Vitrearum's Church Art

Patens (medieval examples)

2011-11-26T16:17:00.000Z

As you may expect due to the wholesale and well-organised confiscation of parish silver in the mid sixteenth century, medieval English parish plate does not survive in vast quantities. There are just seventy seven chalices made between 1160 and the Reformation still surviving and about one hundred patens. Curiously and we don't really know why, the county of Norfolk has a third (thirty three) of the surviving one hundred medieval patens and no chalices. I want to illustrate two of them.

The first example dates from c.1450 and is the earliest of the two patens I will show you. The paten was originally parcel-gilt, but very little of the gilding now remains. I suspect that some of it was lost in the nineteenth century, when the paten was restored. In the centre of the paten is a depressed sextfoil and this is decorated with a full-frontal bust of Christ set against a cross-hatched ground. This image, the Vernicle, is the commonest form of decoration on surviving English patens. Others in the group are decorated similarly with the Manus Dei, the Hand of God appearing in blessing from a cloud and the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God. Like a lot of early English plate the paten is not marked.

The second example is about forty or fifty years later than the first, dating from c.1490. Unlike the first paten, it was originally gilded solid, but over the course of time this gilding has become somewhat worn. The decoration of this paten is unique among the Norfolk survivals, rather than a Vernicle, Agnus Dei or Manus Dei, the centre is decorated with an engraved roundel containing the IHC monogram in Lombardic lettering. This is set against a ground of cross-hatching with tiny little flowers. Decoration continues on the sextfoil itself, with sprigs of leaves decorating the foils. It's a somewhat rustic piece and like the first has no distinguishing marks.

Why do so many medieval patens survived in Norfolk? Interestingly the first paten fits perfectly into the top of a Elizabethan Communion cup, dating from 1567, that also belongs to the church. The snug fit may suggest that when the medieval chalice and paten were traded in the reign of Elizabeth I, there was a conscious decision to keep the paten and simply replace the chalice with a decent communion cup. Thank goodness the did.

Incidentally both of these patens belong to churches that are under my care, the first at Beeston Regis and the second at West Runton.

Looking down (at medieval floors)

2011-11-09T08:20:00.000Z

Quite often when we visit church buildings we are so busy looking up at the soaring architecture and the fine roofs, that we sometimes forget to look at the floors.

St Nicholas, Salthouse on the north Norfolk coast, has a floor that it well worthy of study as a considerable amount of it is late medieval. The church was completed in 1503 with the internal division, rood and parclose screen added ten years later.

Rather than being tiled with the sort of patterned encaustics that were common in the thirteenth and fourteenth century; the sixteenth century tiles at Salthouse appear to have being laid in a simple chequerboard pattern, with a counterchange of black and yellow and in some cases green glazed tiles.   The floor is worn with many years use, but there are sufficient patches where the glaze still adheres particularly against the walls of the nave and in the north and south chancel chapels, to suggest that the whole eastern part of the church was tiled in this manner. Where the original tiles have become broken or have been disturbed for burial they have in some cases been replaced with brick. That is certainly the case with the centre of the chancel.

In the chancel between the stalls and forming part of the original floor there, is the chalice brass of rector Robert Fevyr who died in 1519. The brass is let into slab of purbeck marble and there is a similar slab in the south chancel chapel. With all the red encaustic around them, these purbeck slabs rather stick out, but when originally laid amid the black and yellow tiling would have blended in rather well.

Salthouse also retains the dadoes of the rood and parclose screens, all vibrantly coloured.   The figurative work of the screen are backed with a ground of counterchanged red and green, a counterchange that is also continued onto the stencilled backs of the parclose screens.


The visual effect of all this paint work, with the counterchanged tiling, and the textiles and hangings and sculpture that must have adorned the sanctuary and high altar, would have been really rather vibrant, something in appearance to the manuscript illustration below. They were certainly not afraid of colour.

Marian tympanum

2011-11-07T17:53:00.000Z

The grand Perpendicular church at Ludham to the north-west of Norwich, has it's fair share of remarkable treasures, a lovely fifteenth century hammerbeam roof covering the nave a fine early Tudor rood screen with painted panels of saints on the dado, including Henry VI. He is not that unusual an inclusion as the deposed king had quite cult in the reign of his nephew Henry VII.   The arch above the screen has something more remarkable, a tympanum painted rather crudely with a rood group.

The central figure of Christ crucified, who is on a cross decorated with th symbols of the Evangelists, is flanked by various figures. The usual figures of Our Lady and the beloved disciple are there, but also included St John the Baptist and the centurion Longinus, who is in piercing the side of Christ with his spear. On either side of the tableau are figures of feathered archangels, both rather chunky and clumsy looking.   The whole thing is supported by rood beam decorated with barber's pole striping.

Our Lady and Longinus

Archangel and Our Lady

Our Lord, above he symbol of St John the Evangelist.

The winged lion of St Mark.

The tympanum is a rather crude affair, in great contrast to the fine and rather masterly painting of the screen below.   The panel is so clumsy as it was properly hastily painted as a temporary affair. The dress of the figures and the initials J and B identifying the Baptist, are in a mid sixteenth century font and on that basis it has been suggested that the painting belongs to the reign of Mary Tudor and therefore forms part of the hasty refurbishment of the church for Catholic worship following the destruction of the reign of Edward VI, when the original rood would have been destroyed.   How did it survive the reign of Elizabeth I?

Well if you go the back of the tympanum that becomes clear, the back is now covered with a canvas representation of the royal arms of Queen Bess, which once covered the rood. Where the people of Ludham hedging their bets, expecting a change of religion once again and the uncovering of their new rood.? At a later date the whole typanum and the royal arms were taken down and stored in the rood stairs, to be disoverered by an antiquarian society on their annual excursion in the ninteenth century.

Here is an encaustic antidote

2011-03-28T19:23:00.001+01:00

Waithe, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

to the 70s Lenten array I posted earlier. Henry Thorold described the chancel at Waithe in Lincolnshire with its tad excessive Minton tiling as all 'shining and polychromatic like a Turkish Bath'. In 1861 George Haigh of Grainsby commisioned Louth architect James Fowler to rebuild the derelict medieval church at Waithe as a family mausoleum. Fowler built a complete new church in the Early English style around the remaining Saxo-Norman tower of the late 11th century. As well as the elaborate encuastic tile work in the chancel, Fowler incorporated into the decoration lozenge shaped memorials to members of the Haigh family who are buried in a vault beneath.

Contemporary Lenten array

2011-03-28T12:14:00.000+01:00

Below are some images of a more contemporary (well sort of 70s) set of Lenten hangings from Stoke D'Abernon in Surrey. The photos come from the Flickr archive of SarumSleuth

Grantham Lent array

2011-03-13T20:45:00.000Z

At the glorious fourteenth century church of St Wulfram in Grantham, Lincolnshire is this dramatic example of Lenten array photographed here by SarumSleuth. The array entirely coveres George Gilbert Scott's magnificent towering reredos.

Photo by Allikevel

The array also extends to the side altars and includes this lovely frontal on the lady chapel by the Warham Guild, which is rather striking in its mixture of red and blue stencilling.

Lenten array 2011

2011-03-12T20:01:00.000Z

The ancient western custom of covering altars and images with Lenten array and Lenten veils has been covered on this blog a number of times. If you want to know more about the custom and its purpose look at the article here and further examples of it see here, here and here. It was a custom that seemed to be in decline, but recently there have been one of two revivals of it. The first few images here are of the array introduced by Fr Anthony Howe at Christ Church Staincliffe in the West Riding of Yorkshire. An old stencilled frontal was acquired for the high altar and new veils made to go with it. The last image comes courtesy of Fr David Ackerman and shows the high altar at Windrush in Gloucestershire. The frontal is an old Warham Guild frontal long unused that he found hidden in a chest in the church and reused for the first time this Lent. The altar arrangement with the riddel posts is a recent revival of the old arrangement and dates from 2010.

Gospel lecterns

2011-02-22T19:38:00.000Z

Lectern at Cropredy, Oxfordshire

Quite a number of medieval lecterns survive in English parish churches. Many of the surviving examples are fifteenth or early sixteenth century and are made of brass (latten). They take the form (as shown in the examples below from Cropredy in Oxfordshire and Croft in Lincolnshire) of an eagle of with its wings outstretched, perched on a large brass mond, which in turn is supported on a stem and a base, that sits on the backs of three little lions. Where these eagle lecterns where produced is a little unclear, some maybe English, but many are believed to have been fabricated in the Low Countries, which in the late Middle Ages had a thriving trade in luxury metal goods.

Most of the surviving English medieval lecterns are now to be found at the east end of the nave of a parish church, to one side of the chancel arch and supporting a large lectern Bible. That has not always been the case. Prior to the Reformation and the Advent of the large Bible for public use, these lecterns generally formed part of the furnishings of the chancel and were placed up close the high altar. The two early sixteenth century illustrations below, demonstrate how many of these lecterns were probably positioned.

The first illustration is taken from the Islip roll and shows the high altar at Westminster Abbey as it appeared at the funeral of Abbot John Islip in 1532.

The second is from a Flemish book of hours of c.1516, which shows the office for the dead taking place in a wonderful Gothic interior. In both of these illustrations the lectern is placed in a similar position, at the bottom of the altar steps slightly to the north of the altar. The eagle, or in the case of the second illustration a pelican in her piety, are orientated to face towards the north. In this position the lectern was used as a support for the gospel book during the singing of the liturgical gospel at high mass. As is shown in this woodcut illustration (below) from Gherit van der Goude’s, Dat Boexken Vander Missen, the deacon faced towards the north to proclaim the Gospel, in order to avoid turning his back on the altar itself.

To be continued ... choir lecterns

'Christopher ought not to forget'

2011-02-01T16:39:00.000Z

The west tower of Aughton church on the banks of the river Derwent in the East Riding of Yorkshire, has an armorial panel on its southern face that incorporates a rather curious inscription in Old French. 'Christofer le second filz de Robert Ask chr oblier ne doy, Ao Di 1536'. Samuel Pegge the antiquarian, writing for the Gentleman's Magazine in 1754, under his pseudonym 'Mr Gemsege', was the first to try and interpret this inscription and he came to the conclusion that it could be translated in two ways. Either as: 'I Christopher, the second son of Sir Robert Aske, ought not to forget the year of Our Lord 1536', or 'I ought not to forget, Christopher, the second son of Robert Aske. The year of Our Lord 1536'.

Generally speaking Pegge's former interpretation of the text, is usually accepted these days as correct, that Aske was using this inscription to highlight this year for particular remembrance. For Aske's motive for making this permanent statement in stone, we have to examine to the events of that year. The year 1536 was the year that Henrician Reformation really began to hot up, it was the year that Henry VIII began to dissolve the Monasteries and rumours began to circulate of the possible confiscation, in turn, of parochial assets. In October 1536 in response to the first dissolutions and this active rumour mill, the commons of Lincolnshire and then of Yorkshire rose in rebellion. The second rebellion in Yorkshire became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. The commons marched to York and then to Doncaster under the banner of the five wounds of Christ, led by a London Barrister called Robert Aske. Robert Aske was the third son of Sir Robert Aske of Aughton and brother of Christopher who put up the inscription. After Robert Aske bargained with the Duke of Norfolk at Doncaster, who offered a general pardon from the King, the 40,000 strong host under Aske's command were dismissed and the 'Pilgrimage' ended. However, fresh outbreaks of minor rebellion broke out further north in February 1537 and in response to this Robert Aske was executed in York in July 1537. Robert Aske's elder brother Christopher had good cause to put up an inscription on the tower of Aughton church calling to mind the year 1536.

Aumbry door

2011-01-04T11:18:00.001Z

Many of our churches still retain the evidence of aumbries, the secure lockers that served as the repository for valuables before the invention of the safe. They are a common feature let into the side walls beside both high and side altars and many were uncovered from behind plasterwork in the restorations of the nineteenth century. Many of them still have evidence of the door that once covered them, but very few of the original doors remain. However, at Begbroke, just north of Oxford, the chancel aumbry still retains its original door, here beautifully captured by Eric Hardy.

The door, which is very probably early sixteenth century, is decorated with carving. An elaborate and foliated fleur-de-lys is surrounded lucious foliage, pomegranates and berries. Above the door, to fit into the space created by the shouldered arch, is a fillet of pierced vine. It is a wonderful example of florid, if slightly stilted, late Gothic carving. Of course the door had to be secured and there is a lock plate on it, but it's a later addition that interrupts the carving. However, that is of no matter, for all told this aumbry door is a remarkable and attractive thing.

Memorial altarpiece

2011-01-03T15:04:00.001Z

The parish church of Youlgreave in the Derbyshire peak district, has a rather remarkable and interesting medieval alabaster panel. This rectangular panel is currently set into the wall above the altar at the east end of the north nave aisle, though it has moved around quite a bit and spent some time in the chancel and was before that in the south wall of the south nave aisle. The panel is a monument to Robert Gilbert and his wife Joan and the marginal inscription around it, records the burial of Robert ‘sub lapide’ below the stone (at an unspecified date) and the death of Joan on the 2nd of November 1492. Robert is described in the inscription as ‘generosi’ i.e. gentleman, one step down the social hierarchy from esquire. According to J. Charles Cox, the arms on the monument, are those of Rossington impaling Statham, Joan Gilbert being a member of the Statham family. The Rossington arms are in fact those of Robert Gilbert, who was using this armorial bearing, Cox argues, by virtue ofhis descent from the Rossington heiress.

The inscription and shields of arms frame a wonderful panel of figures carved in low relief. In the centre of the figurative composition is a very tender image of the Virgin and Child, sadly a little mutilated. To the right of Our Lady kneels Robert Gilbert and his seven sons, all identically dressed, in civilian clothing, prominent purses and the caps with liripipes. On the other side kneels Joan and their ten daughters, she with a large set of paternoster beads. All the figures are in the attitude of prayer, with Robert and Joan shown in the act of paying devotion to Our Lady. If you look carefully there are the remains of tiny little scrolls in front of them, which would have represented their intercessions rising towards Our Lady.

It is difficult to imagine given the dimensions and the relief carving that this panel functioned as a conventional floor slab covering a burial and it seems likely that the panel served a dual purpose as an altarpiece as well as a memorial. The inscription also records that Robert was involved in some liturgical reordering of the inside of the church. It refers to Robert ‘clausuram hujus capelle’, enclosing this chapel. This is evidence that the panel was situated and Robert was buried in an enclosed chapel, separated off from the rest of the landscape of the church by parclose screens. The figure of Our Lady may be a clue to the dedication of this space.

References
J. Charles Cox, Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire, vol. 2, p. 329.

Christmas Blessings

2010-12-24T12:36:00.000Z

May I wish all readers of this blog my good wishes and God's blesing this Christmas. Allan

I saw a fair mayden sytten and sing.
She lulled a lyttel childe, a sweete Lording.

Lullay myn lyking, my dere sonne, my sweeting.
Lullay my dere herte, myn own dere derling.

That same Lord is he that made alle thing;
Of alle lordis he is Lord, of alle kynges Kyng.

Lullay myn lyking, my dere sonne, my sweeting.
Lullay my dere herte, myn own dere derling.

There was mickle melody at that chylde's birth.
All that were in heav'nly bliss, they made mickle mirth.

Lullay myn lyking, my dere sonne, my sweeting.
Lullay my dere herte, myn own dere derling.

Angels bright sang their song to that chyld;
Blyssid be thou, and so be she, so meek and so mild.

Lullay myn lyking, my dere sonne, my sweeting
Lullay my dere herte, myn own dere derling.

15th century.

Vernicle

2010-11-12T10:31:00.002Z

Snarford 3, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

This is such a striking image, one of the panels of the fifteenth century font at the remote church at Snarford in Lincolnshire. A full frontal head of Christ entirely fills one panel of the octaganonal font. This image probably derives from the popular late image known as the 'Vernicle'. The Vernicle was a reproduction of the cloth, which tradition asserts, was used by St Veronica to wipe the face of Christ on his way to the cross and was found to be miraculously marked with the imprint of his face. It was an image that grew in popularity in the late Middle Ages and with the invention of printing the Vernicle became a popular domestic devotional item.

Next to this image on the Snarford font is a representation of the arma christi, a shield charged with the cross and two scourges.

'and the chauncels shall remain ...

2010-11-05T18:50:00.001Z

Snarford, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

as they have done in tymes past', so states the rubric before Morning Prayer in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer. At Snarford in Lincolnshire, Sir Thomas St Pol, seems to have made a very specific statement as to how he wanted the chancel of his parish church to 'remain' and it was a radical break from the medieval past. When he died in 1582, his canopied monument was erected right at the east of the chancel as close as practicable to the east wall. Thus leaving no room for the reconstruction of a stone altar or even the positioning of the holy table 'altarwise' at the east end of the chancel. The holy table must have stood west of his monument in the body of the church and presumably lengthways, the space is now occupied with a twentieth century 'English' altar. On the monument itself Sir Thomas and his wife Faith are portrayed as very much people of the Reformation, clasping their prayer books to their chests.

Painted coffin

2010-10-22T17:50:00.000+01:00

In the late 1960s and early 70s the central tower of York Minster was in danger of collapse and a vast programme of repairs was initiated to prevent it. In a remarkable feat of engineering, the tower, which was built upon the foundations of early buildings including the Roman legionary headquarters, was underpinned. As part of this work opportunity was taken to repair the monuments in the transepts including that of Walter de Gray, archbishop of York between 1215 and 1255 in the south transept.

Gray's monument is spectacular piece, the recumbent effigy of the archbishop dressed in full pontificals and carved from purbeck marble, lies under a hefty pinnacled canopy supported on slender purbeck shafts. The canopy is so substantial you could be forgiven for thinking it the feretory of the shrine and before the twentieth a number of antiquarians argued that de Gray was in fact buried in it. He was not.

Having dismantled the canopy and removed the effigy, the Minster authorities made a quite remarkable discovery. They came across a layer of rubble set in mortar and when that was removed they found the coffin of archbishop de Gray.

The lid of the coffin was painted with a lively and colourful image of de Gray (above) set against a black background. Again de Gray was shown dressed in full pontificals holding an archiepiscopal cross staff, his hand raised blessing. The image was painted with expensive materials, including a vibrant ultramarine and highlighted with gilding. Sadly the image had become damaged through contact with the wet mortar of the rubble base and had left an impression on this mortar which was also recovered for the most part during the work (photo below).

Matthew Sillence has argued, rather convincingly I think, that this coffin lid was intended as a more permanent memorial to de Gray and that the larger monument was an afterthought erected after the transept became filled with other burials and became less visually prominent. It is probable that painted coffin lids were quite a common feature of medieval memorialisation, but because of their fragility they do not survive. How lucky this example did.

When the lid was removed the remains of de Gray were found, he had been buried in linen vestments his head supported on a woven cushion and the coffin including the usual episcopal grave goods, but perhaps more about those at a later time.

Further reading
There is full account of the disvovery of the coffin lid in Archaeologia 102 (1971) and the recent article by Matthew Sillence is: 'The two effigies of Archbishop Walter de Gray (d.1255) at York Minster' Church Monuments 20 (2005), pp. 5-30.

Medieval polychromy

2010-09-27T19:04:00.000+01:00

I can't resist posting these images of the fifteenth century arch braced ceiling at Holy Trinity in Blythburgh in Suffolk. The whole surface of the ceiling is covered in delicate polychromy, with stencilled monograms and stylised foliage forms. The colour and gilding, rather muted now in its faded state, would once have added a gloriously rich covering to this Perpendicular glass house. What more can I say, sheer perfection.

Photos by Eric Hardy

Saxo-Norman sundials (more on Stow)

2010-09-22T19:54:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the absence from blogging, I've had a rather nasty case of the Shingles and haven't been able to do anything much.  It has well and truly sapped my energy and my mental powers. I'm just about getting back to my old self and blogging will return, I promise.

Anyway less of that and more of the subject in hand, early sundials. Mr Alan Marshall, the churchwarden of Stow Minster, sent me this rather tantalising image of a fragment of a late Saxon or early Norman sundial from Stow. With it an accompanying article on the piece, published in 1985 by Professor Elisabeth Okasha of University College, Cork in the Journal of Saxon and Medieval Archaeology. This fragmentary dial was found within a pile of rubble outside the west door of Stow Minster in 1972 by Caspar Fleming and on his death passed into the hands of an antiquities dealer called Richard Falkiner who worked for Bonhams. I won't comment further on how the Minster could have possibly lost this important and priceless piece of its early history!

The dial has an Old English inscription on it STTOLOVE7S, which Professor Okasha interprets as possibly forming part of the text 'CRIST TO LOVE 7 SCS', i.e. 'to the Glory of Christ and St ...' So the dial seemingly formed part of a dedicatory panel.   Professor Okasha argues that it was part of a larger stone. She dates it to the late eleventh century, so perhaps it recorded the reconstruction of the church by bishop Remigius of Fecamp in the 1070s, when for a short time, Stow was an Benedictine priory. The great crossing arches of Stow date from that time.

The image looked remarkably familiar to me, then I realised that about eight years I photographed two similar dials, both of which are mentioned in Professor Okasha's article, one at Kirkdale and the other at Great Edstone, both in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Here are my photos, which give some indication of how the Stow dial might originally have appeared.

Firstly Edstone.  The dial forms part of a rectangular panel of stone, which incorporates the inscription, 'OTHAN ME PROHTEA' (Othan has wrought me).  The blank space suggests that the panel was never completed.

Then Kirkdale, a much more interesting piece and is dated. It is inscribed: ORM GAMAL SUNA BOHTE SCE GREGORIUS MINSTER THONNE HIT WES AEL TO BROCAN 7 TOFALAN 7 HE HIT LET MACAN NEWAN FROM GRUNDE XRC 7 SCS GREGORIUS IN EADWARD DAGUM C[YNI]NG 7 [I]N TOSTI DAGUM EORL, in modern English: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought St Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen and he has let it make new from the ground ... in Edward's day the King, and Tostig's day the Earl'. So it can be close dated to between 1055 and 1066. The dial itself has the inscription 'HAWARTH ME WROHTE AND BRAND PRS' (Hawarth and Brand, priests, wrought me).

Sundials, by necessity, have to be on a south wall and both panels at Edstone and Kirkdale are prominently placed above the south doors, the main entrance to the building. The south door at Stow is the main entrance to the church and presumably the Stow dial was similarly placed. I do wonder if it was incorporated into the ramshackle south porch that sheltered the south door at Stow until removed by Pearson's work of the 1860s.

Missale ad Usum Insignis Ecclesie Sarisburiensis.

2010-09-11T11:53:00.000+01:00

Here are a number of details from a Sarum Missal printed in Paris by William Merlin in 1555. This is just one of a large number of Sarum missals that were printed in Paris during the reign of Mary I, for export to England as part of the re-equipping of English parish churches following the Edwardine iconoclasm. It seems that demand was great and consequently these Parisian missals were rather hastily composed, Many, like this example, were illustrated with re-used woodcut blocks of varying styles and dates, some forty or fifty years old.

A remarkable survival

2010-08-10T20:55:00.002+01:00

South Cerney Christ, originally uploaded by Aidan McRae Thomson.

This beautiful Romanesque polychromed head and foot, is all that remains of a rood dating from c.1130. The fragments were found in 1913 walled up behind the respond of a nave arcade at South Cerney in Gloucestershire. Sadly the rest of the figure perished, but originally the corpus would have been around 80cm tall and extremely striking. A remarkable survival, this is one of only two Corpus figures in England to survive the sixteenth century iconoclasm. The other, an earlier 16th century example from Cartmel Fell in Cumbria, was discovered in 1876 in use as a vestry fire poker!

The South Cerney rood is now in the British Museum and I am grateful to Aidan McRae Thomson for his photograph. More information on the rood can be found in R. Deacon and P. Lindley's Image and Idol; Medieval Sculpture (London, 2001)

Some news of recent work at Windrush in Gloucestershire

2010-08-07T20:14:00.000+01:00

I was pleased to receive the following photographs from Fr David Ackerman, rector of Windrush in Gloucestershire. It is worth repeating Fr Ackerman's message in full:

"I thought you might be interested in seeing the attached gable cross which was dedicated on Easter Day. It was made by Rory Young, and was in part inspired by Saxon Gloucestershire carvings of crucifixes. It is of Christ Triumphant and the word "pax" is encircled by the crown of thorns, an illusion to the first words of the risen Christ and that his body bore the marks of the cross. The combination of the crown and the word is also a reference to the Benedictines, to whom the donor has a devotion. I offer the pictures as a good example of current work and what can be achieved. This, by the way, was Rory's last work before beginning his work at St Alban's Abbey"

I'm very pleased to post these photos to the blog. The cross is exceptionally fine. It does demonstrate the quality of contemporary craftsmanship and that it is possible to add something contemporary that works well with existing medieval fabric.

Fr Ackerman has also initiated other restoration work at Windrush. Internally an 'English altar' has been restored to the chancel and external paths have been relaid. During the latter work the following female head came to light.

What date is it? Well it has been suggested that it is fifteenth century, but my gut feeling says second half of the fourteenth century.

Greenwood Hare chasuble at St John Epping

2010-08-03T09:48:00.000+01:00

There are some lovely photos on Flickr of a recently restored chasuble at St John's Epping in Essex. A wonderful vestment blending Gothic and Renaissance motifs, it was designed by Cecil Greenwood Hare, Bodley's chief assistant and made by Watts and Co. There is more information here.

My flesh in hope doth rest

2010-07-29T12:45:00.000+01:00

I recently came across these two lovely inscriptions, both in Lincolnshire Churches. The first at Lusby on the Lincolnshire Wolds and the second is at Kettlethorpe close to the border with Nottinghamshire.

The Lusby inscription once formed part of the memorial to Katherine Palfreyman, wife of a wool merchant Anthony Palfreyman, who acquired the manor of Lusby in 1545. Katherine died in 1555 and the touching inscription takes the form of a conversation between the deceased and her grieving husband. Anthony finally died in 1590.

My fleshe in hope and rest doth slepe
In earth here to remayne
my spirit to Christ I gyve to kepe
Till I do ryse again.

And I wyth you in hope agre
Toughe (sic.) I yet here abyde
In full purpose if Goddes will be
To ly downe by your syde.

The second monument at Kettlethorpe is a black stone tablet in the chancel to the memory of John Becke MA, rector of the parish. He died in Mary 1597. It has a lovely punning inscription, recording his munificence to the parish. He gave lands to endow a charity to support the poor of the parish.

I am a Becke or river as you know

and watred here the church the schole the pore
While God did make my springes here for to flo
But now my fountaine stopt it runs no more
From church and schole mi life is now berefte
But to the poore four pounds I yearlye lefte.

Skelton stiff leaf

2010-07-21T09:00:00.001+01:00

Shortly after writing my recent post on stiff-leaf and posting a photo of the stiff leaf on the doorway at Skelton St Giles near York, I came across the following article.
http://www.dioceseofyork.org.uk/news-events/news/news-from-the-diocese-of-york/01384.html

The weathered south door of this excellent and complete Early English building, has been restored by a York firm called Lanstone and they have one a prize for the work in the York Design Awards. Here is a detail of the door as it was prior to restoration:

And here is the door after restoration:

What an excellent job they've done if it. There are further photos here.

Rycote Chapel, Oxfordshire

2010-07-19T09:00:00.001+01:00

I may have drawn your attention to the excellent photography of my friend Martin Beek in some earlier posts, but can I mention his name again. As well as an being an excellent and photographer with a great eye for detail, Martin is an artist of great breadth and accomplishment who works in a wide range of different media and there is a lot of interest on his Flickr pages. I was recently drawn to a series of photos he's taken of Rycote Chapel in Oxfordshire.

Rycote chapel was built in the late 1450s for Richard and Sybil Quatermayne, to serve a chantry college founded by them in 1449. The fabric consisting of a west tower, a nave and chancel in one with a barrel ceiling, remains pretty much as they built it. Inside the building are a series of extraodinary furnishings. Medieval benches and stalls still remain in the chancel, but the rest of the furnishings are early seventeenth century and high church. On either side of the rood screen, which is a remodelled medieval screen, are two vast family pews. That on the north is the pew of the Norreys family, who were lord's of the manor. Above it a musician's gallery. The pew to the south, with it's ogee canopy painted like a night sky within, was apparently built for Charles I when he visited Rycote in 1625. With four angels at the corners, it was once topped with an image of the Virgin Mary, an iconographical display that would have enraged any seventeenth century Puritan. In the chancel is a reredos of 1610 and an altar surrounded by balustered rails of the later seventeenth century. Rycote chapel is a glorious example of an Anglican high church interior from those decadent first decades of the seventeenth century and is rare to have survived unscathed.

Malvern Link

2010-07-17T09:00:00.000+01:00

I'm grateful to a Facebook friend Julie Allsopp, who has recently taken the following photos of the once glorious conventual chapel of the Holy Name at Malvern Link in Worcestershire. This chapel, dating from 1893 is an early work by Bucknall and Comper. The community of the Holy Name moved to Derby in 1990 and the building has subsequently been used for other purposes. As you will see the Comper fittings are not in good condition. I understand that the building has been recently sold and is due to be converted into office space and the fittings restored. I do hope it happens.

The crucifixion that formed the top of the reredos, has been removed to admit a air conditioning unit.

Said air conditioning unit.

The painted ceiling is still in good condition

Abandoned riddel posts.

More photos here.

Lovely, lovely stiff leaf

2010-07-15T09:00:00.002+01:00

'Early English capitals are not so much diversified as Norman. When foliage is introduced it is placed upon the bell of the capital; the leaves usually have stiff stalks rising from the neck of the bell, hence called technically "stiff-leaf foliage," but almost always stand out very boldly, and with great freedom, so as to provide a very striking and beautiful effect, and they are generally very well worked, and often as much undercut that the stalks and more prominent parts are entirely detached.'

(J. H. Parker's Glossary of Terms, 1850)

Below are a series of images of luscious thirteenth century stiff-leaf capitals from across the country.

Torksey, Lincolnshire

Low Marnham, Nottinghamshire

Inglesham, Wiltshire

East Hagbourne, Berkshire

North Stoke, Oxfordshire

Skelton, North Yorkshire

Shadows of Former Things Part III

2010-07-13T15:16:00.000+01:00

Site of a former side altar at Glentham in Lincolnshire, an arched niche that probably contained a panel of a reredos and beside it a bracket for an image. How tantalising these remains are, but sadly so difficult to put in any true context without any documentary evidence of the imagery they contained and supported.

Above the south porch at Glentham is something much rarer, a weathered fifteenth century image of Our Lady of Pity, a Pieta. Below it are the arms of the Tourney family of Caenby, who presumably paid for the porch.

Further north near Brigg Lincolnshire is the rather rustic and isolated church at Cadney. One of the Norman nave pillars of the south arcade has been adapted in the fourteenth century in order to admit a bracket and canopy for a long-lost image.

Transitional

2010-07-03T09:00:00.001+01:00

Martin church near Horncastle in Lincolnshire, has a fabulous chancel arch. This narrow arch is a text book example of the Transitional style, the moment when Norman architecture gradually gave way to Early English Gothic. In this arch we have a blending of the two. The responds are entirely Norman in character, with two orders of shafts topped with fairly standard Norman capitals, a pair scalloped and a pair with volutes. A little bit of nailhead decoration is incorporated into these capitals too. Then the whole thing is topped with an Early English arch, a steep pointed arch. The whole thing must be late twelfth or early thirteenth century.

Five wounds of Christ

2010-07-01T09:00:00.000+01:00

Angel holding the arma christi, a shield charged with the five wounds. It is unusual to see this subject in colour, usually it is rendered in yellow stain. This image from Lawrence Lew's wonderful photostream, is taken from a panel of fifteenth century glass in Glastonsbury parish church, that was formerly in Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. If you enjoyed this image you may enjoy some of the images from Lawrence's recent churchcrawl in Somerset.

Sanctuary fittings and something rare

2010-06-28T09:00:00.002+01:00

As well as the original pavement the chancel of Laxton church in Nottingham is lucky enough to still retain its stone sanctuary furnishings, fourteenth century piscina with double drains, Easter sepulchre, sedilia and image corbels. All it is missing is the images themselves and the medieval high altar.

The seats of the sedilia are topped by a delicious canopy, a triplet of crocketed ogees. To the far right of the canopy is a bit of protruding rusty ironwork, the outer casing of a little pulley wheel. What was this for? J Charles Cox in his County Churches: Nottinghamshire, published in 1912, suggests it is part if the medieval apparatus used to lower and raise the veil that would have cut off the chancel during Lent. He may be right.

F E Howard angel

2010-06-25T09:00:00.001+01:00

I'll let this one speak for itself. This is an riddel post angel from F E Howard's English altar in All Saints, Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire. It's not often you get to see this sort of thing at close quarters.

Benedictine Abbot

2010-06-23T09:00:00.000+01:00

The incised slab of Abbot Richard Horncastle in St Lawrence, Bardney. Abbot Hornastle was abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Bardney from 1466 to 1507. He died in 1508 and was buried in the abbey church. His incised slab was discovered in the abbey ruins when they were excavated just prior to the First World War. The slab shows Horncastle under canopy dressed in eucbaristic vestments and holding the sacred heart. Above his head his naked soul is shown being lifted up to heaven in a napkin.

Ejected!

2010-06-21T09:00:00.004+01:00

Not at all medieval, but on the wall of the chancel at Molland is this fabulous baroque monument commemorating an interesting man.

It commemorates Daniel Berry one time vicar of Molland. I will let the inscription tell his story:

'Under this monument lyeth the Body of Daniel Berry Batchelor of Divinity sometime minister of this church & that of the parish of Knowstone, wherein he was born, Who for his zeale in the support of the Church of England & Loyalty to that martyred King King Charles the first, was first sequestred by the then Rebels, & ever after persecuted till he dyed being the 18 day of March in the year of our lord 1653/4 and of his age 45'

Daniel Berry became vicar of Molland and Knowstone in 1626. In 1646 he was one of many clergy who were ejected from their livings by parliament for supporting the king and continuing to use the Book of Common Prayer against the Puritan consensus. He moved to a small estate he owned in Molland. Not content with his ejection from his living, for the next eight years the local Puritan thugs continued to treat this gentle man abominably. They threatened to hang him, threatened his family and servants and they confiscated all his private property. He was a learned man and though begging to keep just one book, his large library was taken and given to a Puritan preacher. He died a broken man, his health shattered. The monument was erected by his son after the Restoration of Charles II.

Another atmospheric interior

2010-06-19T09:00:00.002+01:00

If you thought Nettlecombe had atmosphere, well Molland church on Exmoor, in Devon, has even more.

It is one of those churches that the Victorian's forgot and wasn't subjected to a drastic restoration in the nineteenth century. Consequently the interior is a wonderful example of how the Church of England used a medieval building before the Ecclesiologists came along with their desire to medievalise and correct church interiors. The church is divided into two rooms by a vast solid tympanum, decorated, as canon requires, with the royal arms and the Decalogue. This solid screen, open only at the bottom, creates two rooms that were used for distinct purposes in the reformed liturgy, the nave for Matins and Evensong and for preaching, the chancel for the sacrament. The box pews in the nave are all directed towards the vast towering triple decker pulpit, with it's tester, that dominates the north aisle. The chancel contains enough space for the communicants to 'draw near' to the communion table during the communion service.

The east end of the north aisle and the chancel is crowded with baroque monuments and floor slabs to members of the Courtenay family, a cadet branch of the family that produced the Earl's of Devon. The Courtenay's were recusants and their recusancy probably explains the lack of Victorian restoration at Molland, as they were probably fairly apathetic towards the parish church and it's liturgy. The church was simply their burial place.

The church has some fine medieval features. The Norman font, looks like a reused scalloped capital from a lost arcade. Perhaps it is?The heavily moulded fifteenth century north arcade has capitals of inventive and luxuriant foliage, typical of the west country but well worth noting. Amid the sea of Georgian woodwork there are still some hints of Molland's medieval catholic past. A defaced little figure of St Mary Magdalene, set in a canopied tabernacle, pops up from a nave pier. She is mostly hidden by the box pews.

At the east end of the chancel there is an odd stone box, said to contain the hearts of members of the Courtenay family. Maybe it does, but it seems to me that the elements that make it up are not in their original configuration, but are elements from a tomb chest. In front of it is a purbeck marble coffin lid commemorating John Courtenay, who died in 1509 the year Henry VIII became king.

It is rather a challenge to photograph Molland church, there isn't a straight line in the place. That adds to the atmosphere and I am rather grateful that the Victorian's haven't 'fixed' and tidied up the leaning pillars, leaning walls and sloping box pews.

How's this for a bit of atmosphere

2010-06-17T09:00:00.003+01:00

A fifteenth century Seven Sacrament font in Ham stone, sandstone recesses with thirteenth and fourteenth century effigies of the Ralegh family, a late medieval waggon roof, a patchwork of old flooring and a late seventeenth century tablet with reclining putti. Does it get any better than this, does it? This atmospheric interior is the south aisle at Nettlecombe in Somerset.

St Mary's Lead

2010-06-16T15:14:00.002+01:00

HDR - St Mary Lead Church, near Towton Battlefield, North Yorkshire, originally uploaded by Tiddler.

This isolated fourteenth century building stands in a field close to the site of the battle of Towton, near Tadcaster in Yorkshire. Fought in the driving snow on Palm Sunday 1461, this was one the bloodiest but most decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses and it ultimately brought Edward IV to the throne. 10,000 men are said to have perished that day and the little stream, Cock Beck, which you have to cross to get to St Mary's, is said to have run red with the blood of those who had died in the battle.

This simple building has Norman origins, but is mainly fourteenth century. It has been shorn of its chancel and it seems to be highly charged with the memory of this Yorkist victory. It's damp and atmospheric interior has rustic fittings, including a set of medieval rough-sawn benches and a seventeenth century triple decker pulpit. A medieval altar stone has been reset at the east end. Before the altar step are a row of thirteenth century coffin lids, mostly decorated with heraldry and comemmorating members of the Tyas family, including Baldwin and Marjorie Tyas and their son Franco. A single slab is decorated with a cross and chalice, denoting the burial of a priest. There is no settlement at Lead, just lots of sheep in the field surrounding the church and the building has been long disused. It is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust and is well worth a detour if you are ever heading towards York.

New blog

2010-06-15T10:20:00.000+01:00

I've started a sideline blog, a guide to Lincolnshire churches. It isn't intended to be an exhaustive guide, but just a gentle crawl through some of the more atmospheric and lesser known ecclesiastical gems in my native county. There's not much there at the moment, but in due course you might find it of interest: http://lincolnshirechurches.blogspot.com/

Oh and don't worry I don't intend it to distract me from Vitrearum!

It's amazing what you find under the floor.

2010-06-15T09:00:00.001+01:00

According to John Throsby in his new addition of Thoroton's The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire, when the floor of the chancel at Mattersey church in Nottinghamshire was replaced in the 1790s they discovered two pieces of 'very ancient' sculpture under the old floor. These panels of sculpture are now attached to the chancel walls.

They are fourteenth century and very striking they are too. The first (left) shows St Martin of Tours on horseback dividing his cloak to give to the beggar, a fairly standard element of his iconography. Throsby correctly identifies this. The second shows two women standing and chatting to each other over a pile of drapery or earth that incorporates a cross broken in two. Presumably this is the discovery, the 'invention' of the cross by St Helena. Mattersey was the site of a small house of Gilbertine Canons, dedicated to St Helen and it has been suggested that the panels both came from there and were removed to the church at the dissolution. This is quite possible, I suppose, but there is no evidence of course. Here's another bit of conjecture. Mattersey priory was burnt down at the end of the thirteenth century and rebuilt in the early fourteenth, might they panels have formed part of the refitting of the abbey church after the fire, were they altarpieces? They are both of exceptional quality, the figure panels are set under canopies of cusped and crocketed ogees, the crockets blending into this exceptionally lush, deeply carved decorative oak foliage that that gives the Decorated style its name.

In search of Morebath

2010-06-13T09:00:00.000+01:00

I first picked up Professor Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars when I was an undergraduate reading History at University College London. It was the mid 90's and the revisionist view of the Reformation had really begun to take a firm hold in Tudor scholarship. I remember just lapping up this compelling and refreshing account of the popularity of late medieval religion and the sad and distructive dismantling of that popular catholicism. It was great to read a book, a work of substantial scholarship, that not only accorded with something of my romantic vision of the compelling nature of medieval catholicism, but wasn't coloured by four centuries of Protestant and anti-Catholic propoganda. It still remains one of my all time favourite books.

The sequel, if you like, to the Stripping of the Altars, is a book called The Voices of Morebath, which was first published out in 2001.This is the account of the impact of the Tudor Reformation on a small parish on Exmoor in Devon, seen through the lense of the parish churchwarden's accounts. The accounts were kept by a man called Sir Christopher Trychay, who would serve as vicar of Morebath for fifty four years. He was vicar all through the period of turmoil, arriving in 1520 as a young fresh-faced catholic priest and dying in post in his eighties, as the protestant minister. The accounts are not just a list of expenses of office, Trychay overlayed them with his own commentary and asides, which provide ga rare glimpse of parish life in the Tudor period.

During the first twenty years of his ministry Trychay put a good deal of effort into re-enlivening the devotional life of this remote parish. He fostered the development a cult to the Exeter saint St Sidwell, which was focused on an image of her that he placed on the side altar in the north aisle. Together he and the parishioners worked towards a thorough restoration and requipping of the church building. Work included a new rood screen, a new rood and the renovation of all the images. Duffy tells us that all was done with love and great devotion. One of the most compelling and heartbreaking details of the account concerns a set of new black vestments. For twenty years Trychay had saved up for a new set of black vestments for use at requiems, putting his own money into the fund and in July 1547 he finally raised enough money to get them. However, Henry VIII had died earlier in 1547 and his death signalled the first phase of the Protestant Reformation and all the vestments and ornaments so lovingly bought, including the new black vestments, were soon to be swept away for ever.

What for me is so compelling and moving about Duffy's book is what it tells us of Trychay's attitude to the Reformation. Throughout the uncertain years that followed, with the demands of reform and counter reform, Trychay stays faithful to his parishioners. He doesn't resign his living, he stays put and weathers the storm with them. He is quietly nonconformist when he can be and equally conformist when need arises. There is a sense that his loyalty to his people and their place overides his own personal conviction - his thoughts and actions are always corporate, never individual. Duffy lays bare the odd contemporary assertion, which has been voiced by commentars of this blog, that the church buildings of medieval England were somehow stolen from the Catholic church and handed to the robbing Protestants of the Church of England in a grand coup. Duffy makes it plain that this is not so. In the reign of Elizabeth, the priest saying the communion service at the table was often the same priest who had said mass at the altar during the reigns of her father and sister. The people responding to the new service of Matins and Evensong, were the same people who would eagerly see Our Lord lifted high above the priest's head at the altar during mass. For the most part the people of England, both the clergy and the people, quietly conformed to the demands of the Reformation. Priests like Trychay, inwardly conservative in religious matters, outwardly conformed and they stayed faithful and loyal to their flock. What else could they do?

I was very pleased to be able to visit Morebath last week and below are one or two photos of the church. Sadly much of the church was rebuilt by William Butterfield in the 1870s and the only part that Trychay would recognise is the fifteenth century north aisle with its barrel roof. It was at the east end of this aisle at the altar of Jesus that Trychay placed the new cultic image of St Sidwell and it was here that he said his daily mass, while he could. Of course all sign of that altar has been swept away.

Medieval pavement

2010-06-11T16:00:00.001+01:00

Medieval stone pavements in English chancels are something of a rarity. In fact medieval chancel floors are a rarity, for many were destroyed either by post-Reformation burials, or swept away in the nineteenth century. Under the influence of the Ecclesiologists in Victorian restorations, medieval floor levels were destroyed to admit ranks of steps for elevated altars. Altars elevated on steps were considered more 'correct' and medieval. So I was surprised to see a well-preserved fourteenth century stone pavement in the chancel at Laxton in Nottinghamshire.

The pavement, formed from square stone sets or lozenges, covers about half of the chancel floor, including the sanctuary. The western half of the chancel between the choir stalls is covered by Victorian encasstics. Though badly worn and affected by damp, some of the sanctuary slabs still have their original decoration on them. Each has a centrally placed estoile and and is bordered with a narrow line. At the point where for slabs meet, a semicircle in each slab forms part of a decorative quaterfoil. It is a striking, but simple, design. Presumably the levels are the original medieval levels and rather than being raised on a rank of steps or footpace, here we have evidence that the medieval high altar here, was simply raised on a single step above the chancel pavement.

What surprises me about this pavement is that despite it's rarity and importance, nobody seems to have noticed it before. Pevsner doens't mention it, neither does the listed building record, nor even Cox in his Nottinghamshire Churches. Sadly the pavement has been damaged, principally by the modern heating system. The blue carpet covers a large modern metal grille and cast iron pipes makes a fill circuit of the sanctuary.

A wooden effigy

2010-06-10T15:10:00.002+01:00

This is the first of three or four articles on one church building, the church is St Michael's Laxton, in Nottinghamshire - a building of considerable interest.

On the north side of the chancel is this curious tomb, commemorating Adam de Everingham, lord of Laxton (who died in 1341) and his two wives. Adam and his first wife are portrayed, fairly conventionally, by recumbent effigies. According to J. Charles Cox the effigies are of French marble from Aubigny, so an unusual and expensive commission. Margaret, Adam’s second wife has been given a rarer thing still, a wooden recumbent effigy, presumably added at a later date. Though it is impossible to tell now due to the decay of the wood, it is probable that the effigy, like the stone effigies, was originally coloured. So the three wood have blended in together.

The three effigies are supported on a remarkable tomb chest attached to the eastern respond of the arcade. The chest isn’t a solid form, but has a large empty opening in the middle, the purpose of which is far from clear.

The tomb occupies a position of great honour within the sanctuary of the chancel and this is perhaps evidence that Adam was responsible for the reconstruction of the chancel which is early fourteenth century.

Margaret’s wooden effigy is not in good condition, for the monument has been badly neglected in the past. In the 1790s when the antiquary John Throsby visited the church for his re-working of Thoroton’s Antiquities of Nottinghamshire, he found the building in a deplorable condition. The north chancel aisle where the monument is situated was particularly bad. His description is worth repeating:

What Throsby describes was not an uncommon scene in the late eighteenth century, a time when there was a general apathy to church buildings. He then goes on to describe the state of de Everingham monument itself:

'The north cemetery (the north chancel aisle), is the foulest place I ever saw. I will attempt a description of it without the smallest exaggeration. The floor and old stones are completely covered in coals, coal-slack, cinders, firewood, straw, lime, broken bricks and stone, hassocks and floor mats torn in pieces, ladders, and old sieve, broken scuttles, and spades; brushes without handles, and handles without brushes, mortar boards and mortar, reeds, tiles, foot, broken glass, dog’s dung and...'

Then he describes the condition of the tomb itself:

‘Under the arch, that leads into this place of filth, stands on old tomb almost six feet high, on which lie three figures, seemingly a knight and his two wives; but so covered with dust, that I found it difficult to sketch them’.

So it is not surprise the Margaret de Everingham’s wooden effigy is looking a bit worse for wear.

Some thoughts on Our Lady of London

2010-05-25T23:01:00.001+01:00

One of my favourite images of Our Lady is the poster 'Our Lady of London' which was designed in 1935 by Martin Travers. I took this photo of it from a surviving copy hanging in a Nottinghamshire church. Our Lady has twelve stars around her head and is set in a crescent moon, superimposed against the sun, holding the Blessed Infant. Below is the sillouhette of the London skyline and St Paul's cathedral against a dusky sky. It is a striking image.

The iconography of Our Lady and the crescent moon isn't particularly unusual. The iconographical elements are all based on the vision of the woman in Revelation 12: 1. Usually Our Lady is standing or sitting on the moon. Albrecht Durer produced a woodcut of the Virgin and Child with all of these and it bears a striking resemblance to Travers' work. Except that Our Lady and the Infant are set on the crescent moon, rather than in it.

There is more. Among my collection of oddments at home, I have a small pewter pilgrim badge dating from the later part of the Middle Ages, which I bought it from an antiquities dealer in the mid 1990s. This tiny badge had been found on the foreshore of the river Thames, where I understand they have been found in their hundreds. The badge itself is believed to have been a pilgrim souvenir obtained during visit to the shrine of Our Lady of the Pew, an image of the Virgin and Child set in a chapel in the north Ambulatory of Westminster Abbey. Like the Travers image, on the pilgrim badge, Our Lady is set in rather than on the crescent moon. So I wonder - as well as seeing the Durer woodcut, had Martin Travers also seen a copy of this pilgrim badge? Was his design and the choice of this form of the Virgin and Child, based on this London connection with the cult of Our Lady of the Pew?

A practicality.

2010-05-24T23:18:00.000+01:00

Glass at Doddiscombsleigh in Devon.

So you are medieval priest in a rural parish, with very fews clerks to hold your liturgical books for you. What do you do at a baptism with your nice new copy of the Sarum Manual? Well you either use a wooden lectern or have a stone one constructed against the pillar next to the font. That is precisely what they did at Beckley in Oxfordshire, where a fifteenth century stone lectern built as an integral part of a pillar next to a plain reset Norman drum font. There are one or two stone gospel lecterns still in existence, built out from the north wall of the chancel, but this font lectern is, I think, a unique survival.

Charity Boards

2010-05-24T11:39:00.001+01:00

This post is entirely off topic, you couldn't you argue that these objects are medieval or medieval revival, but their uniqueness makes them worthy of inclusion. For St Lawrence's in Bardney in Lincolnshire has two remarkable seventeenth century painted charity boards, which commemorate the generosity of parishioners in the alleviation of poverty.

The sixteenth and seventeenth century was a time of great social flux, with the population of England rising. There were winners and losers in this rapid movement and poverty rose considerably. The losers were, of course, as you would expect, the labouring classes. The winners were not the usual suspects, the nobility and gentry, but the 'middling sort', artisans and craftsmen, who with a rise in population found an increased demand for their skills. In this time of boom they invested heavily in property. From this new found affluence and with the memory of their own struggle at the back of their minds, the middling sort developed a strong sense of social responsibility and the charity boards at Bardney reflect that.

The earliest board (above) commemorates the generosity of two members of the same family, both of the middling sort, Joseph Knowles and his uncle John Knowles. Joseph, from Bardney, was an apprentice in London who died in 1603 at the age of twenty five. He had managed to accumulate thirty pounds and this was invested in property to provide an income to buy bread for the poor. When his uncle died, he followed the nephew's example and added an extra ten pounds to the investment, making the weekly disbursement of twelve pence worth of bread. The board bears the portraits of the two benefactors, Joseph has hand placed on a skull, John holding a Bible.

At the bottom a finger points to the exhortation 'Go and do thou likewise', the final command of Christ at the end of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25-37). A challenge to their neighbours.

Well thirty years later one of their neighbours did likewise. For on the opposite wall of the nave is a similar board. William Hurstcroft, who died in May 1639, gave one of his properties to provide an income to be divided between the poor of Bardney and Newport in Lincoln. Presumably he was in trade in Newport. We are told that this was only one of 'other charitable deeds'. At the top of the panel, like John Knowles clutching in his hand his Bible. The charitable response a consequence of internalising the scriptures.

Lady Margaret - errr who?

2010-05-23T20:43:00.001+01:00

Incised slab - Torksey, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

After saying mass on the altar at Torksey, I removed the frontal to take some photos of the fascinating object it covers. The front of the stone altar at Torksey is formed from a fifteenth century incised slab. The centre of the slab has a full length, but very worn, figure of a woman. She wears a long gown, her fully covered head resting on a tasselled pillow, a little lap dog playing at her feet. The marginal inscription around her is fairly generic 'Hic jacet Domina Margareta' it says 'Here lies Lady Margaret'. The slab is very broken and sadly the bit of slab that gave her surname is badly damaged, but you can work out that her name ended in 'on'. She died sometime in the fifteenth century, but once again the bit that was engraved with the year has been broken. On either side she has two shields of arms, 'barry of six', but in the absence of tinctures, they are frustratingly of little use. So Lady Margaret the anonymous.

It has been suggested that the figure was that of the last prioress of the Priory of Fosse, a poor Cistercian priory within the parish of Torksey. Given that the priory was dissolved in 1539 and the slab is fifteenth century, that seems unlikely. Various suggestions have been made to complete the name of the 'prioress', including Margaret Winton and Margaret Multon. However, neither name accords with any in the list of prioresses in the Victoria County History. The only Margaret who served in that office was Margaret Barnby elected in 1410 and as the surname of this mysterious Lady Margaret ends in 'on' this is a blind alley too. So for the moment she remains unidentified.

Personally I am not convinced she is a prioress at all. I would expect her ecclesiastical position to be noted in the inscription and it is not. Also the little lap dog at her feet is perhaps indicative that she is in fact a lay woman, I can't imagine a prioress of a poor and austere Cistercian house (and in 1539 it was described as a 'beggarly poor house') is likely to have owned or asked to be portrayed with such a luxury on her grave slab.

For some reason F A Greenhill, the slab historian, managed to miss this slab in his 'Monumental Incised Slabs in the County of Lincolnshire' even though he recorded another inscription in the church. I suppose the location of the slab doesn't help! Anyway an interesting puzzle, one that I am determined to work at. My next stop is a search of Lincoln Wills to see if any match up.

Window splays

2010-05-17T18:46:00.002+01:00

Silchester, Hampshire, St. Mary's Church 15, originally uploaded by Eric Hardy.

Browsing on friends photos on Flickr I came across this lovely image of the south side of the chancel at Silchester in Hampshire by Eric Hardy. The splays of the windows are decorated with a red ochre masonry and rosettes, part of a 14th century scheme that appears to cover the rest of the chancel interior. It reminded me of the decoration on the arches at Down Ampney in Gloucestershire a featured recently.

Bodley and Garner in Lincolnshire

2010-05-15T18:54:00.002+01:00

Friday was my day off, so I had a trip out with my camera to Laughton, near Gainsborough in north-west of Lincolnshire. I had visited this church before in the summer of 2005, but my photos were not good, so a new set were needed. The church was breathtaking in 2005 and as I stooped down to enter via the south chancel door the building was just as staggering.

Before the 1890s Laughton church was a somewhat dilapidated medieval building. It had been a fine structure and the remaining high quality Transitional north arcade is ample evidence of that. I understand that the chancel was early Decorated and there was much Perpendicular work too. Among the treasures of the church is a fine early fifteenth century brass to a member of the Dalison family, appropriated by a later member of the same family.

In the final quarter of the nineteenth century the lady of the Manor of Laughton and patroness of the living, was a widow, the Hon. Mrs Emily Charlotte Meynell-Ingram. The daughter of the first Viscount Halifax, she had married a wealthy MP called Hugo Francis Meynell-Ingram, who owned a considerable property, including Laughton and Temple Newsam hall in Yorkshire and Hoar Cross in Staffordshire. Tragically Hugo Meynell-Ingram died in 1871 in hunting accident, before he and Emily had any children. She a devoted churchwoman, who was greatly influenced by her brother, the Anglo-Catholic 2nd Viscount Halifax, set about building and rebuilding churches in her husband’s memory. The first work she undertook was the construction of the Church of Holy Angels in Hoar Cross, which was completed in 1876. It was a new building, designed by the fashionable Gothic revivalists G F Bodley and Thomas Garner. Here Mr and Mrs Meynell Ingram are buried side by side under marble effigies.

Twenty years after completing Hoar Cross, Mrs Meynell-Ingram decided to restore Laughton church and she turned to Bodley and Garner once again. The nave of the church was thoroughly restored and a new chancel was built in the Decorated style. The work of restoration was once again a memorial to her late husband and his effigy in white marble, a copy of that at Hoar Cross, is at the east end of the nave. Mrs Meynell-Ingram died in 1904, but her nephew and heir, Lord Halifax, continued the work of restoration at Laughton, which was finally completed in 1926 with the glazing of the nave by Burlison and Grylls. I will say no more and let the photos of this glorious, but little known building, speak for themselves.

My full Flickr set is here.

Christ's feet.

2010-05-13T09:12:00.002+01:00

Newark, St Mary Magdalene, sII, 2e, The Ascension, originally uploaded by gordonplumb.

This panel of early fifteenth century glass is at Newark parish church in Nottinghamshire and is from Gordon Plumb's photostream. It is representative of late medieval images of the Ascension of Christ, his feet dangling from a cloud. Do click through to Gordon's image and have a look at his commentary on the photo, where he talks about the art historical development of this type of Ascension image of the 'disappearing Christ'.

You may also like to have a look at a previous article I wrote on on the glazing of East Harling in Norfolk, as there is a comparable image of the Ascension.

Capitals

2010-05-11T19:54:00.000+01:00

There are a group of churches in north Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, that have a arcades of c.1340, with pillars topped with fascinating capitals. Each capital is decorated with four crouching demi figures, some with interlocking arms.

The two above, decorated with demi figures of male and female civilians, are at Hanwell in north Oxfordshire.

The example above, with four men in chainmail, is at Hampton Poyle also in Oxfordshire

And the last one is at Ludgershall, Buckinghamshire (Martin Beek's photograph) is a similar example. Interestingly the quality of the capitals at Hampton Poyle and Ludgershall are not so fine, does this suggest that the trend was set by the Hanwell capitals?

For more images of capitals, figurative and foliate, see my capitals set on Flickr

Lenten Array ... one that got away

2010-05-10T15:24:00.002+01:00

Fairford Gloucestershire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

I fully intended to post this photograph during Lent. The Lady altar in the Tame chapel at Fairford in Gloucestershire has a reredos of 1913 by Geoffrey Webb, covered during Lent with Lenten Array. The reredos veil is decorated with a central rood group in grisaille with Oxblood stencelling around it. The tabernacle containing the image of Our Lady, that forms an upper level of the reredos, is enclosed with doors and the backs of the doors are also stencilled. Sadly these seems to be the extent of the surviving array, the blue frontal remains in place during Lent, as does the very festal dorsal with its armorial embroidery. Consequently the veiling rather loses its impact.

If you want to see an image or two of the reredos and the image of Our Lady uncovered, there are a couple of nice photos on Brother Lawrence Lew's photostream. Here and here.

A mighty Norman tower

2010-05-07T16:40:00.001+01:00

Fingest, Buckinghamshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

Fingest is a tiny village in the Chilterns in south Buckinghamshire. The village is dominated by the mighty Norman western tower of St Bartholomew's church. In fact the tower is so mighty, 27 foot square, that it makes the church attached (mostly of 1866 by G E Street) look faintly silly. Sir Alfred Clapham in his volume English Romanesque Architecture before the Conquest, published in 1930, argued that the tower was constructed to serve as the nave of the church. To this tower/nave was originally added just a small chancel.

The breadth of the tower evidently caused some roofing issues and the tower is currently made weatherproof by a pair of saddleback roofs of the 14th or 15th century. The whole structure, build of flint rubble, is covered in stucco. It's ochre limewash giving it rather a continental air.

Beware the Ides of March

2010-05-06T09:15:00.000+01:00

The Norman chancel arch at Glympton in Oxfordshire has the following interesting and tantalising inscription carved on its jamb: 'Dedicatio hujus templi Idus Martii' i.e. 'this temple was dedicated on the Ides (15th) of March'. Sadly the stone with the rest of the date has been replaced, but presumably the dedication took place on a 15th of March sometime towards the end of the 12th century, if the style of the arch is anything to go by.

Glympton church, with its perfectly preened churchyard stands in the middle of a north Oxfordshire estate owned by a Saudi prince.

Powdered arches

2010-05-05T00:09:00.001+01:00

Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

Down Ampney, Gloucestershire is the birthplace of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The beautiful village church has a transitional north arcade, c.1200, with very early stiff leaf capitals. The arches are delightfully stencilled with a rather erratic powdering of ochre roses. This decoration is so wonderfully rustic and haphazard, notice the stencilling of the centre arch hasn't even been completed!

Bench End of the Passion

2010-05-05T00:01:00.001+01:00

Cumnor, Berkshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

Looking back through the Flickr archives I came across this bench end at Cumnor in Berkshire, a double-sided poppy head decorated with instruments of the Passion on one side and the cross, a sacred monogram and the five wounds on the other. It rather speaks for itself.

Carnations for Our Lady

2010-05-01T21:14:00.001+01:00

South Muskham, Nottinghamshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum (Allan Barton).

As we enter May, the month of Our Lady, here are a group of late medieval quarries decorated with Gillyflowers or Carnations. Carnations were one of a myriad of flowers that were associated with Our Lady in the Middle Ages. The etymology of the word Carnation is not precisely certain, but some argue that the name is a corruption of Incarnation!

These Carnations are at South Muskham in Nottinghamshire and just down the road at Kelham is the following interesting glass, a roundel decorated with a white flowering rose.

Sadly the legend on the roundel is damaged preventing a full determination of the text, but it possibly alluded to Our Lady who was often represented by the white rose, the Queen of flowers.

This roundel is in the tracery of a north aisle window at Kelham and in the next door window are a couple of IHS monogram roundel and this lovely 'MR' monogram. The initials stand for 'Maria Regina', Mary the Queen of Heaven and allude to the long held tradition that Our Lady was bodily assumed into heaven and crowned queen by her son. As late as 1913 the main lights of the windows also contained the repeated inscription 'lade helpe', so these windows evidently had a Marian theme.

Late Gothic meets early Renaissance

2010-04-30T18:38:00.000+01:00

You are going to have to cope with an awful lot of images of Nottinghamshire over the next few months. Being so close to the Nottinghamshire border, I am taking the opportunity to revisit a number of places in the county that I first visited ten years ago when I was working on my thesis. My aim is to get my CVMA volume completed. The buildings are all as wonderful and compelling as ever, if a little more cluttered with junk than they were.

One place I’ve revisited this week is All Saints, Sutton on Trent, which I first came across in 1998. As the name implies, Sutton is situated on the bank of the river Trent. Within the ecclesiastical parish was a vanished hamlet called Meering which is now, but wasn’t always on the other side of the Trent. For much of the Middle Ages the manor of Meering was owned by a minor gentry family who took their name from the manor. However, by the end of the 15th century the family had become extremely rich, by taking advantage of the growth of the wool trade. So rich in fact that by the end of the fifteenth century they were in mixing in courtly circles. In 1497 Sir William Merying was the head of the family and he was made a knight of the body, an honourary body guard to King Henry VII. He would go on to hold the important office of Marshal of Calais between 1509-1511. No doubt his connections with the wool trade helped him get that role. Calais was the centre of the English wool enterprise and his brother Thomas Meryng of Newark was a merchant of the Staple of Calais the body that governed Calais and regulated the trade.

The family splashed some of its cash on church building work. Thomas the merchant built himself a chantry in Newark parish church and paid for the vast east window of that sumptuous building. Sometime in the 1520s Sir William decided to extend his parish church at Sutton on Trent with the addition of a new south chancel chapel, which would serve as his mortuary chapel. This glorious little chapel at Sutton is a wonderful example of the syncretism that was common in this period, the merging of late Gothic with the newly emerging Renaissance style.

Internally the chapel is divided from the chancel by a two bay arcade and from the south nave aisle by a single four-centred arch. Between the chancel and chapel sanctuaries is a gargantuan tomb chest with a lid of polished purbeck marble. Sadly this has been shorn of its brass inlays, so the identity of the occupant is not known for certain, though it is assumed to be the burial place of Sir William.

The decoration of the chapel is extremely elaborate, both internally and externally. Externally the chapel has a heavy crenellated and pinnacled parapet, decorated with shields of arms. Decorative pinnacles also grow out of the buttresses. The chapel is constructed of ashlar and as such contrasts with the rubble masonry of the rest of the church building, so when first built it must have had the same visual impact as the Greenway chapel at Tiverton (http://medieval-church-art.blogspot.com/2008/10/in-your-face-mercantile-display.html). Internally the pillar supporting the arcade between the nave and a chancel is covered with blank panelling. On the south wall of the chapel there is an interesting arrangement a tableau for images, a blank panelled backdrop incorporating three corbels.

You enter the chapel from within the building through a heavy parclose screen with its own loft. This in example of late Gothic decoration at its most flamboyant, elaborate blank and pierced tracery mix with friezes of lush carved foliage and repeated architectural; motifs.

For all this rich decoration there is no ostentation in this work. Mering’s patronage of the work is marked with a very discreet coat of arms over the entrance.

The wide loft creates, in effect, an ante chapel to the main space and there is an external door giving the Mering family direct access from outside. Did the loft function as a private pew, a bit like the Tudor holyday closet in the chapels royal? It’s tempting to think so.

Only fragments of the original glazing of the chapel remain, but what does remain is extremely interesting indeed. The fragments hint of a very high quality scheme by a continental glazier. The tops of two window lights have renaissance canopy tops, baskets and cornucopia dripping with grapes. In another window other renaissance details, a covered cup and fragments of acanthus. The workmanship is of the highest quality, of courtly quality.

Southwark Cathedral Lent array

2010-02-25T10:03:00.000Z

As a contrast to Tapper's work at Westminster here are some pictures of Sir Ninian Comper's Lenten array in Southwark Cathedral, photographed by SarumSleuth. Comper's array is near contemporary with that at Westminster and was added to the cathedral in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The high altar array (above) differs from much other array in it's use of colour, particularly the striking use of copper oxide green for the cross on the dossal and the floriation around the sacred monograms on the frontal.

When it came to the four altars in the retrochoir, Comper stuck with the more usual ox blood red. Comper's Lenten Array is much more delicate and florid than the array produced by others, notably by the Warham Guild.

Article on Trinity College chalice

2010-02-23T09:53:00.000Z

Can I recommend this excellent and fascinating article to you, published in the report of Trinity College Oxford and starting on page 83. Written by Fr Matthew Rushton, it's a fascinating account of the college chalice and paten, presented to the college by its founder Thomas Pope in 1556. The chalice and paten, which dates from 1527, were long believed to have been in the possession of St Alban's Abbey before the abbey was dissolved. Although Fr Rushton says the evidence for this tradition is rather inconclusive, Thomas Pope was one of the commissioners charged with the dissolution of the abbey and would no doubt have benefitted from its despoliation. So, there is a fair chance the chalice and paten were monastic booty. Very little has been written on late medieval English metalwork, so this is a very welcome addition to the literature.

The Lent array

2010-02-22T13:41:00.001Z

in Westminster Abbey. The high altar at Westminster has a glorious set of Lenten array dating from the 1920s and 30s. The frontal and dossal, decorated with ox blood red stencilling, were first introduced in 1921. The blue stencilled hangings covering the rest of the altar screen were added in 1935. Both were designed by Sir Walter Tapper, Surveyor of the Fabric.

Click through to Flickr for more detailed views of each picture.

It's that time of year again, time to put up the Lenten array!

2010-02-17T11:31:00.000Z

The Lenten array at All Saints, Cuddesdon in Oxfordshire, all three altars draped in unbleached linen with blood red decoration.

The stencilled shields containing instruments of the Passion, are from the Lenten array frontal at St Mary's Primrose Hill, Hampstead. The photos rom SarumSleuth's Flickr page, who has a fantastic folder on Flickr with numerous pictures of Lenten array from the length and breadth of England. For my previous articles on the subject see here and here.

More on Stow

2010-02-09T10:41:00.002Z

In my last post I excused my absence from blogging, I've been quite busy in the parish over the last few weeks. I've been particularly occupied with arrangements for the solemn Eucharist for Candlemas that was held in the glorious surroundings of Stow Minster. I've been putting off posting about Stow Minster, but having given you that tantalising glimpse of this building, I thought I might say a bit more about the place.

Stow Minster, the parish church of St Mary the Virgin of Stow, is an extremely important building. It's a building that dominates the small village to the north of Lincoln that surrounds it - in fact it dominates the whole countryside around it. The name Stow means 'holy place' and the village was an important centre for christian mission and worship from the Anglo-Saxon period. Stow was so important in former times that many of the villages around it have 'by Stow' added to their place names - Coates by Stow, Sturton by Stow, Willingham by Stow, Normanby by Stow.

By tradition the first church on this site was built in the late seventh century at a spot where St Etheldreda rested for a time while on a journey. The legend is that she planted her walking stick in the ground and it blossomed into a tree and in due course the church was built beside it. Stow is often identified as Sidnacaester, the cathedral of the Anglo-Saxon diocese of Lindsey, but that identification is possible, but sadly unprovable.

What we do know, is that by the tenth and eleventh century there was already a major church building, of the present proportions, on this site. In the last quarter of the tenth century, Bishop Aelfnoth of Dorchester is believed to have constructed a substantial church building to serve as a Minster for the northern part of his vast diocese. The earliest parts of the present structure, the walls of the transepts, were probably part of that building or of work completed in the early eleventh century. In the twenty years before the Norman Conquest bishop Eadnoth II did some further work to the church, with the finanical assistance of Leofric Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva. In 1054 Eadnoth raised this new church to be a Minster of secular canons and endowed it with property. His intention being to establish it as a base from which he could oversee the northern part of his vast diocese.

The monumental round arches of the central crossing probably date from Eadnoth's episcopate.

In 1073 bishop Remigius of Dorchester, moved his see to Lincoln and Stow ceased to be an important administrative centre and the minster foundation probably failed. However the religious life of Stow was revived by Remigius, who moved Benedictine monks from Eynsham in Oxfordshire to Stow, to establish a priory. As part of that work he constructed the present nave.

The priory was to be short-lived, the monks were quickly moved back south by Remigius' sucessor, bishop Robert Bloet and Stow minster became a parish church, which it remains. The endownment was transferred to two prebendal stalls in Lincoln cathedral.

That's not the end of the story. The bishops of Lincoln owned a manor in Stow and they established a palace there. The palace of Stow Park was a favourite country retreat of sucessive bishops, including bishop Hugh of Avalon, St Hugh. It was at Stow that St Hugh made friends with the swan that was to become his attribute. The bishops of Lincoln continued to lavish money on Stow Minster, and at some point towards the end of the twelfth century, perhaps even during Hugh's tenure, they rebuilt the present chancel of the parish church.

Very little has been added to the building since. The central tower was rebuilt in the fifteenth century and strengthened with new arches set within the Saxon arches. Perpendicular windows were inserted into the east and west ends, but little else was done to the structure.

By the early nineteenth century the building had become seriously dilapidated, and in the 1850s and 60s it was restored under the direction of J L Pearson, who removed some of the later accretions including the Perpendicular windows. In the chancel, the first part of his restoration he inserted a rib vault in place of the late medieval timber ceiling.

Sadly the future of this important and venerable building is at considerable risk. The Pearson restoration has come to the end of its natural life and now considerable work needs to be done to the building both internally and externally. The small and devoted congregation have already managed to raise sufficient money to repair the transept roofs, but the great roofs of the nave and chancel now need urgent attention. The full cost of this work is around three million pounds, far more than the tiny parish are capable of raising. So what will happen? Well one very real possibility is that this building of national importance, will cease to be a parish church and that the long tradition of christian witness and worship in this place will be lost. A very sad future for a glorious and inspiring building that simply comes alive when used as it was intended, for the Eucharist.

Absence

2010-02-04T14:40:00.001Z

Stow Candlemas Eucharist, originally uploaded by gordonplumb.

My absence is due in the most part to busyness in the parish. One of the things I've been working on is the liturgy for a solemn Eucharist for Candlemas. This took place in the glorious surroundings of Stow Minster last Sunday 31st of January. The following photo, taken by Gordon Plumb, shows the Gloria being sung in the twelfth century chancel at Stow.

Kempe (?) (no in fact a WalterTapper) altar frontal at Grantham

2010-01-02T11:41:00.004Z

Click through for high resolution photos

I took these photos in the summer on a trip to St Wulfram's Grantham, Lincolnshire with Gordon Plumb, but have only just got round to uploading them to Flickr. They show details of a really splendid altar frontal on the lady chapel altar. It has a backing of blue silk decorated with glorious embroideries. The theme of the iconography is Marian. The first line of the Magnificat is embroidered on the frontlet.

The main frontal continues the theme, making use of various titles and attributes given to Our Lady. Out of a hortus conclusus (enclosed garden), grow two branches of conjoined stems both flowering with red roses and and lily flowers. The stems trail out over the rest of the frontal. Between them other Marian titles are depicted. Sedes sapientiae (Seat of Wisdom), Foederis Acca (Ark of the Covenant), Fons Hortorum (fount of the garden), Torris Davidica (Tower of David), Porta Coeli (gate of heaven), Regina Angelorum (Queen of Angels), Oliva Speciosa (fair olive tree), Stella Matutina (morning star). The artist has included two seraphim standing on wheels, which are evidently derived from medieval examples, probably from Mary Barber's drawings.

All in all it is a glorious piece, but who is it by? Well I don't know. The altar is surrounded by some rather fine Kempe windows and Gordon and I suspect that it came out of Kempe's studios. Perhaps it was made by the Clewer sisters, who are known to have produced some fine work for Kempe. Very little of their work can be attributed firmly, but I can't help thinking that the colouring of the silkwork on the Grantham frontal has parallels with the red Kempe frontal at St Marks' Philadelphia. I David d'Ambly doesn't mind me using his photo to illustrate it.

Addendum. Well it turns out I was a little off beam with my musings. Gordon has made some enquiries and apparently the frontal was designed by the architect Walter Tapper and made by Watts and Co. It was given by Emma Sedgwick in 1928. Tapper was one of the last Gothic revivalists, but he came out of the same stable as Kempe, both learning their trade in Bodley's drawing office.

Hailes, Gloucestershire - post-Reformation liturgical arrangements

2010-01-01T10:51:00.000Z

I'm very grateful to Roger Mortimer for his fascinating comment on Elizabethan table carpets, which he has posted on my Buckland vestments article. In his post he mentioned in passing the Elizabethan liturgical arrangements, that until the mid twentieth century, were still extant at Hailes church in Gloucestershire.

This is a view of the west end of the chancel at Hailes, that I took in 2007. Until fifty years ago, the east end of the chancel was a mirror-image of the west end. The double tier of seats that you see here, continued right across the east end of the chancel, as the diagram below shows.

This arrangement of seating prevented the holy table being placed at the east end of the chancel where the medieval altar would of been. Rather, as this photograph below shows, the holy table was placed in the very centre of the chancel, with its short ends facing east and west. A table carpet would have been thrown over the table during the time of communion and the priest would have stood on the north side, facing south across the table as he celebrated communion in the midst of the people. This liturgical arrangement was intended to create an intentional visual statement. It was intended to visually divorce the reformed communion service from the perceived supersition of the medieval mass.

Sadly this rare and interesting liturgical arrangement at Hailes has now been swept away. This is the east end of the chancel today. The eastern seating has been removed and steps have been introduced to support a freestanding altar at which the priest presides facing the people.

I saw something today that really annoyed me.

2009-12-31T19:15:00.008Z

I went up the road ten miles to East Markham in Nottinghamshire, to record some rather lovely medieval glass. I'd last visited the church in the winter of 1999 and I knew the church also had a Comper window and a Comper English altar, which would be a welcome bonus on a cold day!

The Comper glass is truly wonderful. It is fairly early work, dating from 1896/7 - so is an example, as you would expect from this point in his career, of rich medieval revivalism. Figures of St Hugh, St John the Baptist, the Virgin and Child, St Paul and St Cuthbert are set under tall canopies that could easily have come out of a York church.

The English altar below is rather a different matter and that is what got my blood boiling. The riddel posts remain and are still surmounted by four gilded Nuremburg angels, but all the hangings have been removed. Instead of Comper's rich textiles, the monumental stone altar is covered with a cheap and nasty white frontal, which looks like a dust sheet and is decorated with tacky appliqued cross.

With no dorsal or riddel curtains the riddel posts are in fact redundant and Comper's intention of visually uniting the altar with the window (as is evident in the photograph below of the altar when new) is now disrupted. Visually his work is compromised.

What is more irritating is that I discovered that many of the original hangings do in fact still survive. They are dumped in a chest at the back of the church. Thankfully they are still in good condition, but for how long. I wonder though why are they not in use? How on earth did the church get permission to remove the frontal and replace them with something that is mean and unworthy? What DAC in their right mind would allow it? Needless to say I had a little bit of a rant to myself as I spent the next hour photographing the glass.

Two of the discarded hangings from the high altar. The top one, presumably a dorsal, is quite clearly by Comper, the fabrics are his own designs. The base fabric is a beautiful murrey van der Weyden and the orphreys are in a gold St Hubert. There was probably a set of vestments to match this, as a burse is also extant. The bottom frontal, is evidently post WWI later as it has a base of Randoll Blacking's St Nicholas with red and gold St Hubert orphreys. There were other textiles in the chest, but I didn't dare get them all out!!

Every blessing

2009-12-24T20:23:00.000Z

to all blog readers. May the light and peace of Christ be with you all this Christmas. Thank you for all your support this year.

Allan

An unusual kneeling donor

2009-12-13T18:16:00.001Z

Cumnor, Berkshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

This early sixteenth century roundel at Cumnor in Berkshire, isn't a particularly distinguised piece of glass painting. It is however rather interesting. It appears to show a female kneeling donor of the type that was very common in the period. However it is a rather unusual treatment of such a donor image. Firstly the donor is within a roundel, that is far from normal and she is secondly set within a domestic setting, which is unusual too. She kneels at a prie-dieu in a rather fine room with a tiled floor, springers that hint at a vault with glazed windows, one glazed with quarries and a roundel. This glass is in its original position, occupying one of two quatrefoil tracery lights at the top of a nave window. That is rather odd too, as donor images are generally near the bottom of a window where they can be more easily seen. Donor images are generally placed in relationship with other images in a window, notably with images of the persons of the Trinity or of the saints. This image was probably paired with a second image in the matching quatrefoil in the tracery of this window. Frustratingly thus image has now gone and sadly the marginal inscription of this roundel is rather too broken to provide any other clues as to what that second image might have been. Quite often the relationship between donor images and other imagery in a window is expressed through scrolls with invocatory texts. This roundel has no such texts, so what can we surmise? That this is the image of a woman meditating in her private oratory?

Coates - Easter Sepulchre

2009-11-27T09:57:00.001Z

Coates, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

I have already posted twice on St Edith's Coates-by-Stow in Lincolnshire, with its lovely screen and loft. Among the fittings in the chancel are the substantial remains of the Easter Sepulchre. After it ceased to be used at the Reformation the sepulchre was covered over and monumental brasses were inserted into the blocking, further obscuring it. What was left of it It was uncovered in the nineteenth century. The top of the arch is surmounted with a badly defaced carving of the resurrection, with Christ leaping from the tomb with the sleeping soldiers surrounding him. This was flanked by two censing angels, only one survivesd and this is virtually obliterated.

Stiff leaf, bad glass and Baroque monuments.

2009-11-25T10:56:00.002Z

There will be one or two new posts this week. I apologise that things have been a bit slow of late, I have the good excuse of moving house and settling into a new parish. I had a lovely little excursion last week into Nottinghamshire and one of the churches I visited was Low Marnham, a redundant church in a rather remote area close to the Trent. It's a church I last visited ten years ago when I was working on my thesis, as there are some fragments of exceptionally bad early sixteenth century glass, including this head of St James the Great.

The church itself is very atmospheric, it has a nave with aisles that entered through a sturdy transitional north arcade (see below) and a beautiful Early English south arcade with crisp stiff leaf capitals. The photo at the top of the post shows the centre pier of the north chapel arcade, which is embellished with equally fine stiff leaf. A lot of the outer walls of the church were rebuilt in the sixteenth century and the lights of the north aisle and clerestory windows are topped with the usual depressed arches of that period.

If that's not enough there are a couple of magnificent late seventeenth century Baroque cartouches. The one in the north chapel, dating from the late 1690s, is topped with putti and is supported rather dramatically on two grisly winged skulls.

Layer upon layer of ...

2009-10-22T10:22:00.002+01:00

East Shefford, Berkshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

medieval wallpaintings. The tiny church of East Shefford in Berkshire, now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust has some fascinating wallpaintings in the nave. The east wall of the nave around the thirteenth century chancel arch, has two distinct phases of wallpaintings. The chancel arch cuts through a striking Adoration of the Magi dating from c.1100 which was originally painted around an earlier narrower arch. In the later Middle Ages these early paintings would have been covered by the rood screen and loft, the position of which can easily worked out by gaps in the paintwork. Above where the rood loft would have been, are a series of 15th century paintings which formed a backdrop for the rood and rood beam. The shadow of the lost rood beam is clearly shown and the lost rood group (which was quite small and presumably of wood) is outlined in red paint. Around that are three bold sacred monograms. O wonderful sequence of paintings they are and of course never seen together until they were all uncovered in the nineteenth century.

The chancel at East Shefford is also rather interesting too. The floor has been relaid with replica tiles, based on one or surviving medieval examples and there are other interesting features which will have to wait for another post.

St Michael panel at South Cove

2009-10-20T23:54:00.001+01:00

South Cove, Suffolk, St Lawrence, originally uploaded by Tudor Barlow.

As I was surfing around on Flickr I came across Gil Barlow's lovely photo of the St Michael panel at South Cove in Suffolk. The painted panel dates from the last quarter of the fifteenth century and fills the former entrance to the rood loft. The colouring is so vibrant as the entrance was plastered over and has only fairly recently been uncovered.

Chancel of Coates

2009-10-20T23:51:00.001+01:00

Coates by Stow, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

A response to the enquiry by Canon Tallis about the seating of the chancel at Coates. As you can see there is nothing to suggest the medieval seating arrangements here. The back of the screen is traceried and there is no evidence of returned stalls facing east. Even the floor appears to be fairly new, rather different than that in the nave!

Comment moderation

2009-10-17T16:23:00.002+01:00

St Michael, originally uploaded by Simon_K.

I've decided to cease moderating comments on this blog. Mostly because I'm very slow at moderating them and I'm sure this must cause you all frustration. Also because I feel, given the gentility of the readership, it is highly unlikely that I will get a scurilous comment!

The photograph is taken from Simon Knott's glorious Flickr photostream. He has 23,000 photos on it, the vast majority of churches. This particular shot is a detail of the fifteenth century screen at Binham priory in Norfolk, where the medieval imagery was whitewashed over with texts by the reformers. Gradually the figures are reappearing!!

Coates by Stow - a few more photos.

2009-10-17T15:49:00.003+01:00

This view of the church from the south was taken by Tudor Barlow. The simple two-cell plan is evident, the south door with its zigzag ornament revealing that the church is essentially Norman. Notice also the tiny little two-light window that illuminates the rood stair.

There are one or two fragments of medieval glass in the side windows of nave and chancel, including this shield of Hansard held by a disembodied hand and small figures of St Mary Magdalene and St John the Evangelist.

There are one or two rather nice monuments in the chancel too, mostly commemorating the Butler family. Among them this rather poignant brass commemorating William Butler and his wife Elizabeth and their only child baby Priscilla. Priscilla is show wrapped in swaddling clothes. William died in 1590 at the age of 26.

Lastly I noticed that Gordon Plumb had this detail of the loft decoration, a carved vine. This part of the screen is a Victorian copy of the medieval original, but it demonstrates the quality of the medieval original.

Time stood still...

2009-10-15T11:20:00.004+01:00

... at Coates-by-Stow in Lincolnshire.

The church of St Edith Coates-by-Stow appears to have avoided the notice of the sixteenth century reformers and has preserved it's pre-Reformation fittings more-or-less intact.

It's in a fairly isolated spot, with only a farm for company, so it's perhaps no surprise it is so well preserved. There is nothing particularly fancy about the furnishings of this building, and as such they are probably fairly representative of the medieval furnishings many country churches have lost. The church itself is essentially a Norman building, rebuilt in the fourteenth century. Windows in the nave and the tub font betray the Norman origins of the building. Like many churches of this period it was refurnished in the fifteenth century. And the rood screen, complete with its loft, a traceried pulpit and poppy head pews all date from this one campaign.

The loft, which has a projecting desk in the centre, perhaps used for reading the Gospel? or bidding the bedes, is backed with a simple plank typanum. The rood was evidently painted onto this typanum, as the head of Our Lady appears ghostlike against the worn oak background. The centre part of the typanum, where the cross would have appeared, has sadly been renewed.

The dado of the screen and the loft are decorated with blank tracery and delicate carved foliage. The glorious silvery oak of the furniture, mixed with the stone and brick of the floors makes for an evocative building with immense charm and texture.

I am in the middle of packing at the moment. In two weeks time we move to Saxilby near Lincoln, where I am to be assistant curate in the Saxilby group of parishes. In the New Year the Stow group of parishes, including Coates-by-Stow, will added to this group. I'm looking forward to the immense privilege of celebrating mass in this lovely building.

Unfinished work?

2009-09-25T20:30:00.002+01:00

Turkdean, Gloucestershire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

I came across this fascinating oddity at Turkdean in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds. When the parisioners decided to rebuild they modest two cell Norman church sometime in the fifteenth century. they decided to start by constructing the tower within the western bay of the Norman nave. They then built a new nave and chancel abutting the new tower. For some reason when the new nave, tower and chancel were completed the builders chose not to remove the remaining bits of Norman nave. So you have, in effect, two odd shallow Norman aisles, complete with half a door and corbel table, embracing the tower. Very strange.

A view of the church from the east.

Eric Hardy's photography

2009-09-24T10:05:00.002+01:00

Walpole St Peter, Norfolk,, originally uploaded by Eric Hardy.

Eric Hardy is a Flickr friend of mine. I went on quite a number of church crawls in his company when I lived in Oxfordshire. I was always impressed with his unbounding enthusiasm and the energy as he was photographing churches and beauty and quaility of his resulting photographs. Do have a look at his Flickrstream if you have a moment. This photo of a glorious boss depicting Our Lady being assumed into heaven, is from the porch of Walpole St Peter in Norfolk. It forms part of a lovely set of four hundred photos of Norfolk churches.

Medieval pulpits

2009-09-14T21:31:00.006+01:00

Quite a good number of medieval pulpits survive in English parish churches. I suppose that is not surprising really given that this was an element of medieval church furnishing that wasn't controversial to the reformers. Here are just a selection of fifteenth century pulpits from as far separated as Norfolk, Gloucestershire and Somerset. They are all of the wineglass type, where the platform is supported on a coved central shaft. They are perhaps not the finest selection, but they represent the general type in both wood and stone.

South Creake, Norfolk. A tracered pulpit, with significant remains of polychromy.

North Cerney, Gloucestershire. There are a good number of stone wineglass pulpits in the Cotswolds. All are pretty similar, with traceried panels. The second example is at Chedworth, a few miles away from North Cerney.

Chedworth, Gloucestershire

East Hagbourne, Berkshire. This late example has been altered in the nineteenth century.

Long Sutton, Somerset. A magnificent tall pulpit, all of a piece with the rood and parclose screens. The sides of the pulpit are decorated with polychromed tabernacle work. The original figures have been lost and replaced with the present nineteenth century apostles.

Blakeney, Norfolk

2009-09-14T21:27:00.002+01:00

Blakeney, Norfolk, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

Blakeney church stands high above it's village, which was once a major port on the north Norfolk coast. The church is for the most part a fifteenth century building, with a broad clerestoried nave paid for by the wealthy mercantile class who benefitted from the port trade. The chancel, is a couple of centuries earlier than the rest of the building and is a lovely example of Early English architecture. The east window consists of seven lancets set under a single hoodmould, one step in architectural development before tracery came on the scene. Attached to the north side of the chancel is an interesting and unique feature, a slender bell turret, that rises almost as high as the west tower. Is it a sanctus bellcote? Very probably, but apparently it also doubled up as a lighthouse to guide ships into the harbour and the upper parts of the bell-openings are glazed rather than louvred.

Internally the church is rather interesting too. There is a fine chancel screen and rood group above. The nave is covered with a glorious fifteenth roof with angel hammerbeams.

Internally the chancel is vaulted and the east end has an 'English altar' set before an altar screen that divides an eastern sacristy from the sanctuary.

The quire stalls incorporate medieval benchends and misericords.

Warham Guild vestments

2009-09-09T10:00:00.000+01:00

I'm rather fond of the work of the Warham Guild, as previous posts on the subject demonstrate. In this picture the dalmatic and tunicle are rather fine examples of the Warham Guild's work, and they belong to St Mary the Virgin Primrose Hill. The chasuble is not part of the same set, but is part of a new low mass set. It is made of Watts oyster Bellini silk, with orphreys in Sarum red 'Gothic' silk designed by G F Bodley. The photo was taken by Gordon Plumb just after I had celebrated my first mass in St Michael and All Angels, Louth on July 5th 2009.

Bishop Edward King's chasuble

2009-09-08T10:00:00.003+01:00

The Bishop of Lincoln John Saxbee is wearing a glorious chasuble that was made for his predecessor Edward King, who was Bishop of Lincoln between 1885 and 1910. Glorious cream damask powdered with neo-medieval motifs in coloured silk and velvet orphreys with goldwork. Who's it by? I'll hazard a guess that it's a Bodley design, embroidered by Watts. Bodley did some other work for King, including a succesful conversion of the buttery and pantry of the medieval bishops palace into a glorious chapel.

Incidentally that is me to the Bishop of Lincoln's right, shortly after I was ordained to the priesthood. Needless to say the chasuble was a tad distracting during the proceedings!

Comper glass from Burgh -le-Marsh

2009-09-07T19:36:00.004+01:00

Manby, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

Manby church is only a minute or two along the road for me and for some reason I have always put off paying the church a visit, I think I always imagined it would be locked. I had noted some time ago that Pevsner refers to some Comper glass here, so I should have made more effort. Anyway when I finally made the arduous journey of four miles I was not disappointed with what I found. The east window of this rather pedestrian Perpendicular church, is filled with a glorious Comper window dated 1929 which portrays the conversion of St Paul before the gates of Damascus. It is a dramatic and complex composition. St Paul, in Roman armour, lies startled on the ground before the risen Christ, who appears surrounded by angels, four holding instruments of the Passion. The figure of Christ is a youthful figure of the sort usually favoured by Comper. St Paul is surrounded by armoured companions, two of whom flee in terror taking their horse with them.

This lovely window has a rather interesting history. It was originally the east window of St Paul's missionary college in Burgh-le-Marsh in Lincolnshire. The chapel was Bucknall and Comper building built in the 1890s, which was furnished piecemeal by Comper over the next thirty years. The chapel was demolished in 1967 and the contents dispersed. The altar is now in Burgh-le-Marsh church, the stalls see below are in Sheffield Cathedral, while the glass ... well all that remains of the extensive glazing is this window transferred to Manby. Where is the rest?

There are more photos of the Manby window on my Flickr stream

Apologies for my absence

2009-06-11T10:56:00.003+01:00

St Michael and All Angels, Louth, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

When I last posted on this blog on 19 March I said that I would be absent from the blog for a few weeks. Those few weeks have very quickly turned into nearly three months. I do apologise for my long absence and for not moderating comments. Life has been very hectic over the last few months, what with the birth of Harriet, various hospital trips with my eldest daughter and the business of parish life. A few people have emailed to ask where I've been and to ask that I start posting again. Many thanks for this prodding and rest assured posting will re-start over the summer.

Could ask you to keep me in your prayers over the next three weeks. On Sunday July the fifth I will be ordained priest in Lincoln Cathedral. I will celebrate mass for the first time on the same day at St Michael and All Angels in Louth. The lovely image of Our Lady I've posted above is in the Lady chapel at St Michael's. The mass is as 5pm and any local readers would be more than welcome to come along if you can make it.

If anyone would like me to send them a physical Ember card please email me. There is a lovely panel of fifteenth century glass on the reverse of it, which I'm not going to post on the web!

South Elkington

2009-03-19T19:57:00.001Z

South Elkington, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

I am very grateful to Fr Anthony Symondson for solving the puzzle of Bernard Smith (see comment on the previous post). If I had picked up my copy of his work on Sir Ninian Comper, the answer was there waiting for me. It would seem that H. A. Bernard Smith and his firm of ateliers were responsible for the execution of a lot of Comper's work and my hunch about Bodley was right too - he was a pupil of Bodley and Garner.

I'm going to take a short break from the blog for a few weeks. Prayers please for my wife who is due to give birth to our third child any day now. Allan

Te Deum ceiling

2009-03-13T14:32:00.005Z

The chancel of All Saints in South Elkington, Lincolnshire, had been constructed by the local architect James Fowler in 1874 in a rather plain and pedestrian 'middle pointed' style. In 1904 the rector of Elkington Canon Smyth retired and his parting gift to the parish was a sum of money to enable the redecoration of Fowler's chancel ceiling and the presentation of a new organ. The work was overseen by Smyth's son-in-law and successor C. W. Stanford.

Fowler's plain roof was transformed with a decorative scheme based on the Te Deum. It has painted texts and gilded medallions filled with figures appropriate to the text. The whole is set against a ground of red ochre, stencilled with sacred mongrams. When I first saw the ceiling it screamed Bodley at me. Then I looked more carefully at the figurative work, which doesn't have the quality of finish you might associate with Bodley, in fact it is all rather crude (see St Helen below). The church guide book, which is my only authority until I dig a bit deeper, says that the work was executed by Bernard Smith of Woking, a friend of the family. Do any readers know anything about him? The work was completed in July 1904 and blessed by Edward King, the saintly bishop of Lincoln.

St Michael

St Helena.

The organ case is also lavish, the coving decorated with a firmament filled with cherubim. Sadly the later wooden screens at the base of the organ case have destroyed the visual integrity of the case and those carpets! Well perhaps enough said about those.

The Lenten Rood Veil

2009-03-07T19:17:00.004Z

Percy Dearmer, the author of the Parson's Handbook, was vicar of St Mary's Primrose Hill in Hampstead, so it is no surprise that this glorious church has a full set of Lenten array. The church also follows the pre-Reformation practice of veiling the great rood at the chancel step and they use a veil dating from Dearmer's incumbency, strikingly stencilled in black and red. In medieval liturgical practice the great rood above the rood screen was covered up with the other images in the church at the beginning of Lent. However, while the other veils remained until the Paschal Vigil, in the Sarum Use the rood veil was dramatically removed at the end of the procession on Palm Sunday as the priest twice sung Ave rex noster, fili david (hail our king, son of David) and the chanters took up the anthem. The veil at Primrose Hill is suspended on a pulley system and they still follow the medieval custom of unveiling it on Palm Sunday as Sarumsleuth's photos below demonstrate.

Here for good measure are a couple of pictures of the Lenten array in other parts of this lovely church.

Sources

For the medieval practice of unveiling the rood on Palm Sunday see: The Use of Sarum I, Richard Pynson Processionale ad Usum Sarum 1502 (Boethius Press, 1980)

Lenten array

2009-03-03T11:17:00.007Z

Lenten array designed by F C Eden at North Cerney, Gloucestershire

So Lent is upon us once again. Until a few years ago it was fairly common to see the altars of English churches covered with unbleached linen hangings known as Lenten array. This striking custom is a medieval one and was fairly universal in medieval England.

In the Middle Ages the idea of covering altars, reredoses and images with off-white material, was to provide a visual deprivation of colour and ornament within the church building. The purpose of this was twofold. Firstly it was reflective of the contemplative character of the season. Thomas Becon, the protestant theologian, wrote about the purpose of it as he understood it:

'So likewise [in] this time of Lent, which is a time of mourning, all things that make to the adornment of the church are either laid aside or covered, to put us in remembrance that we ought now to lament and mourn for our souls dead in sin and continually to watch, fast pray, give alms etc. etc.'

Secondly the contrast between the visual deprivation of Lent, with the visual splendour of the festal hangings of Easter, emphasised the triumph of the resurrection.

In the Middle Ages the linen hangings were usually decorated with red, black or dark blue stencilled motifs. These motifs were generally related to the Passion of the Lord, the Instruments of the Passion or sacred monograms. The coverings over images were often stencilled or appliqued with an attribute, text or even by the late medieval period a representation of the image covered.

Lenten array on the nave altar at Winchester Cathedral.

Lenten array by the Warham Guild at St Birinus Dorchester, Oxfordshire.

Lenten array by Sir Ninian Comper in the retrochoir of Southwark Cathedral.

Additional reading

The best account of the medieval use of Lenten array, including a large amount of documentary evidence is probably W. St John Hope and E. G. C. Atchley English Liturgical Colours (London, 1918).

Wool merchants

2009-03-02T10:50:00.006Z

I had a quick trip on Saturday to the church of St Cornelius at Linwood, near Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. The church contains two of the finest early fifteenth century monumental brasses in the county. Sadly they are little neglected and covered in bat droppings.

The first is a double brass to a civilian and his wife and the second is a single brass of a male civilian (above), all three figures are set under elaborate ogee canopies. The brasses commemorate John Lyndewode senior who died 1419 and his wife, and their son John Lyndewode junior who died in 1421. John senior (below top) is portrayed as a man in middle age with thinning hair and modest dress, while his son John junior (below bottom) is shown as a younger man with a fashionable haircut, a fancy gown and elaborate belt.

I am not expert on monumental brass typology, but the brasses are clearly the product of the same workshop and given the closeness between the death of father and son, they were probably laid down at the same time. Given that they are set into slabs of Purbeck marble, they were probably made in London or the South East. I'm sure one of my readers will be able to tell me what classification they are given.

The brass of John Lyndewode senior and his wife has some interesting features. At the base of the brass is a verse inscription in low relief. Above that are figures of the seven children born to the couple, each set under an individual canopy. To the left are three male figures in civilian dress, to the right three female figures. In the centre is a male cleric dressed in a cope. This last figure almost certainly represents John Lyndewode's son William Lyndewode (1375-1446). William Lyndewode was a high flying cleric, who became bishop of St David's in 1442 and was also keeper of the Privy Seal He was the most prominent canon lawyer of his day and compiled the important canon law text Constitutiones provinciales ecclesiae Anglicanae.

John Lyndewode senior was a wool merchant and he is stood, appropriately enough, on his own product, a neatly stitched-up woolsack. Unlike this high-flying cleric brother, John Lyndwode junior, followed his father into the family firm and on his brass, he too is perched on top of a woolsack.

John junior's woolsack is a little more elaborate than that of his father, and is decorated with the family trademark, which would have been applied to the sacks before they were exported to the continent via Calais. An early example of corporate branding.

Postscript

Here is another example of a merchant balancing on his merchandise, this is John Fortey (many thanks John for noticing my misappropriation) at Northleach in Gloucestershire. He has one foot resting on a sheep and another on a woolsack.

The monumental brass society has a link to one or two further examples.

The funeral of Our Lady

2009-02-18T19:59:00.002Z

Photo by Eric Hardy

Stanton St John, Oxfordshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

This panel of late thirteenth century glass at Stanton St John is Oxfordshire is interesting iconographically. It shows an episode from the life of Our Lady, as recorded in the fiftth century apocryphal text 'Transitu Beatae Mariae', which is generally thought to have been writtent by Melito of Sardis. It is in this text that we learn of Our Lady's Dormition and her Assumption. The panel at Stanton portrays the events immediately after Our Lady has fallen asleep and just before her Assumption. The apostles, believing Our Lady to be dead, are carrying her to the tomb in a bier draped with a pall. Here are the events as described in the text:

'And, behold, a new miracle. There appeared above the bier a cloud exceeding great, like the great circle which is wont to appear beside the splendour of the moon; and there was in the clouds an army of angels sending forth a sweet song, and from the sound of the great sweetness the earth resounded. Then the people, baring gone forth from the city, about fifteen thousand, wondered, saying; What is that sound of so great sweetness? Then there stood up one who said to them: Mary has departed from the body, and the disciples of Jesus are singing praises around her. And looking, they saw the couch crowned with great glory, and the apostles singing with a loud voice. And, behold, one of them, who was chief of the priests of the Jews in his rank, filled with fury and rage, said to the rest: Behold, the tabernacle of him who disturbed us and all our race, what glory has it received? And going up, he wished to overturn the bier, and throw the body down to the ground. And immediately his hands dried up from his elbows, and stuck to the couch. And when the apostles raised the bier, part of him hung, and part of him adhered to the couch; and he was vehemently tormented with pain, while the apostles were walking and singing. And the angels who were in the clouds smote the people with blindness.' (Melito of Sardis, The Passing of Blessed Mary).

So here we have the moment when one of the chief priests, trying to tip up the coffin, gets stuck on the bottom of it. We have the angels in the clouds, as described in the text, doing what angels do, i.e. censing. The figure lying on the ground may be one of the people that were struck blind, or does it represent the figure of the priest who has fallen to the ground. I'm sure this curious panel wasn't a stand alone piece, but was part of a larger sequence portraying the life of Our Lady, of which sadly nothing else remains.

Font cover at Ewelme, Oxfordshire

2009-02-17T19:21:00.001Z

Ewelme, Oxfordshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

The Bodley and Garner font cover at Brant Broughton reminded me to post a picture of the towering font cover at Ewelme in Gloucestershire. A delicate piece of design, it is comprised of diminishing tiers of tabernacling, topped with a lovely little figure of St Michael. Like most of its ilk the cover is counterweighted, and it lifts up to allow baptism.

If Pevsner is to be believed the cover was presented by John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk in 1475. John's mother Alice de la Pole, who has a lavish tomb in the church, was the grandaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Brant Broughton again

2009-02-16T17:07:00.005Z

It wasn't just the chancel at St Helen's Brant Broughton that received the Bodley and Garner treatment, the late medieval nave was also restored. The roofs of the nave and aisles were lavishly recoloured. Bodley based the colouring of the nave roof on fragments of the original polychromy. The nave is lit by a series of gilded wrought iron candelabra, designed by Canon F H Sutton and made by Thomas Coldron the local blacksmith.

In 1889 the fairly ordinary fifteenth century font, was given a towering cover designed by Thomas Garner. The cover is of plain oak on the outside, but opening the doors, you are met with a wonderful surprise, a glorious polychromed interior. The base of the paint work is the standard Bodley and Garner muted greens and reds, set off with stencilled and gilded devices and blackletter texts.

At the back of the cover are three figures. The child martyr St Agnes, St Michael the Archangel and St Nicholas of Myra. The blue highlights on these figures and the pink tone of the lining of St Michael's robe provide a visual relief from the sea of green and red that surrounds them.

Bodley and Garner in Lincolnshire

2009-02-11T12:27:00.005Z

If you ever find yourself near Lincoln, take a detour ten miles south to the village of Brant Broughton, where the church of St Helen is a building that really shouldn't be missed. The church is an example of an exceptional and lavish restoration by Bodley and Garner. The restoration was initiated by Canon F. H Sutton, who was inducted to the living of Brant Broughton in 1873. He was inducted into the vicar's stall in a mean Georgian chancel attached to a run-down late medieval nave and aisles. Sutton set about a restoration almost immediately and by 1877 G F Bodley had transformed the building, replacing the Georgian chancel with a model Tractarian chancel in the Decorated style. It is this chancel that I want to focus on in this post.

Passing through the rood screen between the choir stalls, you move across a chequerboard floor of black and white marble into a lofty sanctuary. The chancel has all the liturgical furniture of a medieval chancel, including a triple sedilia and piscina. The focus of the chancel is the high altar set on a raised footpace with a typical lofty Bodley reredos behind it. The reredos painted in typical muted reds and greens and gilded, has as its centrepiece a fifteenth century German panel painting of the the Ascension, given by Canon Sutton.

The painting is set under a triple canopy of ogee arches and is flanked by small shafting figures of angels and larger figures of the Evangelists.

The altar is further enriched with glorious textiles. Two riddel curtains of stamped velvet hang at either end. The frontals were all provided by Bodley's firm Watts and Co and include a red frontal of stamped velvet and a blue frontal with alternating panels of velvet and Bodley's own 'Gothic' silk.

All told the chancel is a wonderful ensemble, but there is more to see in the rest of the church. That will have to wait for another post.

Flickr

2009-02-05T15:50:00.001Z

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Painted rood beam

2009-02-04T15:56:00.002Z

Woodeaton, Oxfordshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

Woodeaton, Oxfordshire has a super little medieval church with loads of texture. The walls have the crumbling remains of layer after layer of wallpaintings, including loads of red ochre lining out.

Above the chancel arch the fifteenth century rood beam survives. Against a faded ochre background is picked out the rather startling inscription: 'Venite benedicte patris mea ite maledicte in ignem internam', i.e. 'Come you blessed of my father, go to the eternal fire, you accursed’, I suppose a paraphrase of parts of Matthew 25. Between the words are delicate sprigs of foliage.

Among the wallpaintings here is also a rather lovely fourteenth century St Christopher, which is also worthy of inclusion in this post.

An old friend, but who is he?

2009-02-03T14:02:00.004Z

Yesterday I drove to York in the snow to my old haunt All Saints, North Street. For those of you who don't know it All Saints is a glorious little church beside the river Ouse in the heart of the medieval city. It has a vibrant Anglo-Catholic tradition, where mass is offered according to the 'English Missal' and I was very pleased to be able to deacon for the high mass for Candlemas. The church has a fine collection of fourteenth and fifteenth century stained glass, and three very glorious late fifteenth century ceilings.

All Saints also houses a rather eclectic collection of religious object d'art brought together, in the main, during the fifty year incumbency of Fr Patrick Shaw. Among the interesting pieces he collected is this wooden statue. Until recently this stood on a corbel in front of the rood screen, but it has now been replaced with a resin replica. The figure, which still has traces of polychromy, dates from the fifteenth century and is a rare and important piece of late medieval wood carving. At All Saints this statue is venerated as an image of St William of York, William Fitzherbert, who was archbishop of York from. However, I'm not sure that makes much sense.

The vesture of the statue is rather interesting. Over his alb and apparelled amice he wears a pontifical dalmatic and a well-cut chasuble. The chasuble is decorated with a y-shaped orphrey, but he doesn't appear to have a pallium, so presumably is not an archbishop and therefore not St William of York. Interestingly he doesn't wear a mitre either, so perhas he a sainted abbot. Also what is that object he is holding in his hands? Sadly this part of the image is rather badly damaged so that is a bit unclear. A chalice or a monstrance perhaps?

So who is he? At one point I wondered if this was statue of St Norbert, the founder of the Premonstratensian order, who is usually shown holding a monstrance. However, he was archbishop of Magdeburg for a time. Any other suggestions?

BTW if you fancy buying a resin copy of the statue All Saints seem to be selling them on their website.

'ymage of death' roundel

2009-02-02T10:57:00.003Z

Stanford on Avon, nII, A1, Henry Williams and his 'ymage of deth' roundel, originally uploaded by gordonplumb.

I couldn't resist posting this lovely image from Gordon Plumb's photostream. It is worth posting on two counts, because of its interesting iconography, but also because of its value in terms of historiography. So often with medieval stained glass you either have the glass and no contemporary documentary evidence to associate with it, or you have loads of documentary evidence for glass that has long gone. Here at Stanford on Avon in Northamptonshire, is a wonderful example of documentary evidence and remaining glass marrying up.

The documentary evidence is a will. In 1500 Henry Williams, vicar of Stanford on Avon made his will and he wrote:

'I wyll that the glasse windowes in the chancell wth ymagery that was thereyn before allso with my ymage knelying in ytt and the ymage of dethe shotyng at me, another wyndowe before Saynt John with ymagery in ytt now with my Image knelying in ytt and deth shoting at me theys to be done in smalle quarells of as gude glasse as can be goten.'

In other words Williams wanted the glass that was already in the chancel at Stanford augmented with multiple images of himself being shot at by a figure of death! Our panel is the only survivor of these multiple images. Williams is dressed in a red cassock with a fur tippet over it and from a roundel an emaciated corpse rising from the grave, the figure of death, aims his long bow at him. A fascinating memento mori.

Further reading:
R. C. Marks, The Medieval Stained Glass of Northamptonshire (Oxford, 1998), p. 183.

More empty niches!

2009-01-25T13:55:00.002Z

A little more evidence of late medieval devotion for you. This glorious Perpendicular tabernacle is in the east wall of the late fifteenth century north aisle of St Bartholomew's Aldsworth in Gloucestershire. No prizes for guessing whose image it contained, given the shields in the canopy with the letters S K, the barbed wheel on the pedestal and the two swords in the canopy - it was presumably St Katherine. I imagine an altar was placed directly below this image and the whole ensemble functioned as a reredos.

The external decoration of this aisle is particularly noteworthy too. The easter angle buttress of the aisle incorporates another image niche. Sadly there is no evidence of the image that it once contained. Above in the parapet of the aisle is a wonderful array of inventive corbel heads. Martin Beek's excellent photo does them rather more justice than the dark images on my photostream.

North Cerney, Gloucestershire - part 2

2009-01-23T11:54:00.005Z

Photo copyright Archidave.

One of the most delightful elements of North Cerney church is the rood loft and rood group introduced in 1929 by F. C. Eden. The rood loft was erected independently of a screen and was placed above the narrow Norman chancel arch. A light screen was subsequently erected within the arch five years later.

The detailing of the loft is derived from motifs found on late medieval screens in the west country, with panels of lightly pierced tracery set above heavily carved mouldings. The rood group is corbelled out from the beam supporting the loft, rather than resting on the top rail. So the front of the loft creates an effective ground against which the figures of Our Lady and St John are placed. The plain oak of the loft creates a foil for the brightly polychromed figures.

The figure of the crucified Christ is an antique piece dating from around 1600 and was collected by Croome on his travels. It was recoloured and gilded by Eden and applied to a very Bodleyesque cross.

Photo copyright archidave.

This sumptuous loft and rood is set below a stunning fifteenth century ceiling. The ceiling, in common with many in the Cotswolds becomes richer as you go east, with the increased use of painted bosses over the eastern bay. Thus creating, in effect, a canopy of honour over the rood.

Photo copyright Eric Hardy

At the west end of the church is an early nineteenth century west gallery, which Eden had marbelled.

North Cerney, Gloucestershire - part 1

2009-01-22T15:55:00.004Z

If I was a country parson living in, dare I say it, the good-old-days of the Church of England, when there was one priest per parish. The one parish I would love to serve would be North Cerney in the Cotswolds near Cirencester. In my mind the church in North Cerney is near-perfection. A glorious medieval building, of Norman origins, with late medieval ceiling and stained glass and sublime modern furnishings.

The church was refurnished almost entirely between 1913 and 1967, through the vision and munificence of W. I. Croome (1891-1967) who lived in the neighbouring Cerney House. Croome, who was a founding member of the Council for the Care of Churches, was a protege of F. C. Eeles. Like Eeles he was an officienado of the 'English Use', the liturgical and visual ethos commonly associated with the Warham Guild and Percy Dearmer. So naturally the furnishing of North Cerney follows, in principle, the English Use ethos. For his architect Croome chose a very inventive and able man, another 'F C', F.C. Eden. Eden had a pupil of G F Bodley and in his work you can see the influence both of Bodley and also of his contemporary Sir Ninian Comper. Over the course of a number of posts I'm going to consider some of the individual elements of Eden's work at North Cerney, starting today with the high altar.

The chancel at North Cerney is sparsely furnished space. That is intentional, as it draws the eye immediately to the glorious gilded reredos that Eden designed in 1924 - the focus of the church. The subject of the reredos, which is a triptych of three relief panels, is All Saints, the dedication of the church. The taller central panel of the reredos represents the moment of Our Lady's coronation as Queen of Heaven and Queen of the Saints. She is surrounded by lively figures of censing angels. The panel is reminiscent of the north European limewood altarpieces of the late Gothic period.

The two side panels incorporate representative groups of saints, kneeling or standing in adoration of the central scene. You can identify the saints yourself!

In design terms the frame of the reredos presents a 'unity by inclusion' style of architecture, in the main it uses renaissance motifs, based on a classical vocabulary. The central panel is backed with blank Gothic arcading and is surmounted by a a triplet of ogee arches, set between pinnacles and pendants. The unified colouring and rich gilding of the reredos pulls the whole thing together. This unity by inclusion approach works extremely well in this context. Before Eden set foot in the place the church already exhibited a ecletic array of different styles, Norman doors, early Gothic tower, Perpendicular transepts, seventeenth century classical tablets. Somehow the reredos gives a sense of visual cohesion to this eclecticism.

I should mention that during Lent the altar and reredos are covered by handpainted Lenten array in unbleached linen. The Lenten array is almost as glorious as the altarpiece itself.

Anyway more tomorrow.

More shadows of former things

2009-01-22T10:07:00.001Z

Theddlethorpe All Saints, Lincolnshire, originally uploaded by Vitrearum.

All Saints, Theddlethorpe is in the remote coastal fringe of Lincolnshire. Many of the churches in this area are relatively unrestored and retain a lot of medieval fittings and furnishings. All Saints Theddlethorpe is about the best. It retains a fifteenth century painted rood screen and two parclose screens dividing the eastern bay of the nave aisles from the rest of the aisle. I will come back to the screens at a later date, as they are an interesting survival from the Marian restoration.

The south chapel contains a refixed stone altar with a medieval mensa and behind it the windowless east wall is pierced with this rather interesting reredos or should I say tabernacle for a reredos. The tabernacle with crocketed canopy appears to be late fourteenth century and fits in nicely in terms of date with the aisle itself. So what did it contain. Well it's not very deep, so my feeling is that it contained a low relief panel, perhaps a large rectangular alabaster of freestone panel. Sadly we will never know.