00White and grey and pink The whites and greys and subtle pinks of this alabaster monument, sit in contrast to the vivid colouring around it. The reds, oranges and yellow tones of the medieval <a href="http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/layer-upon-layer-of.html" target="_blank">wallpaintings above the chancel arch</a> and the shiny encaustic brigthnesss of the chancel floor. <br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/263242192/in/photolist-pgbA8-pgbSt-pgbUR-pgbXq-pgbMB-pgc4o-pgbFj-pgceJ-pgc1v-pgcbP-pgc9P-pgbQ2-pgbCt-pgc7f-pgbJu/" nbsp="" title="East Shefford, Berkshire"><img alt="East Shefford, Berkshire" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/117/263242192_987d6373f4_z.jpg?zz=1" width="424" /></a><br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/263242513/in/photolist-pgbA8-pgbSt-pgbUR-pgbXq-pgbMB-pgc4o-pgbFj-pgceJ-pgc1v-pgcbP-pgc9P-pgbQ2-pgbCt-pgc7f-pgbJu" nbsp="" title="East Shefford, Berkshire"><img alt="East Shefford, Berkshire" height="640" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/105/263242513_15cc24c10c_z.jpg?zz=1" width="424" /></a><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script><br />
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<a data-flickr-embed="true" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vitrearum/263243719/in/dateposted/" nbsp="" title="East Shefford, Berkshire"><img alt="East Shefford, Berkshire" height="424" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/93/263243719_7a72c014a0_z.jpg?zz=1" width="640" /></a><br />
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This is East or Little Shefford in Berkshire. The monument is that of Sir Thomas Fettiplace and his wife Beatrix, he died in 1442. They lie in repose in the church between the chancel and the south Chapel. Around them a sea of replica medieval encaustic tiles copied from one or two medieval examples. Allan Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00499774849106432968noreply@blogger.com2