tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-372701682024-03-14T14:32:52.093+11:00Dianne's Medieval WritingA companion to the website <a href="https://medievalwritings.atillo.com.au/">Medieval Writing</a>, concerning itself with medieval handwriting and its cultural setting, now expanded to encompass aspects of medieval heritage and material culture.
Tweeting as <a href="https://twitter.com/@HipBookfairy">Hipster Bookfairy </a>. Gradually putting medieval photos on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hipbookfairy/"> Flickr </a>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-78904463063106250242017-03-26T18:23:00.000+11:002017-03-26T18:23:26.744+11:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 22: Bling on Tombs<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Efffigy tombs of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries always show people dolled up in their finest, adorned with various kinds of bling. Sure, they want to be looking their best when they arise at that last trump, but every item of expensive decoration embodies some kind of message about that person's position and role in society. It is a form of communication; a readable code.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ah9QzQ6LOxk/WNdFPhOJYvI/AAAAAAAAB2Y/WiqH5c-ATB09vMq2vvx4cdqzEubbjqZPwCLcB/s1600/tideswelltomb1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ah9QzQ6LOxk/WNdFPhOJYvI/AAAAAAAAB2Y/WiqH5c-ATB09vMq2vvx4cdqzEubbjqZPwCLcB/s400/tideswelltomb1b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Effigies of ladies of the 13th or very early 14th centuries tended to all be very similarly dressed with a flowing gown and simple head covering, often with a wimple. The fact they they were depicted as large tomb effigies at all was sufficient testimony to their status. Most tombs of this vintage have been knocked around a bit, moved, and lost their colouring and gilding. They are ghosts of their former selves. The two ladies above are from Tideswell in Derbyshire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mC9LDclBZck/WNdH67WqpzI/AAAAAAAAB2k/0pKeEG0LgeonSlCah3Ux8Fu7AdsJOgUgACLcB/s1600/bothamsallbrass.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mC9LDclBZck/WNdH67WqpzI/AAAAAAAAB2k/0pKeEG0LgeonSlCah3Ux8Fu7AdsJOgUgACLcB/s400/bothamsallbrass.JPG" width="286" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It has been said that fashion was invented in the early 14th century, with clothing styles for men and women undergoing rapid change. Having the very latest in fashions was an insignia of not only wealth, but status and influence. If the missus was dressed in the latest crazy headgear and sleeves with a million buttons, then she was not only rich, she undoubtedly had someone to help her get dressed in the morning, like this lady from Bothamsall in Nottinghamshire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-okh8EqT58RU/WNdJbzN5KuI/AAAAAAAAB2w/Uff69ublOgMyS1-nBQzrnOQ-wQ_msJ3gQCLcB/s1600/islehamreplicabrass1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-okh8EqT58RU/WNdJbzN5KuI/AAAAAAAAB2w/Uff69ublOgMyS1-nBQzrnOQ-wQ_msJ3gQCLcB/s400/islehamreplicabrass1.jpg" width="172" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In the days of sumptuary laws, if she was togged out in imported brocade, she was guaranteed to be of a certain status in the social hierarchy. The above is a replica of the brass to Margaret Peyton (1484) in Isleham, Cambridgeshire. These fashions changed so rapidly that the makers of effigies, whether brass or sculpted stone, were constantly updating their designs to keep up. Where the tomb has an inscription it is possible to create a chronology for these fashion changes but in the absence of one, I have doubts about identifying the tomb owner by cross referencing the date of death with the fashion design. It may date the effigy accurately, but it would depend on whether it was made before death (It's been done.), immediately after or some years after.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--B--wX9g6yY/WNdpA4ue1oI/AAAAAAAAB5Q/Vug7wJLmkNU_oWmyxKl9mazzFbnM3a8kgCLcB/s1600/methleytomb3ba.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--B--wX9g6yY/WNdpA4ue1oI/AAAAAAAAB5Q/Vug7wJLmkNU_oWmyxKl9mazzFbnM3a8kgCLcB/s400/methleytomb3ba.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Here is a bit of gratuitous female bling from Methley, Yorkshire, because bling looks so good in alabaster. Amazing hat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h2sbXIAhV6E/WNdMhYgoXBI/AAAAAAAAB3A/2P1M5QprUfYCOx0_X9q7iwTaFgJd7lj0ACLcB/s1600/westtanfieldtomb2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h2sbXIAhV6E/WNdMhYgoXBI/AAAAAAAAB3A/2P1M5QprUfYCOx0_X9q7iwTaFgJd7lj0ACLcB/s400/westtanfieldtomb2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Something similar happened over the same period with the depiction of knights. The example above is an early 14th century effigy from West Tanfield, Yorkshire, turned out in chain mail. The evolution to plate armour and beyond took place as a series of specific details which resulted in a very different final result. Funerary effigies depicted these changing details of body armour, sword belts, shields, spurs in intricate detail.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jZqFU-FrN3A/VVrzgYClIeI/AAAAAAAAA6U/FfSZ4Cre1ywDXKq5mS3mhlbUyvsFNpMRQCPcB/s1600/harphamtomb3f.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jZqFU-FrN3A/VVrzgYClIeI/AAAAAAAAA6U/FfSZ4Cre1ywDXKq5mS3mhlbUyvsFNpMRQCPcB/s400/harphamtomb3f.JPG" width="155" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This knight from Harpham, Yorkshire, displays the lean, clean and mean look of full plate armour of the early 15th century, apart from the frivolous crown of feathers on his helmet.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jkhFXv4OEcc/WNdP79_0VMI/AAAAAAAAB3M/dexi6_nQpoUoCbLTgHIZAag5I5af5LjagCLcB/s1600/howdenbrass.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jkhFXv4OEcc/WNdP79_0VMI/AAAAAAAAB3M/dexi6_nQpoUoCbLTgHIZAag5I5af5LjagCLcB/s400/howdenbrass.JPG" width="161" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Some later depictions, such as this late 15th century knight from Howden, Yorkshire, have strangely exaggerated features of some parts of their armour, as if the novel features were being emphasised. As with the ladies, although armour can be dated stylistically, it probably dates the manufacture of the effigy rather than the demise of its owner. The medieval art tradition generally had a strange anachronistically modern approach. Alexander the Great's armies wore 15th century armour if they were depicted in a 15th century chronicle, as did King Arthur's knights.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Armour, at one level, might not be considered technically bling. It was practical attire to stop you getting murdered in battle. It was, however, very much a sign of status. Being entitled to a suit of armour meant you were entitled to risk getting yourself murdered for the king. You had rank. There is nothing to say that the actual practical armour that your average knight kept in case they had to clobber the French again was as perfectly in synchronicity with fashion as the one they were depicted with on their tomb. By the Tudor period, upwardly mobile city merchants who were granted knightly status ordered a suit of armour to prop up in the banqueting hall, just to show.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hBetfWAq57Q/WNdTNPHpInI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/VWHol5hGEucmUCXcb-Izo36YwpEiI395QCLcB/s1600/gorlestonbrass1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hBetfWAq57Q/WNdTNPHpInI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/VWHol5hGEucmUCXcb-Izo36YwpEiI395QCLcB/s400/gorlestonbrass1b.JPG" width="262" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Heraldry was bling, and also subject to the rapid elaboration over those competitive centuries as seen in clothing and armour. A simple coat of arms on a shield may have sufficed in the early 14th century, but these were often depicted in a colouful and blingy way. This battered brass of a knight from Gorleston in Suffolk bears a small shield that has a roughened surface to hold enamels or resins to display the heraldic colours.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OqDkW2gPhBw/WNdWdBN2XII/AAAAAAAAB3o/D_yPFOun1soDmJ8ss0gy-iqp7KiWlJDfwCLcB/s1600/chesterfieldbrass01.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OqDkW2gPhBw/WNdWdBN2XII/AAAAAAAAB3o/D_yPFOun1soDmJ8ss0gy-iqp7KiWlJDfwCLcB/s640/chesterfieldbrass01.JPG" width="289" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This brass from Chesterfield has gone the full monty. Terrible photo, sorry. Because of the way tombs have been messed around over time, sometimes the full heraldic bling is not preserved as it could include arms on the tomb chest, in an archway or above a niche. The whole ensemble is often not in its original condition. Somebody versed in the arcane language of heraldic depiction could tell a whole story of family fortune from the brass above.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hr-lTb5XzjQ/WNdZkvRL5tI/AAAAAAAAB38/UkXZW9maGVMb_rd6l4NZo0Wn-cUzyA0YwCLcB/s1600/harewoodtomb2c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hr-lTb5XzjQ/WNdZkvRL5tI/AAAAAAAAB38/UkXZW9maGVMb_rd6l4NZo0Wn-cUzyA0YwCLcB/s400/harewoodtomb2c.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MeYlvtfjBuQ/WNdZkv4iYEI/AAAAAAAAB34/KE-Fn6I1EeE6pdINPvHBin72D0sKqhHBwCLcB/s1600/harewoodtomb4c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MeYlvtfjBuQ/WNdZkv4iYEI/AAAAAAAAB34/KE-Fn6I1EeE6pdINPvHBin72D0sKqhHBwCLcB/s400/harewoodtomb4c.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DfwYj2jYxTY/WNdZkysr8aI/AAAAAAAAB4A/MYPHd8AkP4oLLfi-IcFbMR4ZGL2sFdCKQCLcB/s1600/harewoodtomb6d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DfwYj2jYxTY/WNdZkysr8aI/AAAAAAAAB4A/MYPHd8AkP4oLLfi-IcFbMR4ZGL2sFdCKQCLcB/s400/harewoodtomb6d.JPG" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> A significant bit of knightly bling was the livery collar, becoming apparent during the Wars of the Roses, supposedly to indicate where loyalties lay: SS for Lancaster, suns and roses for York and S with roses for the Tudors to show we are all lovey again. The above examples all come from Harewood church in Yorkshire. If they really show loyalties, this mob did tend to go with the flow. They are sometimes found on female tombs as well, as in the example from Methley above. There is a difficulty in interpreting the significance of these. They are taken to indicate allegiance. In contradictory mode, they are often used for dating, identifying the precise owner of the effigy by the reign of the monarch that they died in. Both cannot be correct. If everyone had been on the side of the current winners, there would have been no war. Perhaps it didn't show so much which side they were actually on, but how their descendants wanted them to be remembered.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-McpmSCEmWJU/WNdbawmNzGI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/rD2psQlS11g0p4Umnr0JXFZcVws0LAPbACLcB/s1600/ripontomb2a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-McpmSCEmWJU/WNdbawmNzGI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/rD2psQlS11g0p4Umnr0JXFZcVws0LAPbACLcB/s400/ripontomb2a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
They were not all fraught with royal controversy. This example from Ripon in Yorkshire wears a collar depicting a deer within a park, a local badge of the Markenfield family. He evidently preferred to advertise his big fish in a smaller pond status.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-79pYEyVtUi0/WNdceQEma7I/AAAAAAAAB4c/cSzAdhLronQSQfofR_3LvHYIWLjePF3igCLcB/s1600/eastringtontomb3d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-79pYEyVtUi0/WNdceQEma7I/AAAAAAAAB4c/cSzAdhLronQSQfofR_3LvHYIWLjePF3igCLcB/s400/eastringtontomb3d.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Certain styles of bling denoted particular offices. This battered effigy in Eastrington, Yorkshire, wears the robe and coif of a judge over the suit of armour of a knight; not a combination he would have worn in real life. He really wanted to hit the viewer with all his status symbols.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rbnQ4-n4Seo/WNddXhGz4nI/AAAAAAAAB4o/qJU9qhgYbNQRpFYECZE2ZA7Hry11rMI_QCLcB/s1600/norwichslbrass1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rbnQ4-n4Seo/WNddXhGz4nI/AAAAAAAAB4o/qJU9qhgYbNQRpFYECZE2ZA7Hry11rMI_QCLcB/s400/norwichslbrass1b.JPG" width="178" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
A mayor of Norwich flaunts his fur lined ceremonial robe and beads, significata of office.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hsoYh5MWHsY/WNdkh8JiejI/AAAAAAAAB5E/weUM6pTblrAxQ8u1289l8EpmFBcDZY33ACLcB/s1600/ashovertomb1c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hsoYh5MWHsY/WNdkh8JiejI/AAAAAAAAB5E/weUM6pTblrAxQ8u1289l8EpmFBcDZY33ACLcB/s400/ashovertomb1c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
If you didn't rate a suit of armour, you could advertise your significance with the size of your purse, as with this civilian tomb in Ashover, Derbyshire. Presumably this was meant to indicate the amount you were prepared to give to charity for the benefit of your immortal soul, but a purse that size is definitely bling. They kind of missed that bit about the camel and the eye of a needle in the middle ages.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KotjqlVUA0w/WNdg7vNzx5I/AAAAAAAAB44/zQqQf8EEuP8aMGLMqGDLYhXImRhhsy-AgCLcB/s1600/wadworthtomb2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KotjqlVUA0w/WNdg7vNzx5I/AAAAAAAAB44/zQqQf8EEuP8aMGLMqGDLYhXImRhhsy-AgCLcB/s400/wadworthtomb2.JPG" width="238" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Even at slightly less elevated levels of society, a bit of bling denoted special status. This rather lumpy battered effigy from Wadworth, Yorkshire, carries a hunting horn, symbolic of his role as a forester. In less complex tombs, symbols such as swords, chalice and paten, keys, shears and the like serve as a communication system for information about the status of the deceased.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8fs8KkDaPU8/VxMzgd1XUwI/AAAAAAAABgw/RTNgVMVm8gE4R_lzCfmhvikrHp4BIsthQCPcB/s1600/halsham1c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="327" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8fs8KkDaPU8/VxMzgd1XUwI/AAAAAAAABgw/RTNgVMVm8gE4R_lzCfmhvikrHp4BIsthQCPcB/s400/halsham1c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The ultimate bit of swank was if your dog was wearing bling. This fine hunting dog, a status symbol in itself (Hey, you didn't have a dog that could bring down a deer unless you were entitled to hunt the deer.), on a knightly alabaster tomb in Halsham church, Yorkshire, was probably sporting some real bling in his heyday.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
In the religious community, clothing and bling had very specific references to the status and function of the wearer, but that is a story for another day.</div>
</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-80371268169647636242017-03-10T17:41:00.001+11:002017-03-10T17:49:41.726+11:00Cutting Up Manuscripts<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; "> Recently I posted on Twitter a photograph of an isolated medieval manuscript leaf </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that I own,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> from a 15th century book of hours. This is all part of the monster process of organising my digital photographic material and easing back into my paleography project which sits forlornly on the website <a href="http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/" target="_blank">Medieval Writing</a> looking old and daggy because I ran out of energy for keeping up with technological change. This particular leaf had a cursive addendum which I couldn't make out. Here it is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aOmKBuZkU1A/WMIkEKmSXVI/AAAAAAAABzw/AZeL0zgF-tIFbtmWEiRDaFBx8jUdEaaSwCLcB/s1600/frenchcalendar1r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aOmKBuZkU1A/WMIkEKmSXVI/AAAAAAAABzw/AZeL0zgF-tIFbtmWEiRDaFBx8jUdEaaSwCLcB/s400/frenchcalendar1r.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> This is the bit of added script.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m95ewF58zZo/WMIkRwUgJlI/AAAAAAAABz0/9uAxHYppQ9guyuhR2SecBBEhvgTgqEnNQCLcB/s1600/frenchcalendar1rc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m95ewF58zZo/WMIkRwUgJlI/AAAAAAAABz0/9uAxHYppQ9guyuhR2SecBBEhvgTgqEnNQCLcB/s400/frenchcalendar1rc.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A keen eyed reader not only transcribed it for me (</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Pascarii episcopi nannetensis), but recognised the manuscript from which it had been removed, an unusual book of hours from Brittany; not exceptionally fancy or lavish, but which had contained much information about Breton usage. He had tracked down some other leaves from the manuscript, which had been dismantled and sold leaf by leaf by the bookseller from whom I bought my sample.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I bought a largish number of single manuscript leaves and fragments in the late 1990s, early 2000s to use as exemplars for various aspects of paleography and book design in the Medieval Writing project. At that time, collections of good quality manuscript images on the internet were sparse, and many of them had ferocious restrictions on any sort of re-use. The project mostly relied on old black and white photographs. My budget was modest, so pages, fragments and bits were all that could be acquired.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Manuscripts have been pulled apart over many centuries. Some of the bits I bought were bookbinders' scraps used in early modern printed books. No respect shown back then. People have chopped out miniatures and initials from old manuscripts since at least the 19th century, leaving the less ornate pages to the oddball collectors' market. I tried to only buy what appeared to be orphaned bits and avoided sellers obviously dismantling books, but a couple of sellers clearly bided their time and only released the odd page at a time. I now know who they are and so does my Twitter correspondent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O75KcrALyJg/WMIpXkIZiWI/AAAAAAAAB0I/MFcf3MxSgXAuGtFblK9R_K7kgILPpczJQCLcB/s1600/frenchcalendar3va.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O75KcrALyJg/WMIpXkIZiWI/AAAAAAAAB0I/MFcf3MxSgXAuGtFblK9R_K7kgILPpczJQCLcB/s400/frenchcalendar3va.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Even fragments can contain a great deal of information when it comes to learning about manuscripts, texts, decorations and illustrations, and how they were assembled and used. The above is a calendar leaf from a different French book of hours containing a load of coded information. Plenty to discuss there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w1srcSRfi_Y/WMItLk-FD8I/AAAAAAAAB0Y/fELueW4Zu0U557IeuXsJThAVmh4MBJ_3wCLcB/s1600/unfinishedhoursr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w1srcSRfi_Y/WMItLk-FD8I/AAAAAAAAB0Y/fELueW4Zu0U557IeuXsJThAVmh4MBJ_3wCLcB/s400/unfinishedhoursr.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> An isolated leaf can give information about how manuscripts were made, such as the example from a book of hours above where the initials have not yet been filled in and the prickings are still visible on the untrimmed page.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kG3T3Biurwk/WMIt76LWraI/AAAAAAAAB0g/F9YWKNyhRiwIQpa3I5JssLmlHFvnT_kdACLcB/s1600/italianhours2vb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kG3T3Biurwk/WMIt76LWraI/AAAAAAAAB0g/F9YWKNyhRiwIQpa3I5JssLmlHFvnT_kdACLcB/s320/italianhours2vb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> They can show some of the tricks of the bookmaker's trade, such as catchwords at the end of a quire to show how the quires should be assembled.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JvcnTtuc9Js/WMIwxnf88DI/AAAAAAAAB0w/jo8fZsnoJA0nNuPzO1j5V_I1EKaYDkkrACLcB/s1600/veronicaa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JvcnTtuc9Js/WMIwxnf88DI/AAAAAAAAB0w/jo8fZsnoJA0nNuPzO1j5V_I1EKaYDkkrACLcB/s320/veronicaa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eM2L2zKXfJU/WMIwxqvl7gI/AAAAAAAAB00/d60_-2tqJ_k8Pf-rx0IhXcHnfm7eeHboQCLcB/s1600/veronicav.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eM2L2zKXfJU/WMIwxqvl7gI/AAAAAAAAB00/d60_-2tqJ_k8Pf-rx0IhXcHnfm7eeHboQCLcB/s320/veronicav.jpg" width="232" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> They can indicate how readers used their books, as in the two sides of this leaf from a book of hours, one side of which shows an image of Veronica's handkerchief which has been much smudged with use and the other shows prayers added into a blank leaf in the cursive hand of the owner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> So many of the leaves I have acquired show corrections, carried out by various means, that it is easy to debunk the myth that manuscript copies had to be perfect or the scribe was cursed to hell. Either that or there is one hell of a scribal party going on down there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The process of pulling manuscripts apart for educational purposes cannot be discussed without reference to Otto Ege, who, in the 1940s, dismantled 50 medieval manuscripts and put individual leaves from them in teaching sets which were then sold to educational institutions. (Click <a href="http://ege.denison.edu/" target="_blank">here</a> for a quick description, just google him to find out the various places they got to and where you can see some of them.) Most of the leaves in his sets are from liturgical books, which have been regarded as very stereotyped, not of great individual interest textually, but there is still much to learn from the individualities of books from different regions or traditions. Great efforts are being made to reassemble those manuscripts, in the virtual world if not in actuality, as naturally there is even more to be learned from the whole than from isolated parts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Before getting overwrought about the collecting of fragments, just think about how access to these things has changed in very recent decades. Complete medieval books have, over the centuries, crept from the exclusive library collections of the rich and aristocratic to august public institutions. In Britain, some of those private collections were salvaged from monastic libraries at the Dissolution, when they would have otherwise been destroyed. Even in major public institutions, access to these can be difficult and book reproductions of photographs of them have been expensive to acquire and produce. As with much medieval art, there is a tendency for book publishers to reproduce the same pictures over and over again, leading to a false concept of just how much of this stuff there is around.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Fragments, acquired relatively cheaply and circulated in classrooms and seminars, have provided a sense of reality, and possibly a more accurate perception of the nature and variety of medieval manuscript material than the arty tomes. Not every book of hours was illustrated by the Limbourg brothers. This is not an endorsement of the procedure of cutting up manuscripts, however. Many more options are available if we use them properly. Library collections are being steadily digitised and the restrictions on usage of the images is being eased by major institutions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f3_B8_0am-o/WMI6py3KclI/AAAAAAAAB1Q/LQGIkonhfSwT0I0Z65HW1fPVouOeBGW2wCLcB/s1600/taspaleogschool06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f3_B8_0am-o/WMI6py3KclI/AAAAAAAAB1Q/LQGIkonhfSwT0I0Z65HW1fPVouOeBGW2wCLcB/s400/taspaleogschool06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> A left handed would be scribe copies from a genuine medieval exemplar (carefully covered in plastic) at a paleography school in 1996 at the University of Tasmania, conducted by Christopher de Hamel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0KLOdZYeWXw/WMI94BupTjI/AAAAAAAAB1g/HoVqgYqSCBYvOzdAoPFJCBYZp_eGZazzQCLcB/s1600/finalconcordr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="108" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0KLOdZYeWXw/WMI94BupTjI/AAAAAAAAB1g/HoVqgYqSCBYvOzdAoPFJCBYZp_eGZazzQCLcB/s400/finalconcordr.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Something similar applies to isolated examples of legal documents, such as the Elizabethan final concord shown above. These also float about on the collectors' market. They can be used to indicate the nature, form and wording of documents of a particular type, but they are usually just one step in the legal process of a case, and don't make a lot of historical sense unless placed with other documents pertaining to the case. Mind you, this contextualisation of documents can be a problem in archival collections as well. If you ask a medieval historian what they did with the medieval legal document collections in the National Archives in London when they recatalogued them in the 19th century, take a box of tissues with you. I believe I have seen British Library catalogue entries for boxes of charters which are not even identified individually.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-31177WxuYHU/WMJANwcuOAI/AAAAAAAAB1w/Oy3oCrFu40QubbeVbA0fYACYvp7op6EJQCLcB/s1600/burgundyvineyardr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-31177WxuYHU/WMJANwcuOAI/AAAAAAAAB1w/Oy3oCrFu40QubbeVbA0fYACYvp7op6EJQCLcB/s1600/burgundyvineyardr.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Cutting up has occurred in this market too. The French deed of sale above has had the seal hacked off, because there are folks who collect seals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I think one answer to the problem is that libraries and institutions which are digitising and distributing images of manuscripts need to concentrate a bit more on the nature of the texts and the way they are written, and not focus quite so strongly on the pretty manuscripts with beautiful illuminations and decorations. These are lovely. We all adore them. But they don't show the diversity of the same text in different manuscripts within this tradition. They don't indicate the range of quality of handwritten copies. They don't show the regional variations and why a scruffy little volume may be of value in its entirety because of its content. And please, put up some more document collections in a freely available format, because these are part of the history of writing as a process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Those wonderful academics who post segments from the manuscript tradition on social media could also occasionally venture away from their killer bunnies, monstrous beasties and medieval donuts to show something of why the writing on these manuscripts is interesting and important. It just might inform people as to why chopping a text up into bits and dispersing it is a loss of historical information. Those marginalia bits are fascinating, but the folks posting them understand their context. To many less esoterically educated viewers they are digital cuttings. Fortunately if you collect them in your Tumblr or Pinterest scrapbook, you do no harm to the original.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It is notable that the British Library has recently digitised the Paston Letters and the Book of Margery Kempe, both collections of writings of words, not art galleries on vellum. More power to them. The National Archives in London has digitised a large collection of wills, but you have to pay for each one you download. This is not helpful if you are not looking things up by personal or place name, but wish to scour through a lot of documents for reference to something in particular, like ownership and disposal of books. Yes, it involves masses of work and a lot of money, but these projects are being done at an ever increasing rate, so it would be nice if they included some diversity of content.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lKYGkFmHhJc/WMJGivnnc6I/AAAAAAAAB2A/91-xFdRQl18kuxiOw7N2ZP0OYa9R-iUMACLcB/s1600/florentineinitiala.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lKYGkFmHhJc/WMJGivnnc6I/AAAAAAAAB2A/91-xFdRQl18kuxiOw7N2ZP0OYa9R-iUMACLcB/s1600/florentineinitiala.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> So there should be no excuse for chopping up manuscripts for profit these days. They can be made available to all without dismembering them. Meanwhile, there is probably still a point in collecting up the genuine orphans, binding fragments and unregarded scraps. You never know what question we might want to ask next. Meanwhile, one little Florentine initial will never find its way home, but at least I liberated it from the piece of brown non-archival cardboard that was eating it from the back.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <span style="color: blue;">Thanks to Jean-Luc Deuffic for the transcription and for inspiring me to write this piece.</span></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-76071231462116691202017-01-07T14:36:00.000+11:002017-01-07T14:36:30.680+11:00Not Just a Big Church: The Index<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A series of posts looking at large churches as living communities, with a changing history and perhaps deceptive surviving remains.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3p6pk_K0FW8/WHBdPV6-nfI/AAAAAAAABy8/m8t1nK_w3rASLxlI3QFYlCaVv_pKo2llACLcB/s1600/caenabbayeauxdames1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3p6pk_K0FW8/WHBdPV6-nfI/AAAAAAAABy8/m8t1nK_w3rASLxlI3QFYlCaVv_pKo2llACLcB/s320/caenabbayeauxdames1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caen. Abbaye aux Dames<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">1. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/not-just-big-church.html" target="_blank">Not Just a Big Church</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">2. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/not-just-big-church-building-site.html" target="_blank">Not Just a Big Church: a Building Site</a></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-9606451499240674342017-01-07T14:02:00.002+11:002017-01-07T14:02:26.370+11:00Not Just a Big Church: a Building Site<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> As we visit the great churches of yore, whether they are still in use or exist as mere ruins, we see a distorted image of how these buildings actually functioned in the middle ages. They are serene, eternal somehow, decorously quiet except for the sounds of worship, largely monochromatic. They display tangled threads of chronology, as the work of various eras is knitted together. They reflect the end point of something that has evolved. The potential for anachronism when looking at them historically is enormous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--H7FjiUNYgU/WG868ZFvoAI/AAAAAAAABwg/1njYuYJQ4EoIeFE7Z4dx1s8zZAwgfVZ1QCLcB/s1600/whitby04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--H7FjiUNYgU/WG868ZFvoAI/AAAAAAAABwg/1njYuYJQ4EoIeFE7Z4dx1s8zZAwgfVZ1QCLcB/s400/whitby04.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Every time I see an article about St Hilda illustrated with an image of the much later Gothic ruins of Whitby Abbey, which didn't have any nuns in it and was massively more huge than its Anglo-Saxon predecessor, I feel a (possibly unreasonable) urge to scream. Yes, it does engender a sense of place, but not a very accurate sense of time or circumstance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I intend to write a series of posts about how various kinds of medieval buildings, while being beautiful things to cherish and admire, can give us a distorted idea of what these buildings were about in their heyday, and how they themselves changed during the course of their use. This first episode is about the myth of timeless serenity as these massive monuments were constantly under reconstruction, using slow and laborious building methods that meant that many of them were building sites for years, They reverberated not just to the gentle chanting of the offices of monks or canons, but the ring of hammers and chisels, the groaning of winches, the crash of occasional accidents and no doubt the cursing of workers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WOrtobMSpXk/WG899GVQvuI/AAAAAAAABw0/zbreE40qIfwM3FzI8z0rcZ46FdhhQxqRgCLcB/s1600/yorkminster03.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WOrtobMSpXk/WG899GVQvuI/AAAAAAAABw0/zbreE40qIfwM3FzI8z0rcZ46FdhhQxqRgCLcB/s320/yorkminster03.JPG" width="209" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Take a very famous example, York Minster, which has an early English south transept with narrow lancets and a wheel window.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PeshcORSbmo/WG899NsYlcI/AAAAAAAABws/VJiqwPiL-csLiTCqTg3F_VLAvskYP0FZACEw/s1600/yorkminster02.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PeshcORSbmo/WG899NsYlcI/AAAAAAAABws/VJiqwPiL-csLiTCqTg3F_VLAvskYP0FZACEw/s400/yorkminster02.JPG" width="267" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Then there is the famous Decorated heart of Yorkshire west window set in a much more elaborated setting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X-ih3EddI6o/WG899KEH6II/AAAAAAAABw4/ASC4M0N2Vcc_PU-wVqom3EMcJY0pxrHfQCEw/s1600/yorkminster06.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X-ih3EddI6o/WG899KEH6II/AAAAAAAABw4/ASC4M0N2Vcc_PU-wVqom3EMcJY0pxrHfQCEw/s400/yorkminster06.JPG" width="358" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The great Perpendicular east window is a massive expanse of glass on the outside and an amazing stained glass picture gallery on the inside. The building has become bigger, brighter, lighter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aEl190oesis/WG9AYgPxDeI/AAAAAAAABxA/gHH04_ssUHoXaS1NG70QHVePW8m6oA66gCLcB/s1600/yorkminster13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aEl190oesis/WG9AYgPxDeI/AAAAAAAABxA/gHH04_ssUHoXaS1NG70QHVePW8m6oA66gCLcB/s400/yorkminster13.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Underneath, the Norman crypt is the only evidence for a whole earlier building of which nothing survives above ground, apart from a couple of little isolated stained glass panels. This does not simply mean that the building had periods of change over time. It also means it had extended periods, years and decades, when there was noise and dust and scaffolding and horses and bullocks all around and lumps of partially carved stone lying all over the place. Masons and painters and gilders and glaziers would have been climbing over everything. Presumably the canons and priests just hung in there and did their best.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is not the image we have as we potter respectfully through the building today. Indeed, there have been periods of major repair even in my lifetime's experience of York Minster.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zPh_yLGK19M/WG9DCpMAJdI/AAAAAAAABxM/MKOP1GWpCL8CR8AleYPfzv0I8De8EQbzwCLcB/s1600/yorkminster05.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zPh_yLGK19M/WG9DCpMAJdI/AAAAAAAABxM/MKOP1GWpCL8CR8AleYPfzv0I8De8EQbzwCLcB/s400/yorkminster05.JPG" width="275" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In 1973, great metal braces held up the southwest tower and there was scaffolding all over the place because of major fears for the foundations. Later the south transept burnt out and was inaccessible for a number of years while they repaired it. These were regarded as aberrations caused by time and circumstance, and were dealt with using modern machinery and building practices. In fact, during the medieval era such disruptions must have been just part of the regular rhythm of life. They did not occur in order to restore the building to some conception of an older ideal state, but to upsize and improve it. The building was not static. It was in a constant state of change and chaos.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8H9C1ixUiM8/WG9Gm0FU2fI/AAAAAAAABxY/zGxVLRRTbFEVjd2rYSwP0OYb0klg8n0oQCLcB/s1600/colognecathedral01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8H9C1ixUiM8/WG9Gm0FU2fI/AAAAAAAABxY/zGxVLRRTbFEVjd2rYSwP0OYb0klg8n0oQCLcB/s400/colognecathedral01.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Most major churches have had something of a similar history; building, enlarging, accidental destruction by fire, earthquake or human miscalculation, more building, rebuilding, deliberate destruction due to political or religious strife, reconstruction. They look like big, solid, static things but they are living organisms. One of the most peculiar histories is that of Cologne Cathedral. Please pardon the qualities of the photos here, but they were taken during the winter solstice in the evening because I was actually there to do something else in the brief hours of daylight.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There are folks who will tell you that Cologne Cathedral is not a medieval church at all, as it was largely built in the 19th century. That is only sort of true. With its strange history, it is as much a symbol of place as Whitby Abbey is of the history of the English church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It was a Christian site from the 4th century, and remains of a 6th century freestanding baptistery survive. The old cathedral was completed in 818. It acquired the relics of the Magi in 1164, taken from Milan by Friedrich Barbarossa and given to them as a nice little earner. That was how big churches funded their improvements, by promoting pilgrimage to sacred relics. Never mind any dubious aspect to the provenance. It burned down in 1248. However, unlike Chartres, they didn't manage to use their relics and resources to rebuild rapidly. It actually took until 1880 to finish the job. The sequence in which it happened perhaps gives us a peep at what these massive buildings were like during their phases of reconstruction.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U9EX_C952Rs/WG9Kqn4xN-I/AAAAAAAABxo/NKF8TrpThFkAGrBnSpfFh-VZSLZvsVX3gCLcB/s1600/colognecathedral03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U9EX_C952Rs/WG9Kqn4xN-I/AAAAAAAABxo/NKF8TrpThFkAGrBnSpfFh-VZSLZvsVX3gCLcB/s400/colognecathedral03.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The eastern end, with the apse, was built first in the Gothic style, very French in conception unlike the collection of massive Romanesque churches that adorned Cologne at the time (and still do, despite horrendous circumstances). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-toTNvxGLUnk/WG9Kqh9YtEI/AAAAAAAABxk/KSATXArtyhkvyvaRtTEZnoSCGvszsd3tACEw/s1600/colognecathedral07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-toTNvxGLUnk/WG9Kqh9YtEI/AAAAAAAABxk/KSATXArtyhkvyvaRtTEZnoSCGvszsd3tACEw/s400/colognecathedral07.jpg" width="261" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The vault was one of the tallest in Europe. But this segment sat there detached for centuries. Work on the west front began, but was halted in 1473, with the bottom section of one tower completed. The building was effectively in two bits, with not much connecting them except the lower section of one aisle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3X7ezfEcMRQ/WG9MQqOAMmI/AAAAAAAABx0/cpfKx6oVzuM0CqG3vwY2SoJKoKbIv_HzQCLcB/s1600/colognecathedral02b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3X7ezfEcMRQ/WG9MQqOAMmI/AAAAAAAABx0/cpfKx6oVzuM0CqG3vwY2SoJKoKbIv_HzQCLcB/s400/colognecathedral02b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The building has the French Gothic arrangement of grand portals with narrative sculpture on the tympana, large column figures and smaller figures around the arches, but this one is the only one that was completed in the 15th century. The whole rest of the west end waited for around 400 years to be finished.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NaO1mb2TcTY/WHBK36gF_9I/AAAAAAAAByI/tkYfBiNXQlMe4VNPvAy8EagXFuFDil8_wCLcB/s1600/colognecathedralpic6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NaO1mb2TcTY/WHBK36gF_9I/AAAAAAAAByI/tkYfBiNXQlMe4VNPvAy8EagXFuFDil8_wCLcB/s400/colognecathedralpic6.jpg" width="271" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From P. Clemen and W. Ewald 1911 Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln. Im Auftrage des Provinzialverbandes der Rheinprovinz und mit Unterstützung der Stadt Köln: Düsseldorf, Vol. 3.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is an impression of it in the 16th century, almost like two separate skyscrapers overlooking the houses and walls of the town. The diagonal structure on the western tower is a crane that was part of the scenes for centuries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XdQnQzcfP3o/WHBMEI8hkQI/AAAAAAAAByQ/FLHpvt6l5VQDLBuUl5vIe6cqYVlj0GTsQCLcB/s1600/colognecathedralpic7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XdQnQzcfP3o/WHBMEI8hkQI/AAAAAAAAByQ/FLHpvt6l5VQDLBuUl5vIe6cqYVlj0GTsQCLcB/s400/colognecathedralpic7.jpg" width="288" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">P. Clemen and W. Ewald 1911 Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln. Im Auftrage des Provinzialverbandes der Rheinprovinz und mit Unterstützung der Stadt Köln: Düsseldorf, Vol. 3.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MCXNceIx1Yk/WHBMESvRGBI/AAAAAAAAByU/Cz_6LoHpaC03ZlwLFA-McIkBkd3GJ3EUACLcB/s1600/colognecathedralpic10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MCXNceIx1Yk/WHBMESvRGBI/AAAAAAAAByU/Cz_6LoHpaC03ZlwLFA-McIkBkd3GJ3EUACLcB/s400/colognecathedralpic10.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> P. Clemen and W. Ewald 1911 Die Kunstdenkmäler der Stadt Köln. Im Auftrage des Provinzialverbandes der Rheinprovinz und mit Unterstützung der Stadt Köln: Düsseldorf, Vol. 3.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Before it could be completed, the building was occupied by French Revolutionary troops in 1794, sustaining internal damage. These two early 19th century paintings show the oddness of the building before reconstruction started again in 1842, using a medieval plan of the facade but some modern materials and different stone. I don't know how detailed this medieval plan was, or quite how closely they stuck to it. But the building process lurched into life again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M9uDByg6pj4/WHBPRJYYetI/AAAAAAAAByc/5hN8x0gn1sImJzr0WnGvS5K_dKV6H3N_gCLcB/s1600/colognecathedralpic2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M9uDByg6pj4/WHBPRJYYetI/AAAAAAAAByc/5hN8x0gn1sImJzr0WnGvS5K_dKV6H3N_gCLcB/s320/colognecathedralpic2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wMXNSpsTjuI/WHBPRWhI4jI/AAAAAAAAByk/EKD88hdcMXUXBZkEjsaQjYjklQ6s4oaHACLcB/s1600/colognecathedralpic3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wMXNSpsTjuI/WHBPRWhI4jI/AAAAAAAAByk/EKD88hdcMXUXBZkEjsaQjYjklQ6s4oaHACLcB/s320/colognecathedralpic3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NlugBc5LxVk/WHBPRQu2WoI/AAAAAAAAByg/wgURCD9o2ZAB56RpneJUksOFFyf3nrr_ACLcB/s1600/colognecathedralpic4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="304" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NlugBc5LxVk/WHBPRQu2WoI/AAAAAAAAByg/wgURCD9o2ZAB56RpneJUksOFFyf3nrr_ACLcB/s320/colognecathedralpic4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_zJQ3KOGi8w/WHBPRl8bKhI/AAAAAAAAByo/ETzvH6a1MP8v7VCthGEAov7tc0IfhHKUACLcB/s1600/colognecathedralpic5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_zJQ3KOGi8w/WHBPRl8bKhI/AAAAAAAAByo/ETzvH6a1MP8v7VCthGEAov7tc0IfhHKUACLcB/s320/colognecathedralpic5.jpg" width="305" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From F.T. Helmken 1901 The cathedral of Cologne, its history, architecture...legends. A guide for visitors, compiled from historical and descriptive records.. : Cologne.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This wasn't the end of its troubles, as the use of poor quality stone necessitated repairs and replacements, and then there was the ferocious destruction of the monuments of Cologne in the Second World War. The cathedral was damaged, but it stood. There is a tale that it was deliberately spared, sort of, because Allied bomber pilots used the towers for navigation. If that isn't true, then it makes a good legend. Many stained glass windows and treasures, such as the reliquary of the Magi, had been stashed away for safekeeping and survived.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> See the reliquary <a href="http://www.koelner-dom.de/index.php?id=17451&L=1" target="_blank">here</a>. It's an amazing survival. It is, in fact, the little golden square blob in the picture of the apse above, but I couldn't get any closer because of the Christmas services going on at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> What happened in Cologne Cathedral in the 19th century must have been something of a recapitulation of what went on in other great churches during the multiple rebuildings of the middle ages. We look at those buildings as things complete and try to preserve them. They saw them as aspirational. Many people would not have seen their local great church in any kind of completed state in their lifetime.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Our concept of how one should behave in a church is also based around its completeness. Lowered voices and respectful behaviour are a response to the enclosure and wholeness of the building as a retreat from everyday life. For great lengths of time, the great churches were busy workplaces, no doubt with their quiet and respectful corners but in other areas buzzing with their connection to the world of work and daily life outside.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In this sense Cologne Cathedral is very much a medieval church, just displaced by a few centuries. All the great churches have suffered periods of neglect or damage, and times of restoration. None of them is a time capsule.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The historic pictures of Cologne Cathedral here are brought to you courtesy of the wonderful and fabulous <a href="https://archive.org/details/texts" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-12947421115448281172016-09-11T14:44:00.003+10:002016-09-11T14:44:46.469+10:00Space and the End of the Middle Ages in Britain<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Now I am not a person who likes to indulge in debates about periodisation in history. As far as I am concerned, the middle ages came between the early ages and the recent ages. There is no one set of events, or values, or levels of knowledge, or types of government, or religion which draws a line between different eras. It is all a complicated jigsaw. Scholars of Italian history like to put the end of the middle ages earlier than those of British history for the paradoxical reason that Italian intellectuals suddenly took an interest in the writings of the ancient past. The French seem to like to keep the medieval era going until they all became Enlightened.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WvAt7GayC8U/V9TR19GNYII/AAAAAAAABto/0ytHkbe1UMEjPTHkYbv_L78pfrpqLjmMQCLcB/s1600/lanercost4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WvAt7GayC8U/V9TR19GNYII/AAAAAAAABto/0ytHkbe1UMEjPTHkYbv_L78pfrpqLjmMQCLcB/s400/lanercost4.JPG" width="290" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ruins of Lanercost Priory, Cumbria</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In Britain the changes of the Reformation are taken to be a watershed issue that could be considered epoch changing. The family medievalist firmly asserts that the medieval period ended in England in 1540. So there. Much ink has been expended on how much, how comprehensively and how quickly those religious changes got into the mindsets of ordinary people. Not going there. Enough said already and some of it based on modern personal belief rather than much else. What did happen in England was that the use of space in daily life changed. The configuration of town and country was changed forever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hW9lqpb8ycU/V9TSrvUg5fI/AAAAAAAABtw/fdJqCRp83msWFGyvK8LX1FjiT16W6__cgCLcB/s1600/oxford3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hW9lqpb8ycU/V9TSrvUg5fI/AAAAAAAABtw/fdJqCRp83msWFGyvK8LX1FjiT16W6__cgCLcB/s400/oxford3.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oxford</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I have always found Oxford a rather unwelcoming place. Nothing to do with the people, although I guess they have their little exclusivities at times, but the ancient layout of the town is a trifle forbidding. Everywhere there are exclusion zones, defined by elegant quadrangles which are not public space. The streets are oppressively walled off and you feel that all the action is going on inside those secluded enclaves from which you are barred. Like many first time visitors, I was lost and confused about where the university actually was, gradually realising that the university is not a bounded entity but a whole bunch of entities dotted around the town, each claiming its bit of space and history.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sg-BJom7ILI/V9TTYv5xNvI/AAAAAAAABt0/EhVnWqIzL3ISMn3ehqP8VfU04-euryJkQCLcB/s1600/norwichblackfriars11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sg-BJom7ILI/V9TTYv5xNvI/AAAAAAAABt0/EhVnWqIzL3ISMn3ehqP8VfU04-euryJkQCLcB/s400/norwichblackfriars11.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The vast complex of Blackfriars, Norwich, middle distance behind another large church.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Late medieval towns were a bit like that. In the larger and more prosperous towns, various types of religious institutions had acquired space within the town walls, built increasingly grand constructions and enclosed them within their own walls. These were communities within the larger community, and those not members of them just walked past and wondered, I guess.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yNqM0yYVFcU/V9TUXzDgClI/AAAAAAAABt8/I4l69ub1JIoDL76PG-4ceoCHimhAegsrgCLcB/s1600/lincolnstmlw1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yNqM0yYVFcU/V9TUXzDgClI/AAAAAAAABt8/I4l69ub1JIoDL76PG-4ceoCHimhAegsrgCLcB/s320/lincolnstmlw1.JPG" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anglo-Saxon tower of St Mary-le-Wigford, Lincoln, one of three surviving medieval churches.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is the pattern for the end of the middle ages, but it doesn't define the whole epoch. Towns which were prosperous before the Norman Conquest had many small parish churches founded by lay patrons, many of which did not survive to the end of the middle ages as parishes consolidated. The constant process of church rebuilding meant that the surviving churches became larger and more elaborate as others disappeared. The monasteries became larger, more elaborate and more powerful forces in the land.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pH3EoNSS2aE/V9TVed2SQ6I/AAAAAAAABuI/47n5VYw8bZslp3Ooqy3LhyWhfCGhV7y2wCLcB/s1600/southwell02.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pH3EoNSS2aE/V9TVed2SQ6I/AAAAAAAABuI/47n5VYw8bZslp3Ooqy3LhyWhfCGhV7y2wCLcB/s400/southwell02.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Southwell Minster, collegiate church.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> More recently founded collegiate churches, with colleges of canons rather then monks, rivalled the cathedrals for grandeur.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qy_9nmG4iZY/V9TWVVV9MUI/AAAAAAAABuM/ZdSF3yi5CxAs3Wnpdk5XwdttzGDN6V_CQCLcB/s1600/winchesterstcross06.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qy_9nmG4iZY/V9TWVVV9MUI/AAAAAAAABuM/ZdSF3yi5CxAs3Wnpdk5XwdttzGDN6V_CQCLcB/s400/winchesterstcross06.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">St Cross Hospital, Winchester</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Hospitals were built, not as places of medical healing but where the poor, elderly and sick could be cared for. In the case of the leper hospitals they were also for protecting the rest of the community against disease and were often located outside the town walls. Within the towns they ranged from little houses of charity, pilgrimage hostels, to some quite grand institutions, often run by Augustinian canons and resembling other large, enclosed church institutions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LkeY6XqbG1E/V9TXyGgydYI/AAAAAAAABuU/Vc90qfN52tcMjUZ10F3_JFfW_LIbQnHJgCLcB/s1600/norwichblackfriars7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LkeY6XqbG1E/V9TXyGgydYI/AAAAAAAABuU/Vc90qfN52tcMjUZ10F3_JFfW_LIbQnHJgCLcB/s400/norwichblackfriars7.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Blackfriars complex, Norwich, largest surviving in the land.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The arrival of the friars in the 13th century added more to the ecclesiastical mix of the towns. The concept of mendicants living like the apostles on charity in the streets gave way to the building of large complexes, each in their own enclave. The massive churches were available for the laity to be preached to, but the borders of the enclaves expanded as town populations took a hit after the bubonic plague of the 14th century.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K_YSOxlpFVs/V9TYlGPTYnI/AAAAAAAABuY/M0FtVL-6qGQBJKmGaCcSmzizl5j4f3gRACLcB/s1600/lincolnbishop15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K_YSOxlpFVs/V9TYlGPTYnI/AAAAAAAABuY/M0FtVL-6qGQBJKmGaCcSmzizl5j4f3gRACLcB/s400/lincolnbishop15.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ruins of the bishop's palace at Lincoln.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Bishops and archbishops claimed pieces of towns all over the country, constructing large palaces for when they went rambling around their dioceses. They did it in style, even when they were away from home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gXVnzQgxG-Q/VisdodkoTaI/AAAAAAAABKw/HyK0-_IBqQoR-yKy1KERe-sID380y1xqQCPcB/s1600/fountains04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gXVnzQgxG-Q/VisdodkoTaI/AAAAAAAABKw/HyK0-_IBqQoR-yKy1KERe-sID380y1xqQCPcB/s400/fountains04.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fountains Abbey</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Even in the countryside large areas were controlled by the church. The Cistercian abbeys set in remote locations for the monks to live the ascetic and contemplative life became large estates with increasingly huge and elaborate buildings. The various abbeys had rural manors all over the place. Some of these places must have seemed like small towns in their own right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Essentially the church had space, the church had walls. Then within a very short period of time, those walls came down. The friaries and some collegiate churches seem to have disappeared quite rapidly, their walls pillaged for building materials, their buildings sometimes used for other civic purposes, but steadily running down. Leland, in his travels around England immediately after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, refers to the friaries and urban abbeys in the past tense, which they certainly were in terms of being institutions but probably rapidly became so in terms of fabric. Daniel Defoe, describing Lincoln in the early 18th century, claims that barns, stables, out-houses and "hog-styes" were built "church fashion" using carved stones from old ecclesiastical buildings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-N_SInz8SUM8/V9TZnkWEwgI/AAAAAAAABug/Wwwn9zkyn9MWKRLzUgXQCvCSIYtRVmhHgCLcB/s1600/yorkaustinfriarysite.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-N_SInz8SUM8/V9TZnkWEwgI/AAAAAAAABug/Wwwn9zkyn9MWKRLzUgXQCvCSIYtRVmhHgCLcB/s400/yorkaustinfriarysite.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A bit of old stone wall, all that exists of the Austin friary in York.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> York had substantial houses of the four major orders of friars, but barely a stone remains and those not very recognisable. This is not an uncommon fate for these institutions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zwhrj8tK5OM/V9TaiafYPuI/AAAAAAAABuo/pYUbMNGnFJ0BfChsax1rGb-ybE7j3vRKACLcB/s1600/rievaulx04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zwhrj8tK5OM/V9TaiafYPuI/AAAAAAAABuo/pYUbMNGnFJ0BfChsax1rGb-ybE7j3vRKACLcB/s400/rievaulx04.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rievaulx Abbey as garden ornament.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> These changes to the use of space were probably less obvious in rural areas. Large rural monasteries were taken over by large rural landholders who nicked stonework to build their new mansions but left ruins for their aesthetic value and swank. You can see how a medieval monastery was laid out and worked in the wild hills of Yorkshire better than in the crowded towns</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1IvMQefcsK8/V9TbJAjyB8I/AAAAAAAABuw/s_2bZU3-FyIKsygX7eyrG26AAluyl-NUgCLcB/s1600/norwichcath04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1IvMQefcsK8/V9TbJAjyB8I/AAAAAAAABuw/s_2bZU3-FyIKsygX7eyrG26AAluyl-NUgCLcB/s400/norwichcath04.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Norwich Cathedral with beat up remains of monastic cloisters.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Even the urban monasteries that were cathedrals, or were turned into cathedrals, lost much of the structure outside the church and their sense of enclosure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cvWEmpnFJWc/V9TbmuOTKgI/AAAAAAAABu0/EFVY6Foeklg-wYQeNx5aDpOvchtdR5GYgCLcB/s1600/howden2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cvWEmpnFJWc/V9TbmuOTKgI/AAAAAAAABu0/EFVY6Foeklg-wYQeNx5aDpOvchtdR5GYgCLcB/s320/howden2.JPG" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Partially ruined collegiate church at Howden.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Collegiate churches disappeared or declined. Even the beautiful Beverley Minster was barely rescued from destruction by some engineering genius in the 18th century, as the townsfolk continued to use the town church of St Mary's, as they had always done. There was just too much church around. In Leicester and Norwich collegiate churches disappeared, releasing their enclosed spaces for other urban purposes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H9JvHH9wlCQ/V9TcW-0Q3vI/AAAAAAAABvA/W6M6cUgzifE2e6nNVxo5XAr0K8W2365PACLcB/s1600/leicesternewarke5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H9JvHH9wlCQ/V9TcW-0Q3vI/AAAAAAAABvA/W6M6cUgzifE2e6nNVxo5XAr0K8W2365PACLcB/s400/leicesternewarke5.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Holy Trinity Hospital, Leicester.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Hospitals became run down and less able to provide for those they served without the charity of the church, and the obligations the church put on others, to support them. In Leicester Holy Trinity Hospital became steadily more decrepit until it was rebuilt in the late 18th century.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kQx0iZzSywA/V9Tc0R2U0MI/AAAAAAAABvE/Q4LxpaBxYKwbeyQbpa3QUOEzrT_Uc29DACLcB/s1600/northallertonpalace.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kQx0iZzSywA/V9Tc0R2U0MI/AAAAAAAABvE/Q4LxpaBxYKwbeyQbpa3QUOEzrT_Uc29DACLcB/s400/northallertonpalace.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Where a bishop's palace once was, Northallerton.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The bishops and archbishops had to curb their profligate living arrangements and the palaces dotted around the place were appropriated, pillaged or disappeared.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> New urban amenities were built, such as grammar schools to replace the teaching functions of the church schools. It does seem that some areas of the towns were ransacked for their materials and became a bit derelict until the renewal of urban amenities in the 19th centuries. Post offices, railway stations, theatres, museums and art galleries so often occupy the sites of medieval religious institutions. Changes to trade, transport and commerce over time caused towns as a whole to open up as walls and gates were demolished. This process has gone to extremes with modern road transport in some places. (I'm looking at you, Leicester and Nottingham.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So perhaps we can define the end of the middle ages in English towns not so much by religious change as such, whatever that implies in terms of belief or private conviction, but in terms of use of urban space. This just leaves the question of whether bringing down those old walls reclaimed the space for the town dwellers, or handed them over to a new class of owners.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-13350354786754669762016-07-10T16:32:00.000+10:002016-07-29T12:36:18.394+10:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 21: Brass Rubbings - Perfect Facsimiles?<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In 1973, on my first visit to England, I did over 80 brass rubbings from medieval tombs. A major reason for doing them was that my husband had recently begun teaching medieval history in Australia and realised that students there did not have the familiarity with medieval heritage remains or an awareness of how they fitted into the ordinary landscape of folks in England. It was part of an ongoing project that included increasing amounts of photography over the years, and eventually some multimedia shenanigans. It meant much of our luggage was guide books, OS maps, Pevsners, cameras, paper and wax. We did take the odd change of undies. We were there for eight months on that occasion and I was towing a two year old child around at the time. Most of the rubbings were done around Yorkshire, Derbyshire and East Anglia, which were not so heavily populated with tourist brass rubbers as the more popular areas such as Kent. It was possible to fit each project into a two year old's timetable. The bulk of my luggage coming home comprised four large plastic cylinders solidly packed with rolled up paper. Don't quite know how we got away with that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I didn't do any more brass rubbings on our various extended trips after that. The tide had turned somewhat against it among the clergy and besides, how many cylinders full of rolls of paper that can only be got out for occasional special occasions does a girl need?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KItbfnBi4TU/V4CLsZ0--5I/AAAAAAAABqQ/0K6SDTrbeuAUBHs_OjBwJsrIaRn9liEcQCLcB/s1600/harphamtomb4a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KItbfnBi4TU/V4CLsZ0--5I/AAAAAAAABqQ/0K6SDTrbeuAUBHs_OjBwJsrIaRn9liEcQCLcB/s400/harphamtomb4a.jpg" width="163" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is one of the first rubbings I did, one of several in a strange little isolated church in the village of Harpham on the East Yorkshire wolds, of a knightly member of the St Quentin family. Yes, it's a scruffy phone pic, done under guerilla circumstances. One day I guess I must hire a small hall for a day and photograph them all properly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QXylRUbsXVE/VtpIkIqXS6I/AAAAAAAABXE/nYJXg8yGBakgB1n1HuCnzRVy4HSh2a8pwCKgB/s1600/harphamtomb4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QXylRUbsXVE/VtpIkIqXS6I/AAAAAAAABXE/nYJXg8yGBakgB1n1HuCnzRVy4HSh2a8pwCKgB/s320/harphamtomb4.JPG" width="277" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Here is a photograph of the same tomb. The proportions look different because I didn't have a hovercraft to get directly above him, so the rubbing is a more accurate depiction in that regard. A piece of his dagger has been broken off at some stage, which is apparent in the photograph but not the rubbing. He clearly had a livery collar in the past, inlaid in a different material to the brass. The slab he was set in also had four separate heraldic shields in the corners, only three of which have survived. These were most probably originally inlaid with coloured material, but that is gone. The colour of the brass itself is a dingy brown, weathered with age, and the whole arrangement is monochrome, a characteristic only emphasised by the stark black and white of the rubbing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WTOe4P8yBC4/V4CTJkbuKmI/AAAAAAAABqg/l3psYWH7irMHsD8nzizrnNLNlNRdrv5_wCLcB/s1600/harphamstqchapel1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WTOe4P8yBC4/V4CTJkbuKmI/AAAAAAAABqg/l3psYWH7irMHsD8nzizrnNLNlNRdrv5_wCLcB/s400/harphamstqchapel1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The slab into which the brass is set lies in the floor of the St Quentin family chapel, amid a miscellany of tombs including other brasses, an incised alabaster slab on a table tomb under a canopy, a beat up old limestone effigy and some later wall monuments, not to mention bits of woodwork and old heating pipes. Whether it is in its original place or setting is impossible to know. These things got moved around and reorganised a lot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There were once many more medieval monumental brasses around than there are today, and despite the favourite villains of history often getting all the blame, there have been steady losses over the centuries from natural circumstances, religious change, pillage, church refurbishment and gradual wear and tear. The most vilified despoilers include Henry VIII and his henchmen, Puritans, Civil War soldiers who melted them down for cannons and corrupt churchwardens of later days. Those that survive tend to be battered, worn and often relocated, but they still provide a fascinating visual projection from that romanticised past.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> 16th and 17th century antiquarians took a great interest in tombs, including brasses. Their particular focus was on recording epitaphs and heraldry. Detailed and accurate depictions of the figures on tombs and brasses are rare, although their records do indicate the existence of many tombs since lost or damaged. The first direct prints from brasses were taken in the 18th century, by flooding the incised lines in the brass with ink and pressing paper over them. I can't quite see this being approved of by church authorities today. Nevertheless, it produced very accurate monochrome, linear prints of the designs, but reversed of course. Easy to pick if there are inscriptions because these are written back to front. These were used to produce monochrome engravings for publication, and some are the only evidence for brasses which are no longer extant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DMiQfInKG9k/V4CkzodMQzI/AAAAAAAABqw/mGe3NMjkERQNWCXxkVXt378lhbuj43MqwCLcB/s1600/Monumental_brass_of_Robert_Attelath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DMiQfInKG9k/V4CkzodMQzI/AAAAAAAABqw/mGe3NMjkERQNWCXxkVXt378lhbuj43MqwCLcB/s400/Monumental_brass_of_Robert_Attelath.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This figure from a brass to Robert Attelath in the church of King's Lynn is known only from such a print by Craven Ord, later published as an engraving in J.S. Cotman and D. Turner 1838 <i>Engravings of Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk and Suffolk</i>, Vol. 1. The image here is taken from Wikimedia Commons. King's Lynn has other surviving amazing Flemish brasses, and this is only part of the one that was lost, but it gives us some beautiful visual information.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The use of black wax to take impressions of brasses became very popular during the mid 19th century. It produced sharp durable impressions which were the right way round. They were black, because the wax used was black heelball wax, used by cobblers to blacken the heels of shoes. Brass rubbing wax is still often referred to as heelball wax to this day, although folks have generally forgotten why.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Collections of these historic rubbings survive in such places as the British Library, Bodleian Library, Ashmolean Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in some cases they document brasses which have since disappeared or been mutilated or damaged. They are historical records, and at the level of reproducing linear design, they are accurate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lRsQQKx2urQ/V4Cq4POl9kI/AAAAAAAABrA/3goYDIgt_VUjZrgS6bybDvBslB3OWCdbACLcB/s1600/cowthorpebrass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lRsQQKx2urQ/V4Cq4POl9kI/AAAAAAAABrA/3goYDIgt_VUjZrgS6bybDvBslB3OWCdbACLcB/s400/cowthorpebrass1.JPG" width="276" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is my rubbing from 1973 of a brass in Cowthorpe, Yorkshire, showing one Brian Roucliff precariously balancing a church on one hand. Various other disordered bits and pieces of the design are scattered around. From memory, he was mounted on the wall at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-smiKn4wOV9A/V4CsfDeZ8KI/AAAAAAAABrM/E6kreiDPLNgZNLZF1t2X5LN0Z_zv8EDXACLcB/s1600/roucliffbrass.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-smiKn4wOV9A/V4CsfDeZ8KI/AAAAAAAABrM/E6kreiDPLNgZNLZF1t2X5LN0Z_zv8EDXACLcB/s400/roucliffbrass.JPG" width="322" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The Victoria and Albert Museum catalogue of 1915 has this picture of a rubbing of the same brass, done before somebody ran off with his wife, not to mention the church tower, and the whole ensemble got disarranged. So we know a lot more about the monument than the surviving fragments can tell us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The stark blackness made these simple to reproduce at a time when books were largely printed in monochrome, and provided a much more detailed and crisp image than photographic images of three dimensional tombs could provide. The stereotype of the flat, black, negative, monochrome design patterns the mind into thinking that was what brasses were like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ezsRwwVIhro/V4Cy7-otjQI/AAAAAAAABrc/HzJqieBSF6czGSLJbROuqlU0dZ2ceamCwCLcB/s1600/gorlestonbrass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ezsRwwVIhro/V4Cy7-otjQI/AAAAAAAABrc/HzJqieBSF6czGSLJbROuqlU0dZ2ceamCwCLcB/s400/gorlestonbrass1.JPG" width="156" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Flat, black and battered, this knight from Gorleston in Suffolk would have been a handsome fellow in his day, back when he had legs, and a canopy, and some colour in his heraldic shield. As for the brass itself, it may have been polished, or gilded or made shiny and interesting in some way. This rubbing was done on red paper, but as I recall that was a practical decision because the red paper was softer than the white and he was placed vertically on the wall, so it was easier to get a clean print.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-51FWBljmwQM/V4C0SU1LJkI/AAAAAAAABro/NGjnPc4jmZ4yiGLvuYXdZC1Kf5u5krq0wCLcB/s1600/actonbrass1c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-51FWBljmwQM/V4C0SU1LJkI/AAAAAAAABro/NGjnPc4jmZ4yiGLvuYXdZC1Kf5u5krq0wCLcB/s400/actonbrass1c.JPG" width="298" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> With the fancy brass rubbing waxes that were being produced in the 70s it was possible to get a shiny, metallic finish, as in this rubbing of Sir Robert de Bures from Acton in Suffolk. The colour is entirely false though. It is an artifact of production and still provides only a monochrome outline of what was probably a much more colourful affair. Interestingly, the purveyors of brass rubbing supplies back then said that some rubbers preferred the metallic waxes because they looked more brassy, and others preferred the "authentic" black and white look. In other words, the visual characteristics of the old rubbings were determining authenticity, not those of the original brasses. The little Shire Library book S. Badham with M. Stuchfield 2009 <i>Monumental Brasses</i> has lovely colour photographs that illustrate a number of brasses with spectacular survivals of colour.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bJCylJlC9cQ/V4C4tAislZI/AAAAAAAABr0/9cXQ7nUB4gArBvOwy_yAHolxTg4RjnS4gCLcB/s1600/westtanfieldbrass1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bJCylJlC9cQ/V4C4tAislZI/AAAAAAAABr0/9cXQ7nUB4gArBvOwy_yAHolxTg4RjnS4gCLcB/s400/westtanfieldbrass1a.JPG" width="193" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Something else that can be lost is texture. This little figure of a priest from West Tanfield in Yorkshire, here shown without his inscription, shows blank spaces where the brass was clearly scraped out and roughened for some sort of inlay, probably representing fur, on the garment below his cope. Similar things are seen on the collars and cuffs of ladies in elaborate gowns.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bI102DjRPUM/VUWZytsalDI/AAAAAAAAA0I/JFPSZf1laQIT4UOCR9Du0z4Cxckx-HeAACKgB/s1600/aldboroughbrass1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bI102DjRPUM/VUWZytsalDI/AAAAAAAAA0I/JFPSZf1laQIT4UOCR9Du0z4Cxckx-HeAACKgB/s400/aldboroughbrass1a.JPG" width="205" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This knight from Aldborough in Yorkshire looks to me like one that would once have had some colourful adornment, with both his jupon and shield covered in heraldic designs. Both this example and that from Gorleston were mounted on the church wall, which brings up another issue. The engraved sheet of brass and its base stone, even with shields, inscriptions, canopies and other adornments, were not necessarily the totality of the monument. Brasses could be on tomb chests, under canopies, part of larger compositions. The brass rubbing isolates the design of the engraved brass from its setting, once again creating a stereotype that does not reflect the complexity of the original.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Xxb67ozmG0/V4C58qdXvII/AAAAAAAABsA/p7RdF4FtliQ9JwIw-lHLXQy9NbqDWbcjgCLcB/s1600/highamferrerstomb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Xxb67ozmG0/V4C58qdXvII/AAAAAAAABsA/p7RdF4FtliQ9JwIw-lHLXQy9NbqDWbcjgCLcB/s400/highamferrerstomb.JPG" width="280" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This canopied tomb chest in Higham Ferrers church supports a very famous brass to a priest, Laurence de St Maur, which cannot be seen from this angle. It appears that somebody has put a vase of flowers on him. (Ulp.) The whole arrangement may have served as an Easter Sepulchre as well as a tomb, which is something that cannot be deduced from looking at the many black and white illustrations of the rubbing of the brass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Back in 1973 some facsimiles taken from moulds of monumental brasses were being sold. These were taken up by brass rubbing centres as a way of taking the heat off churches while letting people have the brass rubbing experience. The actual sellers of these appear to have changed several times over the years, but it does seem that the core repertoire of brasses treated in this way has remained fairly constant. Some brasses have become more famous than others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DoEAolOZ7qQ/V4HG-drU1eI/AAAAAAAABsQ/5ZD0xZfK34kT7AtWktJiJP7QMEYmYvB4ACLcB/s1600/norwichbrassrubbing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DoEAolOZ7qQ/V4HG-drU1eI/AAAAAAAABsQ/5ZD0xZfK34kT7AtWktJiJP7QMEYmYvB4ACLcB/s400/norwichbrassrubbing.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">This picture, taken in 1988 in the Norwich Brassrubbing Centre shows people getting up close and personal with some medieval heritage using these facsimiles. We also bought a bunch of them over the years so that Australian students thousands of miles from the place they were studying could have a bit of the experience. They were very popular at end of year parties as cash strapped students used their rubbings for Christmas presents. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Now these were claimed to be absolutely accurate, producing a rubbing that was unable to be differentiated from one produced from the original. Certainly they look pretty good. One indignant lady at a university open day accused us noisily of pillaging churches. However, for practical reasons many are miniature versions, and some extract details rather than show complete compositions. Our crosslegged knight from a full sized effigy is only about half a metre high. There are even some that are based on historical figures who never had brasses made. This is fine if they are accepted for what they are, homage to brass memorials not reproductions of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T_WlWkE3dsA/V4HPat3DK0I/AAAAAAAABsg/7IZiOyX7UWIP7b6ZLjJJ6qVEFBfE_6wDwCLcB/s1600/facsimile.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T_WlWkE3dsA/V4HPat3DK0I/AAAAAAAABsg/7IZiOyX7UWIP7b6ZLjJJ6qVEFBfE_6wDwCLcB/s320/facsimile.JPG" width="284" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This little facsimile is of a small group of daughters of the main figures on a brass from Dinton, Buckinghamshire. There is a brief description on the back, but no image of the complete composition. It's a little memento, not a recording, but that is also what you find out in the field.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n3DWIBpxiYY/V4HT16G47tI/AAAAAAAABss/8uwDN4WaKFcmtNGjd2iGxPDZvrKU-4yWACLcB/s1600/chichesterbrassindent.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n3DWIBpxiYY/V4HT16G47tI/AAAAAAAABss/8uwDN4WaKFcmtNGjd2iGxPDZvrKU-4yWACLcB/s400/chichesterbrassindent.JPG" width="340" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Sometimes all that is left is the ghosts, as in this indent of a lost brass in Chichester cathedral. You just have to use your imagination, and not just think in black and white.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M0AnRvt5-OE/V4HUwX3pv9I/AAAAAAAABs4/mXN9HJCVM-IcNpvx3IxDo5Xdku4sOfUPQCLcB/s1600/anuopenday10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-M0AnRvt5-OE/V4HUwX3pv9I/AAAAAAAABs4/mXN9HJCVM-IcNpvx3IxDo5Xdku4sOfUPQCLcB/s400/anuopenday10.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A couple of times we have pulled them all out to display some of the best ones for university open days. I still get a thrill when I open up one of the tubes to look at the shiny precision of them, but then it takes about an hour to roll them back up again for storage. They are precise copies of original art works at one level, but at another they are mere shadows.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-42989602427469359652016-05-21T15:02:00.000+10:002016-05-21T15:26:20.020+10:00Visual History: Magnifying Glass or Fun Fair Mirror?<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Some weeks ago I got into a slightly testy (but polite) Twitter exchange with somebody from the humanities area of academia who was wanting to know whether anybody out there was doing research on the purely visual aspects of humanities subjects. I pointed out that there were whole disciplines in this area, such as archaeology and art history. These, I was informed, didn't count because people just wrote words about them and critiqued each other's words and didn't actually read the visuals. Er, no. Could I provide some references? Well, every excavation report ever written would make a start.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Perhaps we had just got our wires crossed and were misreading each other's arguments. That can happen when you break up a discussion into 140 character spasms sent asynchronously across different global time zones. We all read the visuals of our subjects and draw conclusions, or at least cement impressions, from the way we process them. We can look at stuff, we can reinterpret through drawing or photography or computer modelling or re-enactment. We incorporate interpretations based on our previous reading of words on a page or try to interpret the visuals based on other experience. Is this hollow bone with holes in it a prehistoric flute or a bone that a carnivore has chewed? All manner of observations and experiences can be drawn in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-utf7z4431BA/Vz6w6SXnGBI/AAAAAAAABnQ/UPrK2psdgbEmixX-BMGOJKiaixcfVzXfwCLcB/s1600/hexhamroodscreen2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-utf7z4431BA/Vz6w6SXnGBI/AAAAAAAABnQ/UPrK2psdgbEmixX-BMGOJKiaixcfVzXfwCLcB/s400/hexhamroodscreen2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> We all know what this scene, here painted on the rood screen of Hexham Abbey, represents: the Annunciation of course. It's a story from a book; a much read, much reproduced, much studied book. It's a book that was systematically translated, corrected and edited so it could be presented in a standardised form. We know what it is because we know the written story. There are also elements of this picture which are not derived from the book, but we recognise as visual conventions of medieval art: the Virgin kneeling at a desk reading a book, turning her head coyly towards the angel behind her; the haloes; the pot of lilies; the bent over respectful posture of the angel. They not only inform what we see, but how we see it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nXygky5fQYc/Vz60psTdaII/AAAAAAAABnc/_YwUA522Eck5Z9hKSIdYTldkp9WQwRsNQCLcB/s1600/chestermisericordwoodwose.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nXygky5fQYc/Vz60psTdaII/AAAAAAAABnc/_YwUA522Eck5Z9hKSIdYTldkp9WQwRsNQCLcB/s400/chestermisericordwoodwose.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> On the other hand, this misericord from St Werburgh's Abbey in Chester has no book to tell us exactly what it means. We are left with a jumble of folklore, reassembled and recast over centuries, and similar images from many other places to inform us that it is not unique or even particularly weird for its location, just not what we were expecting. We can speculate about the psychology of the wild places of the mind and invent symbolic meanings, like the priests quashing the forces of evil with their butts, or something like that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> How things, tiny or enormous, present themselves, or are presented, influence the way we mentally process them. No historical object is in its original position or condition. We have to fill in from our knowledge and imagination, hopefully in an informed way, but with an open mind to other than the standard possibilities. We also need to fill in the absences. Sometimes an empty space can tell us something.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eGcoo-O2Obs/Vz65jlBFDsI/AAAAAAAABns/SIxVX1__MScb71RnHoOwGT2M-5JO5LZgACLcB/s1600/conwy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eGcoo-O2Obs/Vz65jlBFDsI/AAAAAAAABns/SIxVX1__MScb71RnHoOwGT2M-5JO5LZgACLcB/s400/conwy.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Conwy Castle in Wales, with its massive forbidding presence, had such a profound effect on my four year old son at the time that he claimed he wished we had never called him Edward. "Edward I was a big pig!" he pronounced, and has insisted unto this day that he would be called Eddy. The fact that it was bleak and freezing and snowy only added to the atmosphere. It was an entirely different conception of a castle to that perpetuated by the modern craze of bodies like English Heritage dressing small children up as faux Vikings or soldiers or knights and let them pretend to bash the bejiminies out of each other in the name of good clean medieval fun. On the other hand, a raucous re-enactment of a guard chopping off a prisoner's ear in Lincoln Castle some years later sent my small nephew into the abdabs. He took some convincing that it was just pretend. The places can speak for themselves, with a bit of subtle guidance. Let's not hit the public over the head with a brick.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lL5wSW36c6A/Vz_LwNZDx8I/AAAAAAAABn8/dHS71x_u4moWGbZ0q6gcFkunG4xNeBZFgCLcB/s1600/yorkfromcastle1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lL5wSW36c6A/Vz_LwNZDx8I/AAAAAAAABn8/dHS71x_u4moWGbZ0q6gcFkunG4xNeBZFgCLcB/s400/yorkfromcastle1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Looking out from the top of Clifford's Tower in York, it is not so hard to imagine what an imposing and dominant presence the mighty minster would have been. Just mentally erase the multistory buildings, the fire station across the road and assorted other distractions, sketch in a few animals and aromas and you can see this monolithic building as the commanding presence in a small community by today's standards. You can make out two other church towers in this picture (look carefully), but there were other prominent features that you can't see, because they are not there. York had four friaries, a major hospital, several hospitals outside the walls, a number of parish churches now departed and various buildings adjunct to the minster. A network of religious buildings enmeshed the town. This is the concept we have to work a bit to see.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--oVF6KFuTb4/Vz_RGQBlO-I/AAAAAAAABoM/TvDA7jWhCcQct_t6DyK_EPFQjgijUePGgCLcB/s1600/yorkbederngatehouse.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--oVF6KFuTb4/Vz_RGQBlO-I/AAAAAAAABoM/TvDA7jWhCcQct_t6DyK_EPFQjgijUePGgCLcB/s400/yorkbederngatehouse.JPG" width="280" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This gatehouse in York led into a complex known as the Bedern, where the vicars choral of the minster lived when they weren't attending to their choral duties. Two small restored buildings, including the chapel on the left of the picture, are all that survives above ground, but the space still exists, albeit now occupied by modern housing. The past hasn't gone away.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TXCqP8p355I/Vz_TCTkgrvI/AAAAAAAABoY/5tLdzkpOqBgPPYdw5SxgbKxdHlwA_AfjQCLcB/s1600/yorkstleonard4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TXCqP8p355I/Vz_TCTkgrvI/AAAAAAAABoY/5tLdzkpOqBgPPYdw5SxgbKxdHlwA_AfjQCLcB/s400/yorkstleonard4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> St Leonard's hospital was a very large institution, but now represented by just a fragment of ruin. The imposing building behind it is the public library, built on part of the site. Some hospital foundations are under a nearby theatre. New urban institutions have replaced the old, but the space is still defined. You are looking at something that isn't there. The medieval town is not defined simply by its standing ruins, but by its spaces and replacements. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Maps are one way of refining the seeing of history. Ancient historical maps may not conform to modern cartographical standards, but they are a conception of a place. They define what features and what spaces were seen as important at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DU840gEiFw8/Vz_VReqWJKI/AAAAAAAABok/HCt-m2vhVP46vartWsmJWoIbs_ABfZ06wCLcB/s1600/leicesterstukeleymap1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DU840gEiFw8/Vz_VReqWJKI/AAAAAAAABok/HCt-m2vhVP46vartWsmJWoIbs_ABfZ06wCLcB/s400/leicesterstukeleymap1.JPG" width="270" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> William Stukeley's map of Leicester shows us how an 18th century antiquarian saw the shape and organisation of the town. You would be hard pressed to untangle that plan from a modern map. Nevertheless topographical maps, Ordnance Survey maps and Google satellite images can all combine to help us image the past and fit it into the present. There is even a space archaeologist working with NASA these days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mcuw6mMifxI/Vz_Wc-oAZfI/AAAAAAAABow/SpFKRGhbeCswEh3I6LdSgGUMr23Q47Z_wCLcB/s1600/wellsbishop3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mcuw6mMifxI/Vz_Wc-oAZfI/AAAAAAAABow/SpFKRGhbeCswEh3I6LdSgGUMr23Q47Z_wCLcB/s400/wellsbishop3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Here are the massive ruins of the huge and stately medieval bishop's palace at Wells. You don't need a literal medieval banquet re-enactment to imagine the lavish doings that must have gone on here.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I-zPvoRQjsg/Vz_XH_4lWNI/AAAAAAAABo0/_3xyTi3nxMgBwlKUu7YNlcwtHms3AxYbgCLcB/s1600/northallertonpalace2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I-zPvoRQjsg/Vz_XH_4lWNI/AAAAAAAABo0/_3xyTi3nxMgBwlKUu7YNlcwtHms3AxYbgCLcB/s400/northallertonpalace2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Here is an empty space, now filled with a modern cemetery at Northallerton in Yorkshire. You are looking at something that isn't there; a palace of the bishop of Durham. The ditch and bank surrounding the site survives, defining a space from which the material content has been removed. You have to imagine the ceremonies, the banquets, the consultations and plottings that might have gone on here. Their shadows are still lurking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NBTRD_Wqkoc/Vz_ZBd0myYI/AAAAAAAABpA/nRd5UVC4OpIiK7cSVRGyscbfSqH1ikH7wCLcB/s1600/lincolnstpaulinthebail.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NBTRD_Wqkoc/Vz_ZBd0myYI/AAAAAAAABpA/nRd5UVC4OpIiK7cSVRGyscbfSqH1ikH7wCLcB/s400/lincolnstpaulinthebail.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is the site of the church of St Paul in the Bail in Lincoln, possibly the oldest Christian church in the north of England. It has been excavated and several subsequent versions of the church have been discovered on the site. You are looking at chronological layers of things that are not there. I was standing here once when a stranger approached and asked me where Roman Lincoln was. I told him we were standing in it. He didn't believe me. Admittedly you have to go down a lane to see a bit of wall, and another lane to see a turret, another to see the main upper gateway and another way to see the foundations of the lower town gates. I gave him directions and he pottered off bemused. Perhaps he was expecting something like the forum in Rome, but Lincoln has seen a lot of life since those days. Would it have helped if there had been explainers wandering around in metal breastplates and sandals? It might please some, but it makes more sense if you train yourself to see. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WclXuPvQTF4/Vz_h-wxcxeI/AAAAAAAABpQ/XrRTmdZLnpMRd8nlUaT2swSGTQB3CDARgCLcB/s1600/bolingbrokecastle1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WclXuPvQTF4/Vz_h-wxcxeI/AAAAAAAABpQ/XrRTmdZLnpMRd8nlUaT2swSGTQB3CDARgCLcB/s400/bolingbrokecastle1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Bolingbroke Castle might not exactly be the best preserved medieval fortress in Britain but it was the birthplace of one Henry, part of the ever ongoing murderous struggles to determine the monarchy of England. It still sits in a landscape. Far better than banquets and jousts is to sit and contemplate how such a peaceful spot played a role in the gore and splatter of competitive English kingship.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8VBuqOKku5M/Vz_j1LEecsI/AAAAAAAABpc/1xNoYtV1FfIsmmaGtHxnNsUX9QnsnddegCLcB/s1600/bewcastlepele.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8VBuqOKku5M/Vz_j1LEecsI/AAAAAAAABpc/1xNoYtV1FfIsmmaGtHxnNsUX9QnsnddegCLcB/s400/bewcastlepele.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Does anything epitomise the struggles for control of land, people and wealth like the stark and bleak ruins of the fortified houses, or pele towers, dotted across the Scottish borders? Nothing to be seen for miles but hills and sheep but you locked yourself up in a stone tower before you went to bed. The one above is at Bewcastle, but there are many others, visual reminders of troubled times at least as eloquent as the chronicles that described them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pCoNIZqeWjg/Vz_qBVN-0ZI/AAAAAAAABps/HMA-GisP-JofUTSHBEIyn7MHKnal6Kx3QCLcB/s1600/seamer.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pCoNIZqeWjg/Vz_qBVN-0ZI/AAAAAAAABps/HMA-GisP-JofUTSHBEIyn7MHKnal6Kx3QCLcB/s400/seamer.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> "Why" said the family medievalist "are we standing in the middle of a field looking at a small pile of rocks stuck together on top of one another?" Well, Leland described it as a large manor house of the Percies. "But it's not here!" Nope. It is not. The manor house of Seamer is not there. But you can still see it if you try.</span><br />
<br />Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-39425035655975187422016-05-15T17:16:00.000+10:002016-05-24T17:42:51.013+10:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 20: Owning the Church<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> My sorting and cleaning up of old photographs finally allowed me to identify two pictures which recalled a tale from when they were originally taken. I was trailing two small boys around medieval sites at the time. Mostly they were happy with castles and didn't mind monasteries if they had good drains, but churches generally had to be rationed. They were observant little lads though and as I was investigating a tomb one queried "Why is the shield in the stained glass window the same as the one on the knight's shield. Did he own the church?" I explained no, he didn't own it, but he may have had something to do with building the part of it where he was buried. Thinking about it for a few decades, there is an element of ownership in these remains, and sometimes contested ownership at that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1UWp4I-YI4w/VzgBREygPyI/AAAAAAAABlI/sCOfKbATeYkYoV-UZp31w_xPrXYjtseagCLcB/s1600/rythertomb1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1UWp4I-YI4w/VzgBREygPyI/AAAAAAAABlI/sCOfKbATeYkYoV-UZp31w_xPrXYjtseagCLcB/s400/rythertomb1b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FaIg-lsK-8s/VzgBpm65_1I/AAAAAAAABlM/O5BxBNDbV0Ed5ZccjzxZAqw-7Eo6AUvxgCLcB/s1600/rytherglass3c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FaIg-lsK-8s/VzgBpm65_1I/AAAAAAAABlM/O5BxBNDbV0Ed5ZccjzxZAqw-7Eo6AUvxgCLcB/s1600/rytherglass3c.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The church was in Ryther, West Yorkshire, where there are tombs to members of the Ryther family. In an earlier post I discussed how <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-15.html" target="_blank">stained glass windows</a> could be funerary monuments in themselves, and could contain specific references to praying for the souls of the dead. Another post also discussed the use of <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-10.html" target="_blank">heraldry on tombs</a> as an identifier and a status marker. I guess I am trying to pull a few threads together to look at signs of possession within the church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There must always have been some competition between the clergy and the wealthy lay folks about ownership of the church real estate. The clergy used the space to go about their business of saying the offices and the mass, conducting weddings, baptisms, confessions and funerals and doing their own work. It was their space. Nonetheless, wealthy donors provided some of the means for them to do it, and laid claim to spaces for their personal and family display.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Some of the earliest large effigy tombs are in the great churches, the cathedrals and abbeys, commemorating the senior clergy of the church; the founding fathers and those who oversaw the development of ever increasing grandeur of these buildings and communities. These can be seen in some places, despite being moved and messed around during the course of various religious upheavals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EgptpOI3zrI/VzgF3bZojwI/AAAAAAAABlc/8X_qHzsxDp4IzAvbZc3KJFFFZrFLdZergCLcB/s1600/salisburytomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EgptpOI3zrI/VzgF3bZojwI/AAAAAAAABlc/8X_qHzsxDp4IzAvbZc3KJFFFZrFLdZergCLcB/s400/salisburytomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The Purbeck marble tomb to Bishop Joscelin de Bohun (d.1184) in Salisbury Cathedral is one of several of senior ecclesiastics in this church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cwaxd2RN1mM/VzgIFwNIBtI/AAAAAAAABlo/XFW1p5n50m4z4ySmaEve16Q0EgiLEDC3ACLcB/s1600/peterboroughtomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cwaxd2RN1mM/VzgIFwNIBtI/AAAAAAAABlo/XFW1p5n50m4z4ySmaEve16Q0EgiLEDC3ACLcB/s400/peterboroughtomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Abbot Benedict (d.1193) is one of a number of abbots who survived the Reformation and remain commemorated in Peterborough Cathedral after it was changed from a Benedictine abbey. They weren't forgetting their origins in Peterborough.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Ecclesiastics were not the only people memorialised in the abbeys, even those which did not serve as cathedrals. Although one might think of the more remote Cistercian houses, for example, as places that were largely the preserve of their serving monastic communities, significant lay people were buried there, having paid well for the privilege no doubt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UCABDDhd2jc/VzgJ8-9DyJI/AAAAAAAABl0/3vyv4TGdAIo2jNNBruk1ZQ_7oqtsYjfUQCLcB/s1600/jervaulxknight1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UCABDDhd2jc/VzgJ8-9DyJI/AAAAAAAABl0/3vyv4TGdAIo2jNNBruk1ZQ_7oqtsYjfUQCLcB/s400/jervaulxknight1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This mangled specimen of a knightly effigy lies in the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey. Nobody salvaged him and carted him off to a safer haven at the dissolution of the monasteries. His capacity to own a piece of monastic territory was subverted by the disappearance of the institution itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6EK3FEY6GN8/VzgMj8DxzjI/AAAAAAAABmA/tERv0PLNsKYcDp0KiQNLDWfUHKL5XNnrQCLcB/s1600/egglestonetomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6EK3FEY6GN8/VzgMj8DxzjI/AAAAAAAABmA/tERv0PLNsKYcDp0KiQNLDWfUHKL5XNnrQCLcB/s400/egglestonetomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A hefty but battered tomb of Sir Ralph Bowes stands plonk under the crossing of the church of Egglestone Abbey, a Premonstratensian house. More modest slabs and brass indents are scattered about, of lay and ecclesiastical figures. This was a bit of a battling house and probably had to treat its patrons well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LNdctzQVA00/VzgM-iYp_dI/AAAAAAAABmM/gkD-F0ZL0lIMehVkCn4Xmcgn7zCE3xnAACKgB/s1600/fountainschapterhouse1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LNdctzQVA00/VzgM-iYp_dI/AAAAAAAABmM/gkD-F0ZL0lIMehVkCn4Xmcgn7zCE3xnAACKgB/s400/fountainschapterhouse1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> At Fountains Abbey some battered relics of the tombs of the abbots lie in the chapter house. This was a space where the monks conducted their own affairs and could perhaps be perceived as their particular space, even more than the body of the church was.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the later medieval period, the claiming of space in the major churches, by ecclesiastics as well as mighty lay people, became even more conspicuous with the building of lavish chantries, marking out confined spaces within the general area of the church and splashing heraldry and other symbols of ownership all over them. They were for the wealthy, religious or lay, as they not only required payment for their construction but ongoing expenditure to maintain the priests who said the masses in them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F_toRB4aon0/VzgRSZc4i-I/AAAAAAAABmU/5bgHAxtSl3AWuCjui3SDEHccpOSbFe71wCLcB/s1600/elybishopchantry1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F_toRB4aon0/VzgRSZc4i-I/AAAAAAAABmU/5bgHAxtSl3AWuCjui3SDEHccpOSbFe71wCLcB/s400/elybishopchantry1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Entrance to a chantry in Ely Cathedral. Now imagine it with all its colour and statuary; definitely laying claim to a space.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the parish churches, it seems the wealthy local laity had the upper hand. While there are some fancy tombs to parish priests, there are many more modest little affairs and a lot of them are small brasses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UFAtW6uSJ6E/VzgUHeBwZfI/AAAAAAAABmg/NmVFibopBrYXRAxpNIKDwojbHICS31fhgCLcB/s1600/westtanfieldbrass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UFAtW6uSJ6E/VzgUHeBwZfI/AAAAAAAABmg/NmVFibopBrYXRAxpNIKDwojbHICS31fhgCLcB/s400/westtanfieldbrass1.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This tiny brass to a priest in West Tanfield church, North Yorkshire, sits in a church with several large and elaborate effigy tombs to the laity. Who provided these modest memorials - family, parishioners? I don't doubt there may have been some battles, and some rearrangements over time, as the priests tried to ensure they had the space to do their business while the lay patrons tried to impose their memorials in the most conspicuous places.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Stained glass windows do not occupy floor space and they do serve useful and aesthetic functions within the church. Heraldic windows emblazon the family stamp on the place without getting in anybody's way, which might explain why you find so many of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0WHVcOIAvY/Vzggc_xrHJI/AAAAAAAABnA/5-_csODPepEFlzuzNW_fuKYJeIKJmxZoACLcB/s1600/stamfordglass3b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y0WHVcOIAvY/Vzggc_xrHJI/AAAAAAAABnA/5-_csODPepEFlzuzNW_fuKYJeIKJmxZoACLcB/s320/stamfordglass3b.JPG" width="312" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The above is an assortment of glass fragments in St Martin's church, Stamford, featuring some natty heraldic shields.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I suspect some competition among the laity themselves for ownership of space as family fortunes waxed and waned. There are plenty of clues that tombs got moved around and re-organised and it is not always clear when. The older, and often a bit forlorn, effigies seem to be usually found in churches that are not crammed with the clunky memorials of post-Refomation upstarts, whether they are in tiny country churches or tucked away rather surprisingly in modern industrial towns (or post-industrial in many cases today). Tomb chests show signs of having been broken up and reassembled. Effigies look to have been dragged outside and left in the rain. In some cases they have been found buried in the churchyard or tucked into strange places inside the church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ceX3wsLWbMM/VzgayKt5XaI/AAAAAAAABmw/HNZKnMHEcJw2Cd-PTYvIsAvZyiaTsqz5QCLcB/s1600/pickeringtomb1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ceX3wsLWbMM/VzgayKt5XaI/AAAAAAAABmw/HNZKnMHEcJw2Cd-PTYvIsAvZyiaTsqz5QCLcB/s400/pickeringtomb1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This alabaster couple in Pickering church lie in what looks like a family chapel, but if they haven't spent some time out in the North Yorkshire dreek I would be very surprised.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pDovWvyPiRo/V0QEiWCyooI/AAAAAAAABp8/8UKikDTyFq47l79BLKhBHvXAXSBNCKcUQCLcB/s1600/wingfieldchancel1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pDovWvyPiRo/V0QEiWCyooI/AAAAAAAABp8/8UKikDTyFq47l79BLKhBHvXAXSBNCKcUQCLcB/s400/wingfieldchancel1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Then there is this. Several tombs of the de la Pole family reside in the church at Wingfield, Suffolk, a church which became collegiate under their patronage. Note the location of the tomb up next to the altar and the way that various heraldic devices spread all over the aisle arcades of the chancel. The sedilia are actually built in to the structure of the tomb. Another tomb lies directly opposite on the other side of the chancel. These folks are still owning the church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> We like to have a romantic notion of medieval churches as havens of peace, love and Christian values, but it is very hard for those competitive, acquisitive, pugnacious creatures we call people to leave those characteristics at the door. The battle for status and influence continues inside, using the vocabulary of the sacred spaces.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-53572361199639969192016-04-24T18:17:00.000+10:002016-04-25T15:55:03.162+10:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 19: Animals on Tombs (2)<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The first posting on this topic examined some of the generic types of animals depicted on tombs and what they signified in general terms. In this post I will look at some more specific examples of how animals were used in a way the referred to particular individuals. One of the ways of individualising tombs was through the use of heraldry, as the depictions of the actual effigies were generally highly generic and indistinguishable. Animals had their place in achievements of arms. Unfortunately, in many cases the heraldry is lost to us as it was painted on to shields adorning the tombs, and has been effaced in that phase of church restoration that insisted everything should be monochrome.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lc_BHgD0mNA/Vxxi2qhK3zI/AAAAAAAABig/-sNeEqbj3P0pbNnZXx5hb_mO2ohFTtwVwCLcB/s1600/salisburytomb5a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lc_BHgD0mNA/Vxxi2qhK3zI/AAAAAAAABig/-sNeEqbj3P0pbNnZXx5hb_mO2ohFTtwVwCLcB/s400/salisburytomb5a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The 13th century tomb of William Longspee in Salisbury Cathedral has six prominently carved heraldic lions on the shield. This example has some significance in the history of heraldry as his grandfather, Geoffrey Plantagenet, was supposedly the first person to be granted a personal coat of arms. So they say. The lions on his tomb in France were made in a more durably colourful medium, but William's have been reduced to monochrome. This dynasty did not have a monopoly on lions however, just on this arrangement.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NTx140270LU/Vxxi2pcZX5I/AAAAAAAABik/TwB43ugGf4Eqp1pAXhAyYtxQhBTUatIjACKgB/s1600/actonbrass1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NTx140270LU/Vxxi2pcZX5I/AAAAAAAABik/TwB43ugGf4Eqp1pAXhAyYtxQhBTUatIjACKgB/s320/actonbrass1b.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The early 14th century brass to Sir Robert de Bures in Acton, Suffolk also features lions on the shield. These are the very stylised heraldic lions whose poses all have fancy French names. Heraldry is basically a bunch of patterns arranged in different combinations. During the course of the 14th century these combinations became more and more complicated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kwmabiQ18AI/Vxxi2oURmsI/AAAAAAAABik/fU7UYPfyDBsRBy6ylHhWP4md_lm6bRepACKgB/s1600/meltonmowbraytomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kwmabiQ18AI/Vxxi2oURmsI/AAAAAAAABik/fU7UYPfyDBsRBy6ylHhWP4md_lm6bRepACKgB/s400/meltonmowbraytomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This tomb of a 14th century knight in Melton Mowbray church has a nice heraldic lion shield, but as no colour remains on the rest of the effigy it has presumably been repainted. It may even have been reappropriated with the help of said lion for somebody who needed some ancestors. Still, it gives you the idea of how these things could be used.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LJ74rIYGgEk/Vxxm0dvLQYI/AAAAAAAABis/BYivSzN5oLocw1m7tj-ajsicY-kgGlRGQCLcB/s1600/pickeringtomb2c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LJ74rIYGgEk/Vxxm0dvLQYI/AAAAAAAABis/BYivSzN5oLocw1m7tj-ajsicY-kgGlRGQCLcB/s320/pickeringtomb2c.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Lions were not just heraldic symbols, but represented Christian virtues and were deemed to represent Christ. The rather strange books known as the bestiaries ascribed all manner of characteristics to various animals, all with overlaying connotations of virtue or sin. According to the bestiaries, lion cubs were born dead and were revived on the third day by the male lion breathing in their faces. Anything sound familiar here? For those and many other equally spurious reasons, lions were cool, tough and virtuous, and were found as foot supporters on many effigy tombs, as shown in the previous post. The mid 14th century knightly effigy from Pickering, Yorkshire, above has the emblem of a lion's head on the elbow piece of his armour; a medieval version of the saying "more power to your elbow".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UgIRAICqxSQ/Vxxm0kPuGlI/AAAAAAAABi0/_9nMg7_NfsQdtixL94jyczKbpT36KAwwgCKgB/s1600/beverleypercytomb10a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UgIRAICqxSQ/Vxxm0kPuGlI/AAAAAAAABi0/_9nMg7_NfsQdtixL94jyczKbpT36KAwwgCKgB/s400/beverleypercytomb10a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> When the lion fought the dragon it represented Christ fighting the devil, as on this corbel tucked away inside the famous so-called Percy tomb in Beverley Minster, Yorkshire. It is not the only piece of hinted Resurrection symbolism on this tomb, suggesting its possible use as a Easter Sepulchre.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2puIv_JVSxk/Vxxqzk46jjI/AAAAAAAABi8/jVNFNcEh3t4kFUdDq-UcFExco2QcL7JswCLcB/s1600/beverleypercytomb01.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2puIv_JVSxk/Vxxqzk46jjI/AAAAAAAABi8/jVNFNcEh3t4kFUdDq-UcFExco2QcL7JswCLcB/s320/beverleypercytomb01.JPG" width="219" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Above is the Percy tomb in all its glorious complexity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rV5BRT-dNWo/VxxrP7AFNTI/AAAAAAAABjA/h6DV0bM806whNtB0OK0Ox0gx0U_REpnCACLcB/s1600/muggintonbrass1f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rV5BRT-dNWo/VxxrP7AFNTI/AAAAAAAABjA/h6DV0bM806whNtB0OK0Ox0gx0U_REpnCACLcB/s400/muggintonbrass1f.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> As heraldic achievements became more and more complicated, animals appeared in other places, such as on the crest of the helm of a knight, used as a rather uncomfortable pillow in funerary effigial depictions. The late 15th century brass to Nicholas Kniveton in Mugginton church, Derbyshire has an animal that looks like a wolf as the crest. However, the composition recalls the bestiary story about the tiger. When a hunter steals a tiger cub, he can throw the indignant mother tiger off his trail by throwing her a glass ball which acts as a mirror. She peers in the mirror thinking that it is her cub and the hunter makes his getaway. It doesn't look much like a real tiger but it does look like the way the tiger was depicted in the bestiary, mirror and all. Is he telling us that he is as cunning and fierce as a tiger, or that he steals other people's offspring, or what? He is wearing a Lancastrian collar during a Yorkist reign so I suspect he is telling us something.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LWhesNitKLE/VxxvNMzsrsI/AAAAAAAABjQ/UXgFD8p7YcQTKonHDjA6ihRd3bgtK_6ogCLcB/s1600/wingfieldtomb3a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LWhesNitKLE/VxxvNMzsrsI/AAAAAAAABjQ/UXgFD8p7YcQTKonHDjA6ihRd3bgtK_6ogCLcB/s400/wingfieldtomb3a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Animals were also deployed as shield supporters in heraldry. This fragmentary arrangement shows the supporters on the funerary achievements over the late 15th century tomb of Sir John de la Pole and wife Elizabeth in Wingfield church, Suffolk.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uShbDMHShLk/Vxx7z6-t1EI/AAAAAAAABkk/D5G2G3eqDGsT0WiQtk8jVQ4KpFkqsVE_ACLcB/s1600/halsham1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uShbDMHShLk/Vxx7z6-t1EI/AAAAAAAABkk/D5G2G3eqDGsT0WiQtk8jVQ4KpFkqsVE_ACLcB/s320/halsham1b.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This beat up specimen from Halsham, East Yorkshire may represent the head of a wolf, or something else fierce and hairy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zMKtwoosXvM/VxxxDNusjTI/AAAAAAAABjc/XIt9cA6Frew6Kfm3H_SAYF2dLoUCiOsbwCLcB/s1600/swine3a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zMKtwoosXvM/VxxxDNusjTI/AAAAAAAABjc/XIt9cA6Frew6Kfm3H_SAYF2dLoUCiOsbwCLcB/s400/swine3a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The crest on the 15th century knight's tomb from Swine in East Yorkshire seems to represent a bird, perhaps an eagle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z_f0YkEaMBI/VxxyPfAldOI/AAAAAAAABjo/vUujO3Q0pt846AK_3l5Xj_NSJr_DwUjkACLcB/s1600/worcestertomb5a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z_f0YkEaMBI/VxxyPfAldOI/AAAAAAAABjo/vUujO3Q0pt846AK_3l5Xj_NSJr_DwUjkACLcB/s400/worcestertomb5a.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From C.A. Stothard 1840 The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain, London</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It isn't just knights who can have fancy pillows. The late 14th century tomb of the wife of Lord Beauchamp in Worcester Cathedral depicts her with her head resting on a swan. I think this is unique.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O54_BAvz_-s/VxxzxJvKqnI/AAAAAAAABj0/gEad_jw1cLoeacSY8d3An6CoSVRzURMJgCLcB/s1600/chesterfieldbrass03.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O54_BAvz_-s/VxxzxJvKqnI/AAAAAAAABj0/gEad_jw1cLoeacSY8d3An6CoSVRzURMJgCLcB/s400/chesterfieldbrass03.JPG" width="146" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The knight's effigy on the brass of Sir Godfrey and Dame Katherine Foljambe in Chesterfield church, Derbyshire is a mid 16th century over the top extravaganza of heraldry, as is the rest of the tomb. His feet are resting on a stag. As this brass uses the convention of placing his feet on a grassy hillock, it makes it look as if he is standing upright and stomping on the stag.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--_tmbfJbhMM/Vxx1TL0Ge4I/AAAAAAAABkA/Yk8r_SsQKcY2p4dE_GWRAnyqk2iWl2A3QCLcB/s1600/amotherbytomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--_tmbfJbhMM/Vxx1TL0Ge4I/AAAAAAAABkA/Yk8r_SsQKcY2p4dE_GWRAnyqk2iWl2A3QCLcB/s400/amotherbytomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The animals, heraldic or otherwise, can be part of a play on words of the commemorated person's name, a trick known as a rebus. The early 14th century effigy of Sir John de Bordeston in Amotherby church, Yorkshire carries the emblem of three boars. (Boars, Bordeston, get it?) As heraldry became more complex it became less of a symbolic language and more of a pictorial one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lcRcsolFqs0/VPmLbb_J9zI/AAAAAAAAAvE/4ckrFkrQcpI-BDHUeK7XKeMQ_U2jHKs4wCKgB/s1600/harewoodtomb2c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lcRcsolFqs0/VPmLbb_J9zI/AAAAAAAAAvE/4ckrFkrQcpI-BDHUeK7XKeMQ_U2jHKs4wCKgB/s400/harewoodtomb2c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The 15th century alabaster effigy of a member of the Redmayne family in Harewood church, Yorkshire has a crest of a horse, which no doubt had a red mane in its glory days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5UXYJmINCAQ/Vxx3Ctd3M_I/AAAAAAAABkM/VU2YO8FEmi4Hdu_E0UaKUbUmLP7nVlEVACLcB/s1600/burtonagnestomb1d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5UXYJmINCAQ/Vxx3Ctd3M_I/AAAAAAAABkM/VU2YO8FEmi4Hdu_E0UaKUbUmLP7nVlEVACLcB/s400/burtonagnestomb1d.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Sir Walter Griffith (d.1481) rests his feet on a splendid alabaster gryffon in Burton Agnes church, East Yorkshire. Griffith, gryffon; well it only has to be close.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ku2o7yp81c/VN70KEuRqpI/AAAAAAAAAoc/J0Zmk7EOr6wxWoVOGVpdDpk_mYRQK2ivQCKgB/s1600/glastonburytomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ku2o7yp81c/VN70KEuRqpI/AAAAAAAAAoc/J0Zmk7EOr6wxWoVOGVpdDpk_mYRQK2ivQCKgB/s400/glastonburytomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This gentleman, lying here serenely in Glastonbury parish church, bore the name of John Cammel (d.1487). Spot the camel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZR1N1GyOj40/Vxx4Z24-2jI/AAAAAAAABkY/sW7U8X7USA09qrjs759ILIVMB1fffg15wCLcB/s1600/exetertomb1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZR1N1GyOj40/Vxx4Z24-2jI/AAAAAAAABkY/sW7U8X7USA09qrjs759ILIVMB1fffg15wCLcB/s400/exetertomb1b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The early 14th century tomb of Sir Richard (or Robert) Stapledon in Exeter cathedral has the biggest and most conspicuous animal ever in the form of a horse, sadly mutilated, not supporting his feet but being led by a groom beside the feet of his effigy. Another effigy, perhaps a squire, stands by his head. Sally Badham, in her <i>Seeking Salvation</i> (2015) suggests that this could represent his funerary procession. Or maybe Stapledon, stable ... maybe, or both.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z98UozzKPaw/Vxx8YIwaEMI/AAAAAAAABks/w97slTdXhyU7WcxhwCAszcE2_GJYhxErQCLcB/s1600/chichestertomb2b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z98UozzKPaw/Vxx8YIwaEMI/AAAAAAAABks/w97slTdXhyU7WcxhwCAszcE2_GJYhxErQCLcB/s400/chichestertomb2b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I only include this picture of a horse as foot supporter for Bishop John Langton in Chichester Cathedral because I never met a horse that could do that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uyxv0gbHrY4/Vxx9HonsPzI/AAAAAAAABk0/i_CauYTwwNwXJuWsAFMwaFVQvn26BouzQCLcB/s1600/worcesterkingjohn1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uyxv0gbHrY4/Vxx9HonsPzI/AAAAAAAABk0/i_CauYTwwNwXJuWsAFMwaFVQvn26BouzQCLcB/s400/worcesterkingjohn1b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Finishing off somewhere near where we started, here is a lion foot supporter. Even as foot supporters go, it's a rather peculiar lion with strangely monstrous feet and it's biting at the sword tip in the way that dragons and demons do. It's a mixture of the noble Christian lion and the nasty bitey beastie. It stands at the feet of King John in Worcester Cathedral. Make of that what you will.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-14695092717051543622016-04-17T18:15:00.002+10:002016-04-17T18:16:38.602+10:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 18: Animals on Tombs (1)<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Animals have a lively history in medieval art, depicted naturalistically, stylistically and in ways that seem quite nonsensical. As with most things in medieval depictions, the meaning of animals can come with layers of interpretation. There are the animals of the real world and animals of the imagination. The texts known as bestiaries ascribed certain moral characteristics, as well as some bizarre behaviours, to animals real, imaginary and mythical. When animals appear on tombs, they can have various significances.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QsXypBRXKAs/VxMU1awoIMI/AAAAAAAABek/G2Lo9cv-OvUo1d9dWyKXDgFCvN5oMnxkACLcB/s1600/bromptontombs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QsXypBRXKAs/VxMU1awoIMI/AAAAAAAABek/G2Lo9cv-OvUo1d9dWyKXDgFCvN5oMnxkACLcB/s400/bromptontombs.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the earliest tradition the animals have come from folk mythology. These Viking tombs in the church of Brompton-in-Allertonshire in North Yorkshire feature bears guarding the houses of the dead. There are a number of tombs of this type in parts of Britain subject to Scandinavian influence, but these are particularly good examples. They were very probably not even Christian burials, although they have migrated into the church as interesting antiquities.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TB513KH1faM/VxMWzEYRPDI/AAAAAAAABew/QCLC0AHhH_kTmcFNX1OJsGL8M5pGHl-8gCLcB/s1600/bridlingtontomb1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TB513KH1faM/VxMWzEYRPDI/AAAAAAAABew/QCLC0AHhH_kTmcFNX1OJsGL8M5pGHl-8gCLcB/s400/bridlingtontomb1.jpg" width="335" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This 12th century imported Tournai marble slab in Bridlington Priory church, East Yorkshire, is definitely Christian, but predates the effigy tomb tradition. It probably commemorates the priory founder. The animals depicted include a large cat-like creature, and fox and crow and a couple of wyverns. The wyverns are hard to see in this shot. Low relief carving on black stone in a dark church presents challenges to photography. How this all comes together as an iconographic scheme is lost to us. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RtY03krgwWI/VxMgMUYFtAI/AAAAAAAABfM/bk8uLKOnLQg5TUVun_HvpMS9SW37V-XiQCLcB/s1600/conisboroughtombslabb.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RtY03krgwWI/VxMgMUYFtAI/AAAAAAAABfM/bk8uLKOnLQg5TUVun_HvpMS9SW37V-XiQCLcB/s400/conisboroughtombslabb.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This elaborately carved 12th century tomb from Conisborough has a bit of dragon slaying going on, among other scenes. You can't help feeling there is a bit of syncretic tradition happening here. When large scale effigy tombs became the elite tomb of choice, animal depictions became rather more stereotyped.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z21_ddYf1HY/VxMaAFze_VI/AAAAAAAABe8/WHkxlbP6gHYMrglH_3AKqvWK5s4p4ZkDgCLcB/s1600/peterboroughtomb4b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z21_ddYf1HY/VxMaAFze_VI/AAAAAAAABe8/WHkxlbP6gHYMrglH_3AKqvWK5s4p4ZkDgCLcB/s400/peterboroughtomb4b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Some of the earliest effigy tombs of the 13th century were to senior clergy, as in this tomb of an abbot in Peterborough Abbey (as it was then). The churchman was depicted with his feet resting on a mythical serpent. Yes, serpents had legs, and often wings, in medieval art, especially when they represented the devil. Not only is the abbot stomping on it, he has the base of his crozier stuffed down its gullet. Christian leader conquers evil. I have mentioned the enigma of the orientation of medieval effigies before. There is a definite tension between whether the figure is standing up or lying down, but in this type of depictions it seems the abbot, or bishop, is tramping on the beast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5epQQzU3Sps/VxMidgllX_I/AAAAAAAABfY/sFgv1cAFkFQ6JuWS3ryudnbPOxAu8K0IACLcB/s1600/lincolntomb2a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5epQQzU3Sps/VxMidgllX_I/AAAAAAAABfY/sFgv1cAFkFQ6JuWS3ryudnbPOxAu8K0IACLcB/s400/lincolntomb2a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The sculptor could really go to town on these demonic depictions. The dragon or serpent at the feet of Bishop Burghersh (d.1340) in Lincoln Cathedral sports a fine set of snaggly teeth and a contorted pose.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J1_akvr9nvc/VxMjNZdUW1I/AAAAAAAABfg/Aj87eOmPZxEtdGw5EJ64o93fOR6ap7Z5wCLcB/s1600/lincolntomb5b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J1_akvr9nvc/VxMjNZdUW1I/AAAAAAAABfg/Aj87eOmPZxEtdGw5EJ64o93fOR6ap7Z5wCLcB/s400/lincolntomb5b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The one at the feet of Bishop Fleming (d.1431), also in Lincoln Cathedral, has classic dragon wings and a malevolently curly tail. There is something kind of interesting about the way it is being dealt with by the bishop's dainty and elegantly embroidered slipper.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-msAEpFFJVz4/VxMlxhIIC-I/AAAAAAAABfw/OzFt28wTBN0kVZ35unSqJoETtdas91mvACLcB/s1600/templetombs3a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-msAEpFFJVz4/VxMlxhIIC-I/AAAAAAAABfw/OzFt28wTBN0kVZ35unSqJoETtdas91mvACLcB/s400/templetombs3a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Some of the earlier knightly tombs utilised this imagery, as in the effigy of Gilbert Marshal, 4th Earl of Pembroke (d.1241) in the Temple Church in London. No, the crossed legs do not indicate that he had been on crusade and neither does the serpent crushing, but it probably does represent the concept of the virtuous active life ie. it's fine to be a soldier and kill people if it's in a higher cause. Note that the devil is fighting back here by chomping at his spur straps. This is quite a struggle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ofPmSOzOW8s/VxMqmU6_wnI/AAAAAAAABgA/P_o9W3rpjocykUiYGFYZyCEWGBaCyAKYQCLcB/s1600/swine4c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ofPmSOzOW8s/VxMqmU6_wnI/AAAAAAAABgA/P_o9W3rpjocykUiYGFYZyCEWGBaCyAKYQCLcB/s400/swine4c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Among the non-clerical classes, the lion and the dog are the most common foot supporters, as in this 15th century tomb in Swine church, East Yorkshire. This has the popular arrangement of a lion for the knight and dogs for the lady, but knights also had dogs and ladies sometimes had lions. Lions are equated in the bestiaries with virtue and with Christ. Dogs are symbols of fidelity. The animals are nearly always looking up at a space above the heads of the effigies; one of the many hints that we are supposed to be helping the souls of these folks out of their liminal state in purgatory. The figures are definitely lying down with their feet resting on their helpful animals. They are not beasts to be trodden down, but helpmates. The dogs, in this case, have had their heads knocked off, as is not uncommon, suggesting that they were regarded as symbols of no longer appropriate religious beliefs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2JzF8P8pmgs/VxMw6qejSQI/AAAAAAAABgQ/0GtkvOw4EsIsVryd49UwKwrX6lfMHxEtgCLcB/s1600/baintontomb3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2JzF8P8pmgs/VxMw6qejSQI/AAAAAAAABgQ/0GtkvOw4EsIsVryd49UwKwrX6lfMHxEtgCLcB/s400/baintontomb3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Occasionally the imagery was combined. This knight in the church at Bainton, Yorkshire, has his feet on one animal, not distinguishable from this angle, but a serpent beastie is biting at his shield. Helper animal and foe animal are together in the one composition.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nHwWADlMqtc/VxMyFyM33BI/AAAAAAAABgg/tZ_0tL5UWTYCQbdmq-ICMxL56fbb63lCwCLcB/s1600/bedaletomb3d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nHwWADlMqtc/VxMyFyM33BI/AAAAAAAABgg/tZ_0tL5UWTYCQbdmq-ICMxL56fbb63lCwCLcB/s400/bedaletomb3d.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tMDAme96EC8/VxMyF5gADzI/AAAAAAAABgc/LrmSfBisvsgHZ0uUo9YvwfD0KsvbSmCrACLcB/s1600/bedaletomb3e.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tMDAme96EC8/VxMyF5gADzI/AAAAAAAABgc/LrmSfBisvsgHZ0uUo9YvwfD0KsvbSmCrACLcB/s400/bedaletomb3e.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Similarly, this knight in Bedale church, Yorkshire, has his feet on what must once have been a splendid lion as well as a shield biting beastie, not to mention a little bedesman near his feet to help him on his way. His lady has what appears to have been a large and splendid hunting dog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8fs8KkDaPU8/VxMzgd1XUwI/AAAAAAAABgs/lmoT333uPfgN9zxaSJz4O4cDI6PGmdZMwCLcB/s1600/halsham1c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8fs8KkDaPU8/VxMzgd1XUwI/AAAAAAAABgs/lmoT333uPfgN9zxaSJz4O4cDI6PGmdZMwCLcB/s320/halsham1c.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Big fancy hunting dogs were status symbols, and were often presented as magnificent beasts. This one at the foot of a 15th century knight in Halsham, East Yorkshire, is grandly attired with a large bejewelled collar as glamourous as his master's bling. While the animals had their spiritual significance, they could double as symbols of earthly grandeur.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbGp1xOMGBg/VxM3PieNoKI/AAAAAAAABg8/1hKHW7SpQNwO5AOHlR6g3GAs-lCyySHkQCLcB/s1600/littleshelfordbrass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbGp1xOMGBg/VxM3PieNoKI/AAAAAAAABg8/1hKHW7SpQNwO5AOHlR6g3GAs-lCyySHkQCLcB/s320/littleshelfordbrass1.JPG" width="313" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m7G3irV6Xqs/VxM3Pu38weI/AAAAAAAABg4/L40btmhusNcFQ2AN2ZtT5qVHgCxQk8HIQCLcB/s1600/littleshelfordbrass1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m7G3irV6Xqs/VxM3Pu38weI/AAAAAAAABg4/L40btmhusNcFQ2AN2ZtT5qVHgCxQk8HIQCLcB/s400/littleshelfordbrass1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Dogs and lions also appear as foot supporters on brasses, where the whole business of whether the figures are lying down or standling up becomes even more enigmatic, especially in a composition like this one from Little Shelford in Cambridgeshire. While the knight has his hunting dog, the lady has little tiny lap dogs with bells on their collars. Pets, of course, are a luxury item. They represent fidelity and they represent the capacity to keep animals that are neither worked nor eaten.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RcMO2GAc8m0/VxM53i92fFI/AAAAAAAABhI/Tuc9lBK07lwlvUw1EjJRl7_VZmvKzYStwCLcB/s1600/methleytomb4c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RcMO2GAc8m0/VxM53i92fFI/AAAAAAAABhI/Tuc9lBK07lwlvUw1EjJRl7_VZmvKzYStwCLcB/s400/methleytomb4c.JPG" width="325" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A proud and handsome lion and an endearing little bell collared dog chewing on the hem of its mistress's dress make a fine pair on this late 15th century tomb in Methley church, Yorkshire. Sculptors were not always so skilled at depicting lions and some are barely recognisable (#notalion as we tend to say on Twitter).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L3wFau3Z680/VxM7sFC3IeI/AAAAAAAABhU/tLya1vmn1DEGDnaMkiFXUoAOWotJaaDhgCLcB/s1600/suttononhull1d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-L3wFau3Z680/VxM7sFC3IeI/AAAAAAAABhU/tLya1vmn1DEGDnaMkiFXUoAOWotJaaDhgCLcB/s400/suttononhull1d.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This squat and ugly lion in the church of Sutton-on-Hull, Yorkshire appears to be chomping on a bone, which in my head seems like a threatening gesture to the family enemies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oNVjzzrVcno/VxM9RQx0dfI/AAAAAAAABhg/WoXto43K2NIU4zDsEzpL5Ut8qwb3tNmFgCLcB/s1600/sprotboroughtomb1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oNVjzzrVcno/VxM9RQx0dfI/AAAAAAAABhg/WoXto43K2NIU4zDsEzpL5Ut8qwb3tNmFgCLcB/s400/sprotboroughtomb1b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> One presumes that this foot supporter in Sprotborough church, Yorkshire, is meant to be a lion. It does seem to have a curly mane, but it is a fairly bizarre rendition. It could be argued that there weren't too many lions running around Yorkshire at this time, but even the dogs can look a little odd at times. The convention is still being followed, with the lion graciously accepting the knight's feet upon him while gazing upwards. The formal symbolic qualities are present even when the depiction is far from naturalistic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sXEjKTSCheY/VxM_UuAk0bI/AAAAAAAABhs/jXuIXOTQId8N73sE1Jm-mRzlL4kip46zQCLcB/s1600/adlingfleettomb3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sXEjKTSCheY/VxM_UuAk0bI/AAAAAAAABhs/jXuIXOTQId8N73sE1Jm-mRzlL4kip46zQCLcB/s400/adlingfleettomb3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> As for what this might be at the feet of a lady in Adlingfleet church, Yorkshire; a strangely rendered lion, a sheep, a bird, but it's undoubtedly not an armadillo even if it looks a bit like one. It doesn't help that it has lost its head. Mystery beast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-An1in6Ild4o/VxNAQLYFPzI/AAAAAAAABh4/isaSpTrfhFkHM_nKVHphgcaU0XK5XVbBQCLcB/s1600/butterwicktomb1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-An1in6Ild4o/VxNAQLYFPzI/AAAAAAAABh4/isaSpTrfhFkHM_nKVHphgcaU0XK5XVbBQCLcB/s400/butterwicktomb1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> As for the creatures beneath the feet of this knight at Butterwick, Yorkshire, the one on the left may be a strangely rendered dog. That on the right could perhaps be a human headed serpent, representing the devil. One foot in each camp.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hjb9w3C8-BY/VxNBrhp0GsI/AAAAAAAABiE/M6Z1LL6FA04F1KYK5JcvbRXXIJkKVJFDgCLcB/s1600/raveninghambrass1c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hjb9w3C8-BY/VxNBrhp0GsI/AAAAAAAABiE/M6Z1LL6FA04F1KYK5JcvbRXXIJkKVJFDgCLcB/s400/raveninghambrass1c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The combination of dragon and dog appears on this brass to Margaret Willoughby from Raveningham. The dragon is under her feet while the dog is snuggling into the folds of her dress, for what it's worth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There is a lot more to discover about animals on tombs, so I guess this post is going to have to have an Episode 2. There are heraldic animals, rebus animals and animals with religious symbolism. They all mean something.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-72397575381481238692016-04-02T18:10:00.000+11:002016-04-08T13:46:07.767+10:00Where Did the Stones Go? <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">In the course of pottering through photographs and antiquarians' accounts to see and reassemble some changing patterns of how our ancestral societies have used and changed the built environment in the middle ages and beyond, I have become intrigued by the scale with which building materials, particularly stones, have been shifted around. It is possible to see where they have been, and where they have disappeared from, but seeing where they have gone to can be tricky.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fwjbXGhsUdE/Vv8yN-03pnI/AAAAAAAABbs/pdOZl0fGjVQdqzon3KExO9ty369HRhE6Q/s1600/leicesterabbey4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fwjbXGhsUdE/Vv8yN-03pnI/AAAAAAAABbs/pdOZl0fGjVQdqzon3KExO9ty369HRhE6Q/s400/leicesterabbey4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is the site of Leicester Abbey, a substantial Augustinian house with significant historic connections. It has an ancient wall around it. Some of the pillar bases look like the real thing, but much of the rest of it looks not even like proper foundations, rather lines of stones laid out to show where walls were, or were likely to have been. It's bare, empty and extraordinarily vacant in spirit as well as substance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sFkiRCsTIX8/Vv8zbSdfr1I/AAAAAAAABb4/_uvCQMZHU64w7qwyMcPGt6A4_vqxY0qrA/s1600/leicesterabbeyhousepic2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sFkiRCsTIX8/Vv8zbSdfr1I/AAAAAAAABb4/_uvCQMZHU64w7qwyMcPGt6A4_vqxY0qrA/s400/leicesterabbeyhousepic2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Mrs T. Fielding Johnson 1906 Glimpses of Ancient Leicester: Leicester</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> After the dissolution of the monasteries, the fabric was pillaged to build a grand mansion, which explains the wreckage, but the mansion itself eventually became derelict. Either the owners were not of the school that retained a romantic ruin in the grounds, or the remains of the abbey and most of the mansion were later removed lock, stock and barrel to build roads, or rebuild the Civil War damage in the town, or build the stocking factories of Leicester, or the railway stations or some other purpose.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2iijj3MKp0/Vv81srM0nTI/AAAAAAAABcE/2eAIKDMRdlkuNlOTWB_yZOvdHD1iilH5g/s1600/hwbirdoswald4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Y2iijj3MKp0/Vv81srM0nTI/AAAAAAAABcE/2eAIKDMRdlkuNlOTWB_yZOvdHD1iilH5g/s400/hwbirdoswald4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Stone shifting and re-use has been going on since people first thought of putting one stone on top of another. Hadrian's Wall, here shown near Birdoswald, is nowhere its former self. Drystone walls and stone farm buildings are abundant in the rugged north and those neat little squared Roman building stones are just so handy. And there was road building. It's easy to imagine plenty of uses for them without having to take them very far. Roman stones and tiles found their way into later buildings in various places.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ypa8NVU2b0I/Vv87h0Uel3I/AAAAAAAABcU/0qsiUFJvHPEocMBhE-SEUs644j50XfNnQ/s1600/leicestersn2.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ypa8NVU2b0I/Vv87h0Uel3I/AAAAAAAABcU/0qsiUFJvHPEocMBhE-SEUs644j50XfNnQ/s320/leicestersn2.JPG" width="311" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The church of St Nicholas in Leicester has Roman stones and tiles embedded in its fabric. As it is right beside the Roman Jewry wall and public baths, they didn't have to be brought very far.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I2MqGtvQR-s/VnTdKqnSgsI/AAAAAAAABNY/PUpulWgE7RYwMuxvGxfz6R1cuWuMTetDw/s1600/fountains16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I2MqGtvQR-s/VnTdKqnSgsI/AAAAAAAABNY/PUpulWgE7RYwMuxvGxfz6R1cuWuMTetDw/s400/fountains16.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Monastic ruins in locations that are difficult of access, such as Fountains Abbey above, have retained substantial ruins, probably because it wasn't worth anybody's trouble and expense to cart the raw materials away. Then they became part of the high class garden furniture of the aristocracy and were preserved because they could be, but not entirely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-df_Ug9MMEFE/Vv8_O3fU0XI/AAAAAAAABcg/8ItTbGlTuvIenaJ8XZUIr4PkZvfm5AoBA/s1600/fountainshall1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-df_Ug9MMEFE/Vv8_O3fU0XI/AAAAAAAABcg/8ItTbGlTuvIenaJ8XZUIr4PkZvfm5AoBA/s400/fountainshall1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The houses of the wealthy landowners became bigger and more elaborate, explaining some of the existing holes in the monastic ruins. Fountains Hall is not part of the medieval Fountains Abbey, or is it? These stones have had another life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Town churches became redundant in the middle ages as parishes were consolidated, and no doubt there was cannibalism as the materials were recycled to enlarge and adorn the ones that survived. Churches did keep getting bigger on the whole. Ecclesiastical Darwinism.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9mNRtU8IH0s/Vv9ByABTGTI/AAAAAAAABcs/1pHhHEjiaU0zGf1Pp7wCHj12BSNswNT8g/s1600/leicestergrammarschoolpic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9mNRtU8IH0s/Vv9ByABTGTI/AAAAAAAABcs/1pHhHEjiaU0zGf1Pp7wCHj12BSNswNT8g/s400/leicestergrammarschoolpic.JPG" width="330" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">From Mrs T. Fielding Johnson 1906 Glimpses of Ancient Leicester: Leicester</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In Leicester in the 16th century a large town mansion and a free grammar school were built using materials from the redundant church of St Peter. The mansion was rebuilt and altered many times only to succumb to demolition in 1902 to build the railway station, which is itself no longer in that location. The grammar school still exists as a structure, having undergone changes of purpose. (The VCH on <a href="http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol4/pp328-335#fnn58" target="_blank">British History Online</a> gives it as a carpet warehouse. Google maps shows a restaurant on the site.) This all seems like recycling and churning as a town's needs change over the centuries, but there is a bit of an anomaly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O_b5E42GzuI/Vv9Ebt8UG6I/AAAAAAAABc8/cVqWBLkRdBIitiuU1OvuMoRxw_xYN4s0Q/s1600/norwichblackfriars5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O_b5E42GzuI/Vv9Ebt8UG6I/AAAAAAAABc8/cVqWBLkRdBIitiuU1OvuMoRxw_xYN4s0Q/s400/norwichblackfriars5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SlzESjzysJk/Vv9EbDscBGI/AAAAAAAABc4/AfU2CjUp-AYgeSQSr4SCqjmRgapqQblMw/s1600/norwichblackfriars6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SlzESjzysJk/Vv9EbDscBGI/AAAAAAAABc4/AfU2CjUp-AYgeSQSr4SCqjmRgapqQblMw/s400/norwichblackfriars6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Prosperous medieval towns supported large religious institutions with large buildings, expansive cloisters, rambling outbuildings. The above is the former Dominican Priory in Norwich. The friaries and some collegiate churches acquired ever increasing amounts of land within the towns and built big things all over them. The complex in Norwich is a rare survival as by some incidents or accidents of history the buildings were re-used over the centuries for a variety of purposes without totally destroying their integrity. There is a lot of building material in this structure. In this case, because it is Norwich, it includes a lot of flint which may not have seemed so worthy of pillage as other stone. Not sure about that. Most complexes of this type gradually vanished from the town landscape.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AODBwyxlBms/Vv9IBOLr__I/AAAAAAAABdI/VM-2wrHMXDwjMcXGFc2vcLZ-nXu3hf0gQ/s1600/lincolngreyfriars.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AODBwyxlBms/Vv9IBOLr__I/AAAAAAAABdI/VM-2wrHMXDwjMcXGFc2vcLZ-nXu3hf0gQ/s400/lincolngreyfriars.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> What is far more likely to be found in a modern town is some fragment which has survived the destruction, like this scrap of the Franciscan friary in Lincoln. Last heard, the future of this building was in doubt but the latest proposed incarnation was as a community centre run by the local diocese, having previously served as a museum. This is an interesting evocation of changing community needs, but it doesn't explain where the rest of the materials of the fabric of the entire religious complex went to. The friars didn't remain propertyless mendicants for long, or at least, they had substantial homes to go to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yKaq_H-Y_DY/Vv9J9Di7LnI/AAAAAAAABdU/oNYUeWbGFW4PKVs0s6TwJSf4RlsJfVmoA/s1600/lincolncarmelite1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yKaq_H-Y_DY/Vv9J9Di7LnI/AAAAAAAABdU/oNYUeWbGFW4PKVs0s6TwJSf4RlsJfVmoA/s400/lincolncarmelite1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> An even more enigmatic fragment from Lincoln is this old water conduit, made from a miscellany of carved stones taken from the Carmelite Friary site.That site also eventually disappeared under a railway station, which subsequently vanished to be eventually replaced by buildings of the University of Lincoln. I guess there is some parallel between educational institutions and religious ones in the psyche of a town, but the new institutions are not built from old friary stones.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Lincoln became very down at heel in the later middle ages and beyond. Daniel Defoe writes of it in the late 17th, early 18th century:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> "Lincoln is an antient, ragged, decay'd, and still decaying city; it is so full of the ruins of monasteries and religious houses, that, in short, the very barns, stables, out-houses, and, as they shew'd me, some of the very hog-styes, were built church-fashion; that is to say, with stone walls and arch'd windows and doors." </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Daniel Defoe 1928 A Tour Through England and Wales, Vol. 2: London and New York</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> You could make quite a few stables and hog-styes out of a bunch of friaries. The description also doesn't suggest much urban renewal in these religious sites, more rural encroachment on the town. It makes you wonder how much of this stone material made its way into the railway stations, art galleries, theatres, post offices, schools and other vital ingredients of the modern urban revival.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In areas where good quality building stone was rare, it was probably worthwhile to shift it considerable distances. There seems to have been a good bit of shunting stone around along the Ouse, Derwent and Humber river system in Yorkshire, where the white limestone from Tadcaster was favoured for fancy buildings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vLmb_6Ju6os/Vv9SCR3kS7I/AAAAAAAABdk/nV8xmF_4oWY7aWcrUveQsu8LLnbVs6yKQ/s1600/meaux1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vLmb_6Ju6os/Vv9SCR3kS7I/AAAAAAAABdk/nV8xmF_4oWY7aWcrUveQsu8LLnbVs6yKQ/s400/meaux1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Not a stone remains visible above ground of the East Yorkshire Cistercian Abbey of Meaux, near Beverley. The Google satellite image shows some suggestive marks on the ground. Click <a href="https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Meaux,+Beverley,+East+Riding+of+Yorkshire+HU17,+UK/@53.8404041,-0.3422645,431m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x4878b9234f52105b:0x4fd970f4fdfc299b?hl=en" target="_blank">here</a>. The whole shebang was shipped down the Hull river to build Henry VIII's harbour defences at Hull. These are now completely vanished.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b_JQUPnbH7s/Vv9TzkqHpxI/AAAAAAAABdw/DBgYBsJakCYWM0KCGkh_e52mLvSDqJrOg/s1600/selby06.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b_JQUPnbH7s/Vv9TzkqHpxI/AAAAAAAABdw/DBgYBsJakCYWM0KCGkh_e52mLvSDqJrOg/s400/selby06.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The former abbey church of Selby is built of Tadcaster limestone. Now a handsome parish church, its cloister and all the conventual buildings have completely disappeared.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yto3ppcv5iM/Vv9U8lxPi-I/AAAAAAAABd8/jznOXFR5n0gPaBaw7AUcui3vSAmczhTvA/s1600/beverleyminsterext1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yto3ppcv5iM/Vv9U8lxPi-I/AAAAAAAABd8/jznOXFR5n0gPaBaw7AUcui3vSAmczhTvA/s320/beverleyminsterext1.JPG" width="230" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Beverley Minster, a formerly collegiate church, got into a drastic state in the 18th century due to the fact that St Mary's was in use as the main parish church of the town, so that it stood largely unused and neglected. The north transept nearly collapsed, only rescued by a man of great ingenuity and confidence with a nifty grasp of engineering physics. It is claimed that stone was shipped from the ruins of St Mary's Abbey in York to assist in its repairs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-udpWUGT3W7k/Vv9VnIzGXAI/AAAAAAAABeE/uaZxGP8eVwEiwNwp4mbEWU0To36iQFkPw/s1600/yorkstmary05.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-udpWUGT3W7k/Vv9VnIzGXAI/AAAAAAAABeE/uaZxGP8eVwEiwNwp4mbEWU0To36iQFkPw/s400/yorkstmary05.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There certainly isn't a great deal left of the stone work of St Mary's. York Minster itself, meanwhile, has required periodic major surgery over many years to keep it glorious and functioning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jUVWf2cC_k8/Vv9WooaKTgI/AAAAAAAABeQ/5K0DgzXhysoDkxKqVrcuzCRrFhBrz6TQQ/s1600/yorkwall02.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jUVWf2cC_k8/Vv9WooaKTgI/AAAAAAAABeQ/5K0DgzXhysoDkxKqVrcuzCRrFhBrz6TQQ/s320/yorkwall02.JPG" width="217" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Meanwhile, most ancient English towns have demolished, partially or wholly, their medieval walls and gates for purposes of modern convenience, but York has not only retained but maintained and renovated its defences of Tadcaster limestone. You can hardly tell where they breached the walls to let the railway in when that was the ultimate in urban modernity, although not a trace remains of the friary that lay underneath the station. The station has, of course, been banished again to the outer regions. The walls of York have undoubtedly gathered in some stones from other sources.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It is hard to get your head around how these massive stony urban complexes could vanish so completely. There is reason to believe it took a long time in many cases and that ruins lay around in the heart of the cities for years, even centuries. The stones of many buildings, ancient or more modern, may have led many lives and travelled considerable distances. Some may have gone from noble buildings to perform more humble purposes, as roads, docks, walls. Some may have been incorporated into new buildings engendering civic pride. Some of humble origin may have been elevated to more elegant uses. They are effectively alive and part of evolving organisms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There is a tendency for folks to discuss the authenticity of ancient buildings. They are all palimpsests; repaired, renovated, beautified, reconceptualised. The idea of a building can live, as with the great cathedrals, or die, as with the vanished friaries. The stones have many tales to tell. I still find it hard to imagine where that tonnage of stone from the medieval institutions of the towns has gone, but it's out there somewhere.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-44399426505871861132016-03-26T15:45:00.000+11:002016-03-26T15:47:19.857+11:00Literacy: Words and Pictures: The Index<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Just another list of previous blog posts on a theme. I guess it ties the books/paleography and the material/culture/heritage strands together. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wa_v3gIueoQ/VvYTUShQHMI/AAAAAAAABbc/OoFvdwvfinYkWpVJUeoxna-S7URXFPrgw/s1600/library.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wa_v3gIueoQ/VvYTUShQHMI/AAAAAAAABbc/OoFvdwvfinYkWpVJUeoxna-S7URXFPrgw/s1600/library.gif" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">And to illustrate the concept here is this amazingly retro gif from when gif meant grungy old monochrome picture, not video of cats pole vaulting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2006/11/medieval-history-and-modern-literacy.html" target="_blank">Medieval History and Modern Literacy</a> A first inchoate thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2007/01/english-4-u.html" target="_blank">English 4 U</a> The language never did stand still.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2008/03/text-image-manuscript-and-multimedia.html" target="_blank">Text, Image, Manuscript and Multimedia</a> About padded lamp posts in London.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/medieval-musical-literacy.html" target="_blank">Medieval Musical Literacy</a> Oh, and music.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/national-curriculum-and-literacy.html" target="_blank">National Curriculum and Literacy</a> Dianne goes off about the ignorance of politicians again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/writing-and-remembering.html" target="_blank">Writing and Remembering</a> Did medieval readers remember more stuff?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/04/kids-computers-and-literacy-education.html" target="_blank">Kids, Computers and Literacy Education</a> Dianne goes off about ignorant politicians yet AGAIN.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/reading-and-listening.html" target="_blank">Reading and Listening</a> Reading with your ears, medieval style.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/eeee-books.html" target="_blank">Eeee! Books</a> About the e-book hysteria. Postscript: Why is Kindle still not any good?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/literacy-teaching-again.html" target="_blank">Literacy Teaching - Again!</a> I did get a little wound up about this topic around then.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/literacy-through-mouse-or-quill.html" target="_blank">Literacy through Mouse or Quill?</a> She's at it again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/books-online-or-online-books.html" target="_blank">Books Online or Online Books?</a> Bit philosophical here. Is a book a thing or a concept?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/angels-aint-angels.html" target="_blank">Angels Ain't Angels</a> Reading a stained glass window on the nine orders of angels.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/corporal-acts-of-mercy.html" target="_blank">Corporal Acts of Mercy</a> Reading another medieval text, in stained glass and wall painting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/medieval-literacy-pictures-and-texts.html" target="_blank">Medieval Literacy: Pictures and Text</a> More about the art of reading a story in pictures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-38623956887951382202016-03-20T16:11:00.001+11:002016-03-20T16:11:20.619+11:00Gotta Love Antiquarians<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The other day I was excavating some archaeological deposits in a bottom drawer and found some yellowing notes I had taken years ago from William Stukeley's <b>Itinerarium curiosum</b>. I had completely forgotten I had taken them. It was a while ago and I got distracted for a decade or so. Sometimes real life gets in the way of your cyberlife. I have a bit of a passion for antiquarian writers and illustrators. They tend to be looked down on a bit by academic historians of the serious serious scholarly variety because of their eclectic magpie style of collecting random information and some lack of rigour in checking it, not to mention their fondness for dodgy etymologies, genealogies, intricacies of heraldry, corporation minutes recorded in endless detail, scandalous doings of the aristocracy, and their penchant for putting little historical treasures into their pockets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The point is, they saw things at a particular time and from the mindset of that time. They saw things that have gone. Their perceptions of particular eras of the past are different to our own. When you read them, you are not just looking at the past, but at past perceptions of the past.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Many of their works are now hard to come by, or were, until the <a href="https://archive.org/" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a> started reproducing them in some numbers. Farewell interlibrary loan slips and visits to rare book rooms. Hello antiquarian world delivered to my desktop.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqnOnSCWu4s/Vu4NnpJIIEI/AAAAAAAABZ8/y-UQkq3tMC8xWW0LdACaKL-6CKcZnPfsw/s1600/beverleyminster18thc.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GqnOnSCWu4s/Vu4NnpJIIEI/AAAAAAAABZ8/y-UQkq3tMC8xWW0LdACaKL-6CKcZnPfsw/s400/beverleyminster18thc.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> At the simplest level they can show you what something looked like when it looked different to the way it does now, as with this picture of Beverley Minster with a little dome over the crossing, from C. Hiatt 1898 <b>Beverley Minster, an Illustrated Account of its History and Fabric</b>: London.This is reproducing an engraving that was old when the book was published.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CiFkJekWeU4/Vu4PAQKkfDI/AAAAAAAABaI/kg5c7mqrALQIKFJj63Ud4uxIilmVmv6_A/s1600/meauxabbeygraveslab.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CiFkJekWeU4/Vu4PAQKkfDI/AAAAAAAABaI/kg5c7mqrALQIKFJj63Ud4uxIilmVmv6_A/s400/meauxabbeygraveslab.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> They can show you things that are not able to be seen any more, as with this grave slab of an abbot from the long disappeared Meaux Abbey near Beverley, from G. Poulson 1840 <b>The History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness ... Vol.2: Hull</b>. This work describes various relics that were located in farm buildings near the abbey site at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OWoZqubtROI/Vu4QYx58B_I/AAAAAAAABaU/6vkkQoKGn5wd4zOSwPhnq1BX--Er4oRkQ/s1600/bostonhouse1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OWoZqubtROI/Vu4QYx58B_I/AAAAAAAABaU/6vkkQoKGn5wd4zOSwPhnq1BX--Er4oRkQ/s400/bostonhouse1.JPG" width="268" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Urban renewals of the 19th century resulted in the removal of many picturesque, but probably uncomfortable and unhygienic, dwellings, changing the whole appearance and sense of the town environment. This example was once in Boston, from Pishey Thompson 1856 <b>The History and Antiquities of Boston</b>: Boston and London.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tXPMPfX2e20/Vu4R-4vZoAI/AAAAAAAABag/XiaSG3QDg4oklCRX6zgt0kb4Q_SRVY5lA/s1600/harewoodmarketcross.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tXPMPfX2e20/Vu4R-4vZoAI/AAAAAAAABag/XiaSG3QDg4oklCRX6zgt0kb4Q_SRVY5lA/s320/harewoodmarketcross.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Some public buildings or monuments of a town have been demolished, such as this market cross at Harewood, from J. Jones 1859 <b>History and Antiquities of Harewood</b>: London. This is quite symbolic of the changing status of the place from a small market town to a village that could be moved holus bolus out of the country estate at the whim of the local landowner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-83IooDna7kY/Vu4T8XEKUXI/AAAAAAAABas/8JJkDsIgplYxTT2zFVB5b0JLR_3lZIH4Q/s1600/winchesterwestgatehall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-83IooDna7kY/Vu4T8XEKUXI/AAAAAAAABas/8JJkDsIgplYxTT2zFVB5b0JLR_3lZIH4Q/s320/winchesterwestgatehall.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> They can strip away the modern urban clutter and give you a different sense of how the spaces in a town worked, as in this picture of the Westgate and castle hall at Winchester, from J. Milner 1809 <b>The History, Civil and Ecclesiastical and Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester, Vol.2</b>: Winchester.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> No, they are not photographs, they are interpreted pictures. Actually photographs can be quite interpretive too. The engravings follow certain conventions, like inserting rustic yokels with livestock into every scene with a derelict old building and often exaggerating the ruinousness of ancient sites for romantic effect. These in themselves convey something of the attitude of the writers and illustrators, working within their own time and space, to not only the remains, but the historical era they came from.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The words they wrote also reveal their attitudes to the eras they describe. I am not looking for some ultimate historical truth here, but how the perception of an era, and the perception of places within a certain era, is built up in multiple layers as ideas develop, alter, get refuted, get reinvigorated. The events of history are reflected in patterns on the ground, in the design of towns, in the shapes of the countryside. The attitudes to history are reflected in the words and pictures used to describe them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The antiquarians are providing a link between two projects which I started as multimedia projects long ago, with an emphasis on visual evidence; an examination of the way John Leland saw the country and places in it immediately after the Reformation when much religious urban infrastructure was torn down or allowed to moulder away, and a view of how modern towns of medieval origin reflect their past, even as they incorporate modern urban institutions into their fabric. Actually, the antiquarians are not so much a link as part of a weave of historical and contemporary observations over time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1CXeLsrFOw8/Vu4gH1qbuXI/AAAAAAAABa8/gmuhEUbHt8U190n3dPJNDFxsuMg8eELeQ/s1600/bostonchurchstukeley.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1CXeLsrFOw8/Vu4gH1qbuXI/AAAAAAAABa8/gmuhEUbHt8U190n3dPJNDFxsuMg8eELeQ/s400/bostonchurchstukeley.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> To celebrate my discovery of my Stukeley notes, and the fact that the Internet Archive has a facsimile of his book, he has been incorporated into my <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hipbookfairy/albums/72157640406541575" target="_blank">Flickr Tour of Boston</a>. The engraving above shows the famous church towering over a scruffy little town with a wooden bridge over the river. He describes it as a place much decayed, its warehouses shut down and various buildings demolished. He describes little antiquities he has found (and palmed) and repeats bits of antiquarian gossip he has acquired.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> These Flickr tours are my work in progress, as I turn a mountain of decomposing slides and early prehistoric scans of same into a useful data bank, excavate old material from Word files extracted from obsolete multimedia file formats using an old computer that had to be given periodic offerings of mammoth meat to keep it going until the job was done, and swap crayola graphics for Google earth pictures and the like. It may all make sense one day. Feel free to browse the <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hipbookfairy/collections/72157648753623083/" target="_blank">Flickr Collection of Leland Tours</a>, but don't expect it to look like a big picture for a long time yet. This is called working in public.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Meanwhile, under the Stukeley notes was another set from a book by one William Bray who went touring around, mainly in Derbyshire and Yorkshire, publishing his observations in 1783. Heading north through Yorkshire he refers to "and other hills in the horizon, on one of which the White Mare of Weston Cliff, or White Stone Cliff, is visible on a clear day" In a footnote he explains "A mark in a hill, like the White Horse in Berkshire, Whiteleaf-cross in Bucks etc." Now the current wisdom claims that the white horse of Kilburn, located on Whitestone Cliff where it can be seen when travelling from York to Thirsk on the A19, was created in 1857 by a local schoolmaster, with the help of his pupils, because he didn't see why they should only have hill figures down south.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mhtu0nc16dk/Vu4p4iDX3wI/AAAAAAAABbM/rlI0lOdKJTYW6pbN_GZIhFMDBnzT7T8NQ/s1600/White_Horse_near_Kilburn_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1424299.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Mhtu0nc16dk/Vu4p4iDX3wI/AAAAAAAABbM/rlI0lOdKJTYW6pbN_GZIhFMDBnzT7T8NQ/s400/White_Horse_near_Kilburn_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1424299.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by Tony Wells, via Wikimedia Commons</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So what did William Bray see? Was there some sort of precursor to this figure there? Did the local schoolteacher have some knowledge of something that used to be there, but wasn't any longer? You can always find surprises in antiquarian books. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Next stop the two Williams, Stukeley and Bray, will be visiting Leicester. And there might be some new tours of little places of no great complexity, until I get the rest of the raw material in order.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I always hated Dickens in high school, mainly, I think, because our dopey teachers tried to present it as high art rather than jolly ripping yarns. Not so long ago I went back and read <b>The Pickwick Papers</b>. The ever so important Mr Pickwick and his gang of wandering buffoons are a wonderful, joyful send up of these folks rambling around the countryside looking at stuff, then giving talks to each other about it, not to mention getting into all manner of scrapes and japes. Even back then some of these folks were considered to be amusing. We should be grateful for their curiosity.</span><br />
<br />Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-26337129573032723382016-03-13T18:36:00.000+11:002016-05-21T15:46:50.720+10:00Cultural Heritage <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I expect This section to grow as I plough through my photograph collection. Of course tombs are cultural heritage, as are the remains I discuss while touring with Leland, not to mention manuscripts, but these are for the observations that don't fit into those categories.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DFvnJLf0FpE/VnTQaoyUqWI/AAAAAAAABM4/4BZHuZvkd0k4UPAJRG4wLdV8jOWSAr42A/s1600/rievaulxengraving.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DFvnJLf0FpE/VnTQaoyUqWI/AAAAAAAABM4/4BZHuZvkd0k4UPAJRG4wLdV8jOWSAr42A/s400/rievaulxengraving.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/manuscripts-and-stained-glass.html" target="_blank">Manuscripts and Stained Glass</a> What is stained glass for?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/not-just-big-church.html" target="_blank">Not Just a Big Church</a> An introduction to medieval religious communities and the traces they have left. More to come on this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/heritage-sites-trendy-and-not-trendy.html" target="_blank">Heritage Sites: Trendy and Not Trendy</a> Why we should look for our history in some less glamorous places.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/gotta-love-antiquarians.html" target="_blank">Gotta Love Antiquarians</a> A celebration of antiquarian writers and illustrators and what we can learn from them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/where-did-stones-go.html" target="_blank">Where Did the Stones Go?</a> A meandering wonderment on the fate of the stones of vanished buildings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/visual-history-magnifying-glass-or-fun.html" target="_blank">Visual History: Magnifying Glass or Fun Fair Mirror?</a> A bit of a ramble on the art of seeing in a historical context.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-63397824881149339292016-03-12T18:40:00.000+11:002017-03-10T18:07:13.174+11:00Medieval Manuscripts and Paleography<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Medieval manuscripts and paleography were what this blog was originally about, but this has got a bit swamped lately with some other themes. My website <a href="http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/" target="_blank">Medieval Writing</a> still seems to be used, and I get some interesting feedback from users, despite the fact that it is becoming technologically aged. Here are some of the posts that people have found interesting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ObkdevuvYw/TUdi81PJi6I/AAAAAAAAACw/AWeIPNa3ySA8Xrw7thtIyQXmuHyP3PhvQ/s1600/veronica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_ObkdevuvYw/TUdi81PJi6I/AAAAAAAAACw/AWeIPNa3ySA8Xrw7thtIyQXmuHyP3PhvQ/s1600/veronica.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2006/12/web-sites-and-medieval-manuscripts.html" target="_blank">Web Sites and Medieval Manuscripts</a> Something I thought in 2006. Wonder if it still holds good.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2007/01/medieval-manuscripts-on-move.html" target="_blank">Medieval Manuscripts on the Move</a> Digitisation of manuscript collections has come a long way since 2007.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2007/03/classification-of-scripts.html" target="_blank">Classification of Scripts</a> Yes, I still have radical ratbag views about script classification in paleography.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2007/09/manuscript-and-information-control.html" target="_blank">Manuscripts and Information Control</a> A whole bunch of people have been devoting their efforts to medieval marginalia since I wrote this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/why-paleography-sucks.html" target="_blank">Why Paleography Sucks</a> Never do irony on the web. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/disappearing-paleography.html" target="_blank">Disappearing Paleography</a> From the days when you got blog post comments from interested participants, not just snake oil salesmen and spivs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/writing-and-remembering.html" target="_blank">Writing and Remembering</a> One of those random thought bubbles I should try to retrieve some time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/not-that-voynich-manuscript-again.html" target="_blank">Not That Voynich Manuscript Again</a> NEVER mention the V****** M********* in any forum on the internet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/horrible-old-handwriting.html" target="_blank">Horrible Old Handwriting</a> Merovingian minuscule in this case. It's not all about the pretty stuff.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/gothic-book-hands.html" target="_blank">Gothic Book Hands</a> Gothic Book Hands. Pointer to section on Medieval Writing website.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/special-english-characters.html" target="_blank">Special English Characters</a> Another pointer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/1066-and-all-that.html" target="_blank">1066 and All That</a> Dianne has bitch attack about historical periodisation, and another pointer to post Conquest Old English writing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/10/of-tennis-balls-and-mulberry-trees.html" target="_blank">Of Tennis Balls and Mulberry Trees</a> Pointer to script example of Gothic cursive from a very strange manuscript fragment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/john-pastons-books.html" target="_blank">John Paston's Books</a> Pointer to paleography exercise on John Paston's book list in the British Library.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/history-of-familiar.html" target="_blank">History of the Familiar</a> Pointer to history of humanistic minuscule.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/its-personal.html" target="_blank">It's Personal</a> Wee note on a medieval autograph.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/dirty-medieval-books.html" target="_blank">Dirty Medieval Books</a> Pointer to interesting work by Kathryn Rudy. For some reason a lot of people have clicked on this. Hope they were not disappointed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/monastic-pressmarks.html" target="_blank">Monastic Pressmarks</a> Monastic pressmarks. Pointer to section of website on them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/glossed-bible.html" target="_blank">Glossed Bible</a> Pointer to a bit of interesting medieval detritus.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/little-french-things.html" target="_blank">Little French Things</a> Pointer to script sample of 14th century French cursive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/you-want-vinegar-with-your-oak-galls.html" target="_blank">You Want Vinegar With Your Oak Galls?</a> My most viewed blog post ever. If any subject arouses passion and commitment it is the correct formulation for iron gall ink.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/writing-of-illiterate-lombards.html" target="_blank">The Writing of the Illiterate Lombards</a> More irony, Lombardic minuscule, and more iron gall ink.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/shoes-and-ships-and-sealing-wax.html" target="_blank">Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax</a> Pointer to website section on seals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/medieval-recycling.html" target="_blank">Medieval Recycling</a> Pointer to script sample of French cursive on a document recycled into a book wrapper.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/boring-jobs-and-bizarre-coincidences.html" target="_blank">Boring Jobs and Bizarre Coincidences</a> Hufnagelschrift.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/medieval-documents.html" target="_blank">Medieval Documents</a> Medieval documents. Pointer to website section on dealing with them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/what-not-to-do-with-your-manuscripts.html" target="_blank">What Not To Do With Your Manuscripts</a> Pointer to website section on manuscript conservation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/manuscripts-and-naked-hands.html" target="_blank">Manuscripts and Naked Hands</a> The great white gloves controversy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/medieval-digimania.html" target="_blank">Medieval Digimania</a> The ever changing status of digitised medieval manuscripts on the web.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/when-did-latin-become-dead.html" target="_blank">When Did Latin Become Dead?</a> Pointer to website sample of scramboozled 16th century English and Latin.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/ferocity-of-iron-gall-ink.html" target="_blank">Ferocity of Iron Gall Ink</a> That stuff again, and how it consumes itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/vale.html" target="_blank">Vale</a> Notice of passing of Malcolm Parkes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/ever-wondered-what-paleographers-do.html" target="_blank">Ever Wonder What Paleographers Do?</a> The Getty knows.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/working-scripts-for-somewhat-ordinary.html" target="_blank">Working Script for (Somewhat) Ordinary Books</a> French batarde.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/blockbuster-epic-resource-for.html" target="_blank">Blockbuster Epic Resource for Paleographers and Historians</a> Dictionary of Medieval Latin from English Sources. Think it's now up on the web as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/colophons-and-marginalia-and-all-that.html" target="_blank">Colophons and Marginalia and All That</a> Colophon and gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/irish-gospels.html" target="_blank">Irish Gospels</a> Insular minuscule.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/bored-with-gothic-try-this.html" target="_blank">Bored with Gothic? Try This</a>. Beneventan minuscule.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/sweet-caroline.html" target="_blank">Sweet Caroline</a> Caroline minuscule.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/protogothic-and-choking-lions.html" target="_blank">Protogothic and Choking Lions</a> Protogothic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/beasties-from-bestiary.html" target="_blank">Beasties from the Bestiary</a> Gothic textura, with animals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/its-gothic-jim-but-not-as-we-know-it.html" target="_blank">It's Gothic Jim, But Not As We Know It</a> That totally weirdshit script from the Luttrell Psalter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/magdalen-in-blue.html" target="_blank">Magdalen in Blue</a> Gothic rotunda.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/hoccleve-on-chaucer.html" target="_blank">Hoccleve on Chaucer</a> Gothic bastarda</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/flyleaf-friday-or-when-is-manuscript.html" target="_blank">Flyleaf Friday. Or When is a Manuscript Finished?</a> On adding prayers to books of hours.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/notarial-signs.html" target="_blank">Notarial Signs</a> Notarial signs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/medieval-graffiti-and-medieval.html" target="_blank">Medieval Graffiti and Medieval Marginalia</a> Ponderings on scratchings in the margins of life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/cutting-up-manuscripts.html">Cutting Up Manuscripts</a> Why you shouldn't cut up manuscripts, and why people did.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-8335774904203759132016-03-12T16:30:00.000+11:002016-03-12T16:30:17.083+11:00Travelling with Leland<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is an occasional series I am putting together, trying to look at the England that the 16th century antiquarian, John Leland, saw immediately after the English Reformation and compare it to what we can see today. As it goes along with a massive project of updating my digital photography collection, for too long sadly neglected, it may totter along slowly. Each post links to a Flickr album which is annotated with the observations of Leland and assorted later travellers and antiquarians. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEDK50QduIk/VDeFRIbqK5I/AAAAAAAAAWo/SZxElAwomiQnW4j3tmS9uZAW89nBdGA2A/s1600/beverleyminsterext4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TEDK50QduIk/VDeFRIbqK5I/AAAAAAAAAWo/SZxElAwomiQnW4j3tmS9uZAW89nBdGA2A/s400/beverleyminsterext4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/a-little-experiment-in-medieval-beverley.html" target="_blank">A Little Experiment in Medieval Beverley</a> My favourite little Yorkshire town. I lived nearby for two longish stints. It is famous for its two spectacular churches, but the marks of its history can be found in obscure corners and overgrown spaces. Nearby is an important Cistercian abbey that has completely disappeared.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/another-medieval-day-trip-pickering.html" target="_blank">Another Medieval Day Trip - Pickering, Yorkshire</a> A little town on the edge of the North York Moors with a church full of 15th century wall paintings and a splendid motte and bailey castle.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/imagining-medieval-leicester.html" target="_blank">Imagining Medieval Leicester</a> Leicester has to be one of the most unappealing places to go medieval hunting. Everything is so chopped about and major traffic routes separate everything from everything else. If you don't get killed crossing the road, you can put the medieval town back together again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/a-medieval-tour-of-higham-ferrers.html" target="_blank">A Medieval Tour of Higham Ferrers</a> A tiny town packed with medieval treasures, mercifully just out of range of the industrial sprawl of the Midlands.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/a-medieval-tour-of-boston-lincolnshire.html" target="_blank">A Medieval Tour of Boston (Lincolnshire)</a> A splendid church, a little gem of a guildhall, a scrap of friary and a tumbledown tower house; pretty much all that survives of a prospering late medieval port town.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/leland-in-hidden-east-yorkshire.html" target="_blank">Leland in Hidden East Yorkshire</a> East Yorkshire was a thriving area in the middle ages, but just sort of faded away over time. This tour looks at the once busy ports of Hull and Hedon (pronounced Ooll and Eddon if you need to ask directions) and surrounding villages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/the-hidden-east-yorkshire-that-leland.html" target="_blank">The Hidden East Yorkshire That Leland Forgot</a> Actually, the Holderness area at the mouth of the Humber is the hidden East Yorkshire that everyone forgets. There is a splendid church at Patrington, but the rest is battered relics. And some of it has fallen into the sea.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So we will eventually progress from here. The Yorkshire wolds are full of treasures from many ages. York itself is a major enterprise. I expect this to potter along in somewhat random fashion around the country as a whole, but I think that's what Leland did himself.</span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-44969200800735681042016-03-12T15:03:00.000+11:002017-03-26T18:30:56.006+11:00Medieval Tombs : The Index<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> As the medieval tombs series is trundling along to infinity, it seems smart to put in an index page for it. I am doing the same for some of my other themed posts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Yk7Qbwpj-Xg/VuOCe5mF1zI/AAAAAAAABZo/uOebUhkPHkUrdIDSPSAhS-_1vfuuUcnbw/s1600/adlingfleettomb1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Yk7Qbwpj-Xg/VuOCe5mF1zI/AAAAAAAABZo/uOebUhkPHkUrdIDSPSAhS-_1vfuuUcnbw/s400/adlingfleettomb1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>What's With Medieval Tombs?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">1. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-1.html" target="_blank">Introduction</a>. What it says on the tin, with particular reference to the concept of liminality and its codification in the medieval Christian concept of purgatory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">2. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-2.html" target="_blank">Knights</a>. An introduction to the depiction of knights on effigy tombs and how they embody the liminal state of death.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">3. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-3.html" target="_blank">Oddments</a>. A ramble around styles of tombs other that three dimensional effigies: brasses, incised slabs, floriated crosses and other non-effigy tombs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">4. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-4.html" target="_blank">Cadavers</a>. An exploration of a style of tomb which seems a bit weird to the modern mind; the depiction of the deceased as a decomposing corpse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">5. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-5.html" target="_blank">Royalty</a>. A tour of the tombs of the trendsetters of mortuary fashion, with some surprising observations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">6. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-6.html" target="_blank">Clergy</a>. An introduction to the particular characteristics of the depiction of members of the clergy on tombs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">7. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-7.html" target="_blank">Civilian Males</a>. Social changes meant that not everyone who could afford a fancy tomb was entitled to a suit of armour. Here are some examples of what else gave you status in the later middle ages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">8. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-8.html" target="_blank">Isolated Alabasters</a>. A tour of the amazing collection of alabaster tombs in Harewood church, and what questions they raise about population, society, historical identification and the meaning of life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">9. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-9.html" target="_blank">The Process of Death</a>. All about how medieval funerary commemoration was not an event but an extended process, including what sometimes happened with the bodies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">10. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-10.html" target="_blank">Heraldry on Tombs</a>. The significance of the use of heraldry, often quite lavishly, on tombs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">11. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-12-low.html" target="_blank">Low Relief and Half Sunk Effigies</a>. While many effigies fit into very stylised and recognisable classes, there are some unusual variants, although they do fall into a class of their own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">12. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-11.html" target="_blank">The Aesthetics of Armour</a>. How practical changes to armour made effigies of knights ever less beautiful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">13. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-13.html" target="_blank">Female Fashion</a>. In the 14th and 15th centuries fashion became a thing, reflected in minute detail in the tombs of ladies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">14. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-14-what.html" target="_blank">What Happened to Them During the Middle Ages</a>. Not all the destruction of tombs was due to Henry VIII's henchmen, iconoclasts and puritans. It can be argued that they had built in obsolescence from the start.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">15. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-15.html" target="_blank">Children on Medieval Tombs</a>. Dead children were rarely commemorated on medieval tombs, and when they do appear there they may not even have been dead at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">16. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-15.html" target="_blank">Memorials in Glass</a>. Stained glass windows could also serve as funerary memorials in various ways.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">17. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-17.html" target="_blank">Identification and Dating</a>. Some tricks, traps and anomalies in identifying those commemorated on tombs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">18. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-18.html" target="_blank">Animals on Tombs (1)</a>. First part of a look at how animals are depicted on tombs and what they signify.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">19. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-19.html" target="_blank">Animals on Tombs (2)</a>. More about animals on tombs and how to do a rebus.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">20. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-20.html" target="_blank">Owning the Church</a>. About competition and claiming of church spaces</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">21. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-21-brass.html" target="_blank">Brass Rubbings - Perfect Facsimiles?</a> How brass rubbings have changed the way we see monumental brasses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">22. <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-22-bling.html">Bling on Tombs</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This page will continue to grow as I meander through this theme. Might eventually even end up with something.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-38771204788714407092016-03-05T17:44:00.000+11:002016-03-06T16:14:00.336+11:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 17: Identification and Dating<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> One of the things that people always seem to want to know about medieval tomb effigies is who they represent. I guess that's natural curiosity, although I'm more inquisitive about what they represent. We know that with a few rare exceptions from the very top of the social scale, the effigies on medieval tombs, stone, alabaster or brass, were not personal portraits. They have a tendency to have identikit faces and body types. Personal identifiers were added on in the form of inscriptions or heraldry.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QXylRUbsXVE/VtpIkIqXS6I/AAAAAAAABXA/CUDsy52bCaE/s1600/harphamtomb4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QXylRUbsXVE/VtpIkIqXS6I/AAAAAAAABXA/CUDsy52bCaE/s400/harphamtomb4.JPG" width="346" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Some tombs, particularly brasses like the one above to Thomas de St Quintin in Harpham church, Yorkshire, have a neat inscription. These follow a couple of pretty standard formulae in which the person is named, their status indicated and their date of death supplied, as well as requests for prayers for their soul. Not all brasses had inscriptions and not all that were in existence have survived. Surviving inscriptions on three dimensional effigy tombs are more rare, although they may have once had painted inscriptions that have been scrubbed off over time. Some tombs have a marginal indentation that was for a brass inscription that was inlaid around the figures, but these have often vanished. Brass was removed and flogged off in great quantities, including entire effigies, as evidenced by the numbers of worn indents lying unidentified in church floors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3SqUC3DOm10/VtpTlIZ2PPI/AAAAAAAABXQ/HyFUmTQEbuQ/s1600/blyboroughtomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3SqUC3DOm10/VtpTlIZ2PPI/AAAAAAAABXQ/HyFUmTQEbuQ/s400/blyboroughtomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This tomb of a priest in Blyborough, Lincolnshire has an incised inscription in stone around the border of the tomb slab. That is an unusual survival, and pretty much sorts that one out, as with the brasses bearing inscriptions. It also displays the other main identifier, heraldry. Unfortunately heraldry, like inscriptions, was often painted on to the shields on tombs and more often than not has been effaced.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--yckuHjllZw/VtpVbxzf7rI/AAAAAAAABXc/FBCWppWpjvk/s1600/swine3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--yckuHjllZw/VtpVbxzf7rI/AAAAAAAABXc/FBCWppWpjvk/s400/swine3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This once splendid but now rather beat up alabaster tomb in Swine, Yorkshire has heraldic shields borne by lively and demonstrative angels, but the designs have utterly disappeared.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the days before effigy tombs were a thing, before the 14th century, it was not usual for tomb slabs to have inscriptions and certainly not dates. The cross slabs found tucked away in odd corners of churches are evidence for this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KvzL8d2AI_0/VtpXkgjAa9I/AAAAAAAABXo/thsI9M_7RqU/s1600/blythtombslabs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KvzL8d2AI_0/VtpXkgjAa9I/AAAAAAAABXo/thsI9M_7RqU/s400/blythtombslabs.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The above shows an assortment of battered tomb slabs propped against the wall of the church at Blyth in Nottinghamshire. The fact that these generally have no personal identifiers and are so often stacked in odd spots, obviously not in their original location, suggests that they may never have been meant as permanent memorials to individuals. Rather, they may have been part of the extended funeral process; reminders to pray for the most recently departed and help them get to wherever they were going. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The appearance of inscriptions, and particularly dates, on tomb monuments coincides approximately with the appearance of written dates on legal documents. Charters of around the 12th century were usually not dated, as they were regarded as recordings of witnessed oral testimony. The witness list was more significant than the precise date.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gLFKLt1A2Y0/VtpcJc7nUZI/AAAAAAAABX0/2msaIB-35dI/s1600/bylandcharter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gLFKLt1A2Y0/VtpcJc7nUZI/AAAAAAAABX0/2msaIB-35dI/s1600/bylandcharter.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This late 12th century charter (British Library, add. charter 70691) records a grant of land by an individual, Ralph de Cuningburgh, to Byland Abbey. It is ratified by his seal, which is a very generic kind of knight on funny looking horse seal without complex armorials, typical of its era. There is an extensive witness list but no date.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> During the 13th and 14th centuries there were changes in the format of, and attitude to, legal documents, including the regular use of dates, sometimes in quite elaborate forms. It can be seen as a shift in the conception of the document from a note of an oral process to being a literate process in its own right, requiring formal writing and archiving for posterity. It also locates the doings of an individual in time and place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Heraldry itself became more elaborate over the 14th and 15th centuries, developing into an intricate code which could be read to identify and memorialise a individual and place them within their family history. A heraldic tomb was a family archive, not just a reminder to pray for an individual. Seals and tombs developed similar types of complexity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The development of effigy tombs with individually identifiable heraldry and inscriptions took place over the same general time frame, and in some ways reflect similar changes of mindset. The tomb becomes uniquely identifiable, readable, and possibly gains a greater expectation of becoming a more permanent memorial. The tomb becomes a personal record.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Unfortunately time plays havoc with the aspirations of mere mortals. Tombs have been moved, reorganised, carted out into the churchyard and dragged back again, assembled in new combinations, scrubbed of colour and identity, destroyed in great numbers in times of religious discord and generally reduced to chaos. It all makes identification difficult.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VS_MOkx_Syo/VtphGXNS_xI/AAAAAAAABYE/ymNBrJslEgA/s1600/halsham1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VS_MOkx_Syo/VtphGXNS_xI/AAAAAAAABYE/ymNBrJslEgA/s400/halsham1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> For example, this handsome late 15th century alabaster knight in the church at Halsham, Yorkshire, is lying on a brass indent that clearly does not belong to him. We don't know who it belongs to because the brass is gone. Remedievalising damaged old churches has created a few of these concoctions. An earlier post on the <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-8.html" target="_blank">alabaster tombs of Harewood</a> described the movements of the tombs around the church and the reattribution of their identities.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Antiquarians who pottered around the countryside recording things, often in great detail, and then had them published in strange old tomes, have noted inscriptions that have become lost or misplaced since. Their books were once difficult to get hold of if you didn't live near the right libraries, but their increasing appearance on the wondrous <a href="https://archive.org/" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a> means there are treasures there for the fossicking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Another documentary source for the identification of tombs is through the wills of those commemorated. Unfortunately the tortuous process of searching through medieval wills combined with the massive and random nature of losses of medieval tombs means that it is not very often that these can be matched up. And of course, whether the provisions in the will were ever carried out depended on the executors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So the identification of tombs tends to rely mostly on the intersection of two lines of best fit; who were the likely contenders as lords of the manor or other prominent citizenry, or were known to be rectors of a church or bishops or suchlike known and named ecclesiastics, and what was the date of the tomb as estimated stylistically. These can lead to some circular processes of reckoning, and there are traps.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Armour underwent rapid and readily recognisable changes over the period when effigy tombs became the thing to have, so knightly effigies can be dated by folks who have an intimate knowledge of the minutiae of these changes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qMSDrdLLRzU/VtprUX-1raI/AAAAAAAABYU/2SQWUoxQ5Ko/s1600/templetombs1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qMSDrdLLRzU/VtprUX-1raI/AAAAAAAABYU/2SQWUoxQ5Ko/s400/templetombs1b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> For example chain mail and long surcoats with big shields predates chain mail and long surcoats with smaller shields and leather knee protectors, as with these two chaps in the Temple church, London. Rowel spurs replace prick spurs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qY862M2zuco/VtpscghW5yI/AAAAAAAABYg/OH4sGKQb2vE/s1600/bedaletomb1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qY862M2zuco/VtpscghW5yI/AAAAAAAABYg/OH4sGKQb2vE/s400/bedaletomb1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The more bits of plate that appear and the shorter the surcoat gets, the further you travel through the 14th century. This example is from Bedale, Yorkshire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9zvf_a3xH-E/VtptMIMfGQI/AAAAAAAABYs/o6ERNDQzXAA/s1600/barmstontomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9zvf_a3xH-E/VtptMIMfGQI/AAAAAAAABYs/o6ERNDQzXAA/s400/barmstontomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> By the early 15th century the knight is encased like a tortoise in plate and wears his sword belt jauntily low slung across his hips. This example is from Barmston in Yorkshire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YwmoDmjdusg/Vtpt8NARW4I/AAAAAAAABY0/9KN72lW60rM/s1600/howdenbrassa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YwmoDmjdusg/Vtpt8NARW4I/AAAAAAAABY0/9KN72lW60rM/s400/howdenbrassa.JPG" width="163" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> By the late 15th century it has acquired hinged flappy bits and the knee, elbow and shoulder protectors look too big and clunky to be real. This brass is in Howden church, Yorkshire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It looks simple enough but there are some questions. Did the armour represent what the deceased actually wore or was it the latest fashion when the tomb was produced, which was sometimes before the commemorated person's death and sometimes after? (The answer is bleeding obvious in the first of those scenarios but not the second.) If somebody chose to commemorate a progenitor to boost the perception of their lineage a bit, or were even a little tardy in commemorating a deceased relative because they were busy beating up the French for a few years, did they get him bespoke carved in retro gear or just take an off the shelf model in whatever was fashionable at the time? Is the monument actually in its original church? Some are known to have been moved from monastic churches at the Dissolution (but not if they were buried under car parks). Were monuments moved for other reasons, like a village becoming deserted, for example? Similar questions can be asked over the use of livery collars for dating.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lcRcsolFqs0/VPmLbb_J9zI/AAAAAAAAAvE/MZB5JIluIH0/s1600/harewoodtomb2c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lcRcsolFqs0/VPmLbb_J9zI/AAAAAAAAAvE/MZB5JIluIH0/s400/harewoodtomb2c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Lancastrian SS livery collar in Harewood church.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y_SylKv3orc/VPvh1RO-WMI/AAAAAAAAAvU/qtXS3wJZ0j8/s1600/harewoodtomb4c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y_SylKv3orc/VPvh1RO-WMI/AAAAAAAAAvU/qtXS3wJZ0j8/s400/harewoodtomb4c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Yorkist suns and roses collar in Harewood church. Do these represent an absolute date when the dynasties changed over, or do they represent the loyalties and affinities of the departed? It seems to be assumed that nobody would dare to be commemorated, or have their progenitors commemorated, in the livery of the opposition to the current monarch. We can't be quite sure exactly what statement they were trying to make.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Similar doubts apply when using the very rapidly changing vagaries of ladies' fashion of the 14th and 15th centuries as identifiers. Even an intimate knowledge of individual workshop styles may tell you more about the craftsmen and the effigy than about the person commemorated. It is possible to date an effigy within a certain range of error, but probably there are too many variables to make a positive identification of an individual in many cases.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Identification of individuals can be hampered by the lack of precise contemporary genealogical information from the days when survival of personal documents could be a bit variable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-82rxnIolJLo/Vtp9pchtInI/AAAAAAAABZY/Hd2q0uMuNPs/s1600/beauchamptoomuch.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-82rxnIolJLo/Vtp9pchtInI/AAAAAAAABZY/Hd2q0uMuNPs/s1600/beauchamptoomuch.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This snippet is from one of my favourite personal treasures. It is a very scrappy genealogy on paper written and annotated in the 16th century in various hands, of a branch of the Beauchamp family, related to the famous ones of Warwick, which died out in the male line in the 16th century. My guess is it was somebody's working notes on sorting out the family estate. This branch of the family was not very imaginative about names and there was a succession of them called Walter Beauchamp. For those not comfortable with abominable 16th century cursive, this entry is annotated "some say this man is too much". In other words, the writer is not quite sure how many Walter Beauchamps there were. Lesser knightly and gentry families were likely to be even less well documented.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wu4fLgAjR7s/Vtp4q78FL6I/AAAAAAAABZI/ias1eUbW8rA/s1600/aldboroughtomb2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wu4fLgAjR7s/Vtp4q78FL6I/AAAAAAAABZI/ias1eUbW8rA/s400/aldboroughtomb2.JPG" width="193" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So finally, here we have a tomb slab in Aldborough church, Yorkshire, which has had all of its identifying features removed. It was once a rather unusual brass, combining the floriated cross cum tree of life motif with an inscription and a plethora of heraldry. It has novelty with tradition, family pride with anonymity. It is in a little village built over a Roman town with a maypole on the village green, a village cross commemorating a battle against the Scots and a line of megalithic stones up the road. Individual identities blend into the stories of places and the rise and fall of societies. It's the best we can all hope for.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-17328519519619051102016-02-27T18:15:00.001+11:002016-02-28T13:09:24.529+11:00Medieval Literacy: Pictures and Texts<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I have recently been plodding through organising, optimising and recataloguing a large number of digitised slides of the stained glass of York Minster. I spent quite a bit of time in York and managed to photograph a fair swag of the city's magnificent medieval glass, but I didn't have a cherry picker or a drone so there is a fair bit of fiddling about with enlarging details and seeing if they come out. Also my identification of the individual windows was not quite as accurate as it might have been. So with the trusty Pevsner and a pile of other reference books on the desk, I am putting Humpty Dumpty together again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The process has jogged the brain into mulling over the whole question of the nature of medieval literacy and the old chestnut about church art being the Bible of the illiterate. For starters, literate and illiterate do not need to be polar opposites. Medieval people read what they needed or wanted to read, whether it was their own names, the oft repeated prayers and psalms in their books of hours, their household accounts, the texts of sermons they were about to deliver, or complex philosophical treatises requiring knowledge of several languages. The same applied to writing. Some scribes copied stuff literally, some made notes from the spoken word, some specialised in formulaic legal documents and some authors wandered round dictating their thoughts to hapless secretaries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cDCMQgtbxKY/VtExoZ3OQyI/AAAAAAAABUM/2Iy1Oc8rVp4/s1600/yorkminnnave6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cDCMQgtbxKY/VtExoZ3OQyI/AAAAAAAABUM/2Iy1Oc8rVp4/s400/yorkminnnave6.JPG" width="238" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> York Minster is a big building, with very tall windows filled, in many cases, with fiddly detail, especially the 14th century windows with multiple small panels full of colour. It's very hard to simply read the windows without any background or prompts. A photograph like the one above of a window in the north side of the nave gives a bit of an idea of what you actually see. Who is doing what up there and why does the window seem to be hung about with little golden bells?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dhDGFhrjaFI/VtEzSZAJNRI/AAAAAAAABUY/KalAaF3IxTg/s1600/yorkminnnave6b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dhDGFhrjaFI/VtEzSZAJNRI/AAAAAAAABUY/KalAaF3IxTg/s400/yorkminnnave6b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The window in question was, in fact, donated by the bellfounders. A telephoto lens shows a kneeling donor presenting the window to St William of York himself, and he is bestowing his blessing on the bellfounders. This panel is at the bottom of the window so it is easier to make out than some, but medieval folks did not have telephoto lenses. No doubt people were told the story of the bellfounders and their donation, and all those little bells just reminded them of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bOdrzC1_1Uw/VtE1JQiS2xI/AAAAAAAABUk/exoL1kpTB2Y/s1600/yorkminnnave7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bOdrzC1_1Uw/VtE1JQiS2xI/AAAAAAAABUk/exoL1kpTB2Y/s400/yorkminnnave7.JPG" width="237" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Something similar must apply to the windows which tell the stories of morality and martyrdom and the episodes of the Bible. In peering at the images trying to tell which window was which, I found myself searching for those visual clues that permeate every visual retelling of the story, because for all the variations of style and medium, medieval church art used a standard repertoire of symbols to represent each story. The window above tells the story of St Catherine of Alexandria.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q99ZM1C7J3k/VtE3RHgswdI/AAAAAAAABU0/dpnZ9qyzGUk/s1600/yorkminnnave7b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="371" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-q99ZM1C7J3k/VtE3RHgswdI/AAAAAAAABU0/dpnZ9qyzGUk/s400/yorkminnnave7b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The episodes of the life of St Catherine are played out in a series of pictures which follow the story exactly as it is told in the Golden Legend. The panels are detailed, even after centuries of damage and restoration, but quite far away. These stories would have been known to the lay congregation mainly from oral teaching. Not too many folks would have had a copy of Jacobus de Voragine in their personal library, but they would have heard the stories many times. They would also have seen the stereotyped images of saints in their books of hours or prayer books, if they were so fortunate as to have one. They learned the stories, recognised the imagery and could follow the sequences in the art in the church. Is this literacy or illiteracy? I say it is a form of literacy. Word and image reinforced each other in medieval books, as well as on windows and walls.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ed3PBX8NsmU/VEIYLeePvtI/AAAAAAAAAXk/YNSzVGdJHrs/s1600/pickeringwall4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ed3PBX8NsmU/VEIYLeePvtI/AAAAAAAAAXk/YNSzVGdJHrs/s400/pickeringwall4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The story of St Catherine is told in exactly the same type of strip cartoon form on the nave wall of Pickering church in Yorkshire. It was an accepted way of narrating and imaging a well known story. The philosophers, the prison, the flogging, the wheels and the grand finale with the beheading with a sword: that tells the story. You read it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yJnzNZloCxw/VtE6Lp_fwnI/AAAAAAAABVE/fw1sExEqDWs/s1600/yorkminsnavec4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yJnzNZloCxw/VtE6Lp_fwnI/AAAAAAAABVE/fw1sExEqDWs/s400/yorkminsnavec4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The nave clerestorey windows are way, way up. The top row of scenes are actually 12th century glass from an older cathedral on the site, but they must have thought it was worth saving. What the hell is it? Ah. That was a clue. On the right there is a great big mouth with chompy teeth with people going into it. Other panels seem to have people being poked into a pot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3pb23-hA24M/VtE7HwdEOCI/AAAAAAAABVQ/qS6-hpgfcJg/s1600/yorkminsnavec4c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3pb23-hA24M/VtE7HwdEOCI/AAAAAAAABVQ/qS6-hpgfcJg/s400/yorkminsnavec4c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Hell is what it is. At one time pictures of the Last Judgement were all over the chancel arches of many churches, possibly most. There they were large and easy to see, and were no doubt explained in gruesome detail by some of the more charismatic preachers. Literate or illiterate, the basic clues tell the story.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mp3L_GvCmaQ/VtE9K7zu9FI/AAAAAAAABVc/9k8iz4lmosg/s1600/blythdoom1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mp3L_GvCmaQ/VtE9K7zu9FI/AAAAAAAABVc/9k8iz4lmosg/s400/blythdoom1.JPG" width="317" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the formerly Benedictine church of Blyth the Doom painting is faded and battered, but it was big and conspicuous in its heyday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKZ7oUcEbhU/VtE97P1RX0I/AAAAAAAABVk/1-EOTrdHe9Q/s1600/blythdoom5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kKZ7oUcEbhU/VtE97P1RX0I/AAAAAAAABVk/1-EOTrdHe9Q/s400/blythdoom5.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The nasty demons poking people into hell were suitably demonic. The whole image is a story which can be read, not just a picture. Benedictine monks were not illiterate. They could read those little black marks scratched on to pages, but pictures could be read as well. Even if you could just make out the big chompy teeth in the distant window, you were reading the story. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qXe9vrpUb_A/VtE_VqlTYfI/AAAAAAAABVw/eWhgkkRaOks/s1600/yorkminntranw2a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qXe9vrpUb_A/VtE_VqlTYfI/AAAAAAAABVw/eWhgkkRaOks/s400/yorkminntranw2a.JPG" width="232" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Even a single figure is not just an image, but represents a story. St Christopher carrying the baby Jesus across a river is one of the more dubious bits of Christian mythology, but it was a story popularised in the Golden Legend and he is one of the most prolifically illustrated saints. This is a 15th century example from the windows of York Minster, but while the size and boldness of the 15th century glass makes the image easier to see from the ground, the story has to have been learned. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GTJMenSINmw/VtFEfMdjRoI/AAAAAAAABWA/4ImielNMq0s/s1600/doom.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GTJMenSINmw/VtFEfMdjRoI/AAAAAAAABWA/4ImielNMq0s/s400/doom.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the parish church at Easby the founding myth of the Jewish and Christian religions is depicted on the wall. It is read from left to right, just like writing. It is a story that was codified and solidified by being written down, then copied and recopied. It can be read in the Bible, or in excerpts, or in paraphrase, or in pictures. Or it can be learned by listening. Bible picture books were produced for wealthy aristocratic patrons in which the stories were paraphrased with words and pictures. They were for literate people, but literate people used pictures too. Literate clerics used historiated initials to help them find particular passages in their psalters or lectionaries, because the iconographic code had rules and conventions, just as writing did.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p0Q_j5VxUcE/VtFITednYBI/AAAAAAAABWM/ecWby9PQDmU/s1600/yorkminsnave1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p0Q_j5VxUcE/VtFITednYBI/AAAAAAAABWM/ecWby9PQDmU/s400/yorkminsnave1.JPG" width="230" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So trying to identify exactly which window I'm looking at is very analogous to how a medieval person might read that window. What is that panel in the middle? Man looking over left shoulder, somewhat startled, at an angel in the sky, with sheep wandering about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LlcVlDHdr0Y/VtFJeUvknKI/AAAAAAAABWY/HegCNYpr4uE/s1600/yorkminsnave1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LlcVlDHdr0Y/VtFJeUvknKI/AAAAAAAABWY/HegCNYpr4uE/s400/yorkminsnave1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Joachim in the wilderness. Back story to the life of the Virgin and the early life of Jesus. Christian mythology known from the Golden Legend, filling out some unsatisfactory gaps in the Gospels. The window tells the story. You just have to know how to read it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5h0UTURRA3Q/VtFKq01g9qI/AAAAAAAABWk/03sWob2x1iM/s1600/yorkminnave3b1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5h0UTURRA3Q/VtFKq01g9qI/AAAAAAAABWk/03sWob2x1iM/s400/yorkminnave3b1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Upside down saint. Martyrdom of St Peter. Now what else can we recognise to see what story this window is telling?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zg0D8VmtE60/VtFN93geNZI/AAAAAAAABWw/z4dpLRQxhLc/s1600/yorkminschoirw3a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Zg0D8VmtE60/VtFN93geNZI/AAAAAAAABWw/z4dpLRQxhLc/s400/yorkminschoirw3a.JPG" width="308" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Kings in vegetation. Jesse tree. Genealogy of Christ. From the York Minster choir but originally from New College, Oxford, where we can presume the congregation was reasonably literate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> We may regard many medieval folks as less literate than ourselves, but in many ways they may have been more literate, with minds open to different ways of telling stories.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-70281599807539782752016-02-14T18:13:00.003+11:002016-02-14T18:19:01.640+11:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 16 - Memorials in Glass<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> So far in this series I have looked at medieval memorials that are essentially grave covers, at least in theory, although some of them depicted people who were buried in other locations, or only certain parts of them were buried at the commemorated spot, or their remains or tombs had been moved. Within churches there were various other ways of commemorating the dead, especially if their good works in life had included donations to the fabric or treasures of the church in question.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Sally Badham's recent book, <b>Seeking Salvation</b>, gives copious examples of other church works which can be regarded as funerary memorials, indicated by inscriptions on walls and furnishings, church plate and many instructions in wills for donations to the church. Stained glass windows also come in here, and she points out that all of these are visual reminders to the congregation to pray for the souls of the departed to hasten their trip through purgatory.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Purgatory was a big deal in the 14th and 15th centuries, when church art and commemoration was developing in elaboration, but as I have mentioned before, purgatory was an official church doctrine which allowed expression for concepts of liminality concerning death. Those concepts have been expressed in different ways in other times and in other religions and cultures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The 14th and 15th centuries were also a time when traditional social hierarchies were being challenged and social stratification, although well and truly still there, became very competitive. This was evidenced in many aspects of life, including rapidly changing fashion utilising fancy imported fabrics, massively competitive dining habits, more lavish houses for those who could have them, and posh book ownership. In competitive societies, worth is displayed by not only what you have, but what you can afford to give away. In societies with very different religious beliefs, funerary ceremonial could involve large and often complex redistributions of wealth. Funerals and mortuary gifts certainly encouraged others to pray for your soul, but also increased the standing of you and yours in society. Besides, they then made other people obligated to you and yours, should fortunes reverse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KceK7A8vaKM/VsAOFCLnytI/AAAAAAAABRw/DiV6k0teEIw/s1600/stamfordglass1e.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="88" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KceK7A8vaKM/VsAOFCLnytI/AAAAAAAABRw/DiV6k0teEIw/s400/stamfordglass1e.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The simplest easily recognised visual symbol for the folks of the congregation was probably heraldry. The above example comes from St Martin's church in Stamford, Lincolnshire. They shields were often depicted being carried by little angels, which has parallels with the angels carrying the souls of the departed also found in funerary depictions. The heraldic device might indicate that the family concerned had built their own funerary chapel, or had contributed in some other way to the fabric of the church. These are very commonly found, sometimes sprinkled among the more didactic panels of the windows.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iFCy8QLKUb8/VsASY3eTAQI/AAAAAAAABR4/zRK52kzoiDQ/s1600/thirskglass2b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="328" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iFCy8QLKUb8/VsASY3eTAQI/AAAAAAAABR4/zRK52kzoiDQ/s400/thirskglass2b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Here is another example from a small northern town, Thirsk in North Yorkshire. I don't suppose the coat of arms actually represents three donkeys but it looks a bit like it. Such panels no doubt encourage prayers for the soul, but they also stamp a certain authority on the congregation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I_VYsCgLtIs/VsAV3LJEuuI/AAAAAAAABSE/SSmbdSdvIVM/s1600/yorkminsnave4b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I_VYsCgLtIs/VsAV3LJEuuI/AAAAAAAABSE/SSmbdSdvIVM/s400/yorkminsnave4b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The de Mauley window in the south nave aisle of York Minster has eight coats of arms associated with the de Mauley family, sprinkled between the usual scenes of martyrdom and mayhem, and representations of members of the family in the lower panels. It has to be said that this is virtually a copy of the original window after a drastic restoration in 1903, but you get the idea. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Occasionally you can find a heraldic shield in a window that matches one on a tomb in the church, indicating that these are not either/or modes of commemoration but part of the whole cornucopia of ways that people could be remembered, respected and hopefully hastened on their way to glory. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">A more personal representation is found in the simple kneeling donor figure, usually found modestly in the bottom corner of the window.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g0arX5oDKyw/Uz5Q-w0YIqI/AAAAAAAAAME/aIOTzFBEYeI/s1600/donor.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g0arX5oDKyw/Uz5Q-w0YIqI/AAAAAAAAAME/aIOTzFBEYeI/s320/donor.JPG" width="297" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This somewhat effaced little figure from Thornhill in West Yorkshire is depicted in civilian clothes with his purse slung on his belt, not armour, reflecting the new order of town life when you could have influence with money rather than coats of arms. He is kneeling at his prayer desk with the prayer book open, which is about as clear a reminder of what you are supposed to do as you can get.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uj6-yMerYE8/VsAXsTPfDuI/AAAAAAAABSQ/0ErJyUvaDxA/s1600/yorksmlbglass3c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uj6-yMerYE8/VsAXsTPfDuI/AAAAAAAABSQ/0ErJyUvaDxA/s400/yorksmlbglass3c.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This donor panel in St Michael-le-Belfry church, York has an inscription encouraging you to pray for the donor and his three wifes. The convention of showing successive spouses all kneeling together is not unusual. Time collapses when you're dead. Many donor panels contained these inscriptions, but some have been lost, accidentally or on purpose when the glass was reset in times of religious change. The desire to perpetuate the memories of families outlived the need to believe in purgatory. Similarly the "orate pro anima" part of tomb or brass inscriptions has sometimes been effaced, a symbolic gesture making the memorial correct in religious terms while still commemorating the departed, and reminding folks of the significance of the surviving families.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jtja5Pa_Mfk/VBu1wYEvguI/AAAAAAAAAUw/W8YAVlYFoRc/s1600/yorkasnsglass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jtja5Pa_Mfk/VBu1wYEvguI/AAAAAAAAAUw/W8YAVlYFoRc/s400/yorkasnsglass1.JPG" width="327" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This window in All Saints North Street, York has multiple references of this type. The kneeling donor figures in the lower panels have come from a different window. Stained glass is always mixed up because of the need for regular repairs and renovations. Nevertheless they are two of several representations of this type in this particular church. The six panels above represent the corporal acts of mercy. I have written about this in another blog posting <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/corporal-acts-of-mercy.html" target="_blank">here</a>. The acts of mercy are being administered by a benign looking bearded man who looks much the same in every panel, and it has been assumed that this figure represents the donor of the window; a reminder of how he has redistributed his wealth for the benefit of the parish.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cDzZVWRD4gw/VBu1wky7XsI/AAAAAAAAAU0/vWeCLSlGy3o/s1600/yorkasnsglass1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cDzZVWRD4gw/VBu1wky7XsI/AAAAAAAAAU0/vWeCLSlGy3o/s400/yorkasnsglass1b.JPG" width="371" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Furthermore he is rich and he wants you to know it, because he is using his wealth for virtuous purposes. Here he is dipping into his large money purse to bail out some prisoners in the stocks. Acquiring wealth is fine if you give it away in a virtuous manner. Pray for his soul please, and look after his heirs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IsojkbYUbLM/VUXJfDbM1BI/AAAAAAAAA2s/xHvl8iE-AE8/s1600/longmelglass2b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IsojkbYUbLM/VUXJfDbM1BI/AAAAAAAAA2s/xHvl8iE-AE8/s400/longmelglass2b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The windows in the wealthy church that wool built in Long Melford, Suffolk display more of the symbols of power and less of virtue in the figures of the donors. Sure, they are kneeling praying so please remember to say a prayer for them, but they are togged out in very conspicuous heraldic rig, wearing their coats of arms all over them. They built this church and they are important.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I9taZ9ZGncM/VsAhpsDuaxI/AAAAAAAABSs/d-StaBtJzuA/s1600/yorksdglass6a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I9taZ9ZGncM/VsAhpsDuaxI/AAAAAAAABSs/d-StaBtJzuA/s400/yorksdglass6a.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The nature of the donation can be made quite explicit. This kneeling donor in St Denys church, York, dressed in civilian clothes, is holding the window he has donated, just so that you know exactly the nature of his benefaction. This is analogous to those tomb figures of bishops and knights holding models of churches they have funded. And no, I don't know whether he was a wealthy beekeeper.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0GzflSR-S4s/VsAfnd7kWdI/AAAAAAAABSg/C39AbeymDSQ/s1600/bellfounders.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0GzflSR-S4s/VsAfnd7kWdI/AAAAAAAABSg/C39AbeymDSQ/s400/bellfounders.JPG" width="301" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Donors commemorated in glass did not have to be individuals. The guilds of the towns had the function of caring for the spiritual needs of their members as well as their conditions of work. This window in York Minster was presented by the bellfounders and some panels contain representations of aspects of the bellfounders' art. This panels shows the presentation of the window to the archbishop, with the usual supplicatory imagery and a depiction of the window in the glass itself, so everyone gets the point. It symbolises the social importance of the town trades, who are acting like aristocrats of old in their dealings with the community, as well as encouraging prayers for a group within the commnity. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hn8rBoYpPZs/VsAjiLwkQXI/AAAAAAAABS8/CEAoo6fn36s/s1600/furriers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hn8rBoYpPZs/VsAjiLwkQXI/AAAAAAAABS8/CEAoo6fn36s/s1600/furriers.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HLoU8fQqBNk/VsAjh-IeTFI/AAAAAAAABS4/CxxpUygEVSc/s1600/drapers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HLoU8fQqBNk/VsAjh-IeTFI/AAAAAAAABS4/CxxpUygEVSc/s1600/drapers.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">The most famous examples of this type of commemoration are across the Channel in France, in the cathedral of Chartres, where all the various craft guilds which contributed to the building of the cathedral are commemorated in the amazing program of stained glass windows. They are not depicted praying or with symbols which specifically encourage others to pray, rather shown just going about their work, but they are included in the lower panels of the instructive windows. The examples above show the furriers and the drapers. Perhaps they somewhat predate the full expression of the concept of purgatory in church art, but their contribution to the church fabric and life is being appreciated.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It is reasonable to regard these types of windows as funerary memorials in just the same way that we regard grave slabs or effigy tombs. They serve the same purpose and utilise similar iconography. They perpetuate memory beyond the grave.</span></div>
Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-38529271778352836072016-01-08T18:45:00.000+11:002016-01-08T18:45:38.135+11:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 15 - Children on Tombs.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The 18th and 19th centuries produced numbers of commemorative monuments to children who had died young, ranging from exquisitely carved monuments to beautiful youngsters depicted as if asleep to sad lists of names, ages and dates on churchyard headstones. These remind us that bringing offspring to adulthood was a perilous exercise in the days when nutrition and medicine were very imperfect and natural hazards were plenty. When you go back to the heyday of medieval effigial monuments, in the 14th and 15th centuries, monuments to dead children are exceedingly rare.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pgcikg39IQQ/Vo88fACtLvI/AAAAAAAABPM/AQlcXAyt0Gc/s1600/yorkminstertomb1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Pgcikg39IQQ/Vo88fACtLvI/AAAAAAAABPM/AQlcXAyt0Gc/s400/yorkminstertomb1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This depiction of a slender young man or boy is even less of a portrait than most funerary monuments. It is dedicated to William de Hatfield, the second son of King Edward III and Queen Philippa of Hainault. He died in 1337 in his first year of life. The alabaster effigy, which lies on a tall table tomb under a vaulted canopy, is very much in the style of a knightly effigy, although he bears no arms. It is as if the depiction of an actual child is something the sculptors just didn't get. It has all the significata of liminality; praying hands, angels and lion foot supporter looking up, but it is hard to imagine an infant having earned too much time in purgatory. Like the far more numerous adult effigies, it is an idealised image of a fine human specimen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u5op4obZFiI/Vo9B3KnzkpI/AAAAAAAABPc/mwyqkMBD8Bw/s1600/sheriffhuttontomb2a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u5op4obZFiI/Vo9B3KnzkpI/AAAAAAAABPc/mwyqkMBD8Bw/s400/sheriffhuttontomb2a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This undersized alabaster tomb in Sheriff Hutton church, Yorkshire, has been identified in the past with Edward, son of King Richard III, who died young in 1484. The tomb is rather the worse for wear and it has been suggested that it may have been moved from the chapel of Sheriff Hutton Castle. It has also been suggested that it is too early in style to be said Edward, but is more likely to be a member of the Neville family (on the basis of heraldry) of the earlier part of the 15th century. It is assumed to represent a young person, as the figure is not in armour or bearing arms, as you might expect of an adult of this social standing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Effigies which are less than life sized do not necessarily represent children. Smaller depictions have been known to indicate heart burials, that rather odd (to us) medieval ritual whereby a person's heart, or occasionally other innards, was buried in a different place to the rest of the body. This sometimes happened when a person died away from their home or from some place especially dear to them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zP5_AJQIR_8/Vo9FIlVmIxI/AAAAAAAABPo/Z5HYG45AJfA/s1600/winchestertomb1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zP5_AJQIR_8/Vo9FIlVmIxI/AAAAAAAABPo/Z5HYG45AJfA/s320/winchestertomb1b.JPG" width="319" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This little half effigy of a bishop in Winchester Cathedral is actually holding his heart, which is a clue. He has been identified as Aymer de Valance (d.1261). So size doesn't really matter in this case.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8i9u2dchgYA/Vo9IFO_NQRI/AAAAAAAABP0/5CLBzuYgGjs/s1600/felbriggbrass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8i9u2dchgYA/Vo9IFO_NQRI/AAAAAAAABP0/5CLBzuYgGjs/s400/felbriggbrass1.JPG" width="225" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The Roger de Felbrigg of Felbrigg, Norfolk, commemorated on this approximately half sized brass effigy of the late 14th century is not buried here at all as he died in Prussia, as it says on the tomb inscription. This is part of a brass composition to four individuals, only two of whom were buried on the site. Brasses particularly tended to get smaller over time, particularly over the course of the 15th century. Size did matter, but as a signifier of wealth and influence, not of the age of the deceased.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2t5soaSpyjw/Vo9MKq0k-SI/AAAAAAAABQA/Lha9mrzEUqY/s1600/fileyeffigy1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2t5soaSpyjw/Vo9MKq0k-SI/AAAAAAAABQA/Lha9mrzEUqY/s400/fileyeffigy1.JPG" width="176" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Given this, there is no real reason to assume that small three dimensional effigies, especially quaintly unique little figures, out of context, in out of the way rural places, such as this miniature effigy stuck up on a wall in the parish church of Filey, East Yorkshire, represent children. They may be heart burials, commemorative depictions of somebody buried somewhere else or just modest little efforts produced for folks of less lavish means.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pXt6fxw0p4w/Vo9OqJNy1xI/AAAAAAAABQM/2S2gC7aL5KQ/s1600/blicklingbrass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pXt6fxw0p4w/Vo9OqJNy1xI/AAAAAAAABQM/2S2gC7aL5KQ/s400/blicklingbrass1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There are occasional depictions on brasses of the late 15th and early 16th centuries of infants who died in childbirth, frequently along with the mother. This tiny brass from Blickling in Norfolk shows a mother with twins, an eventuality which must have increased the perils of childbirth. The newborn state of the babies is signified in these monuments by the fact that they are firmly wrapped in swaddling clothes. The inscription begins with a standard expression "Orate pro anima" (Pray for the soul of ...), which relates to the necessity for prayer to get the soul of the deceased out of purgatory. This is a theme which permeates so much of medieval tomb iconography, even without the specific wording. But, the inscription only asks us to pray for the soul of the mother, not the departed infants who are identified simply as a boy and a girl.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> As I keep saying, the concept of purgatory is simply a late medieval Christian formulation for the more general concept of liminality in death. It is necessary to create a space and a time frame for the living to accommodate themselves to a sudden and drastic change of state in their personal lives. Death is just too abrupt. It happens in many and diverse cultures of different religious persuasions. The same applies to birth. There is a pervasive idea that infants who die at birth have not actually made it into the land of the living. In some cultures it was believed that they actually went to a separate place to return when the next pregnancy occurred. The corpses of infants were sometimes treated differently to those of others to indicate that they were not gone forever.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There is a temptation to see something of this in the depiction of newborn infants in swaddling clothes. Perhaps it is a sort of reminder to God (who as we know is a forgetful old duffer who has to be constantly reminded of his obligations in the affairs of humankind) that these little souls didn't quite make it to earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vUyPLH8fnF8/Vo9VaBbUTNI/AAAAAAAABQc/hnIoq9qxM-E/s1600/burtonagnestomb1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vUyPLH8fnF8/Vo9VaBbUTNI/AAAAAAAABQc/hnIoq9qxM-E/s400/burtonagnestomb1a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2H3Jx6lTas4/Vo9Va8fAOtI/AAAAAAAABQk/gXZ-1diCub4/s1600/burtonagnestomb1e.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2H3Jx6lTas4/Vo9Va8fAOtI/AAAAAAAABQk/gXZ-1diCub4/s320/burtonagnestomb1e.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Children were often enough depicted on the tombs of their parents, but they weren't depicted as children and they weren't necessarily dead at the time. This 15th century tomb in Burton Agnes church, East Yorkshire, shows a miniature knight in plate armour lying beside the effigy of his mother. This was not a bizarre fashion in infant clothing. The suit of armour was an indicator of his social status. The tiny size does not mean this this is a representation of a dead baby, even one in a symbolic suit of armour. Children depicted on tombs were simply drawn that way; smaller. The weeper figures arranged around the tomb chest are figures of saints, but sometimes representations of the children were used for this purpose.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N77AghfjD-o/Vo9ekcsHxXI/AAAAAAAABQ0/3zbziKw9pdo/s1600/westminsterediiitomb3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N77AghfjD-o/Vo9ekcsHxXI/AAAAAAAABQ0/3zbziKw9pdo/s400/westminsterediiitomb3.JPG" width="307" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> <span style="color: blue;">Photograph from Pratt, Helen Marshall (1914) Westminster Abbey: Its Architecture, History and Monuments: New York via the fabulous Internet Archive.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Children were deployed in this way on the tomb of Edward III in Westminster Abbey, which brings us back to where we started. Originally the tomb had all his multitudinous children arrayed around the chest, but time was no kinder to royal tombs than to others and only six remain, of which the one on the far right is William de Hatfield. The living and the departed children are depicted no differently. They are symbols, but of what? Fertility? Succession? Family obligation to the soul of the deceased? All of the above?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m6NgYYIeqPo/Vo9gr1KrsbI/AAAAAAAABRA/h4Gp7QglSWY/s1600/blicklingbrass6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="332" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m6NgYYIeqPo/Vo9gr1KrsbI/AAAAAAAABRA/h4Gp7QglSWY/s400/blicklingbrass6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This tiny little brass from Blickling, Norfolk, shows firstly, the prolific reproduction and by inference, sturdy physical robustness of many late medieval women, and secondly, the way that children on brasses were rendered as identical symbols without any form of individuality. They are shown as small, but they are dressed as adults. They do not represent mass family extinction. Just because they were depicted on a tomb does not indicate that they were dead. Perhaps, harking back to the liminality theme, they represent a transition from the family united and alive to the family parted by death, readjusting to a new reality.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The question has to be asked as to how children were commemorated in death. In the absence of physical evidence that is rather hard to answer. Perhaps the deaths of children were regarded as a matter for private grief, not for public display either for religious or social reasons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gdZXPHfFIDo/Vo9lydkSgFI/AAAAAAAABRQ/RxOTeJ78bKQ/s1600/scarcliffetomb1b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gdZXPHfFIDo/Vo9lydkSgFI/AAAAAAAABRQ/RxOTeJ78bKQ/s400/scarcliffetomb1b.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Post medieval tombs could depict women who had died in childbirth with their dead babies in their arms, but apart from the little chrysom brasses, this is not found in pre-Reformation tombs, which is one of the reasons the sculpture above, of a woman named as Constantia de Frecheville in the church of Scarcliffe, Derbyshire, is most likely a fake, or at least a mashup of a tomb effigy and an image of the Virgin Mary. Different ages present their sentiments and emotions in different ways.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-32684932825745192172015-12-19T17:07:00.001+11:002015-12-19T17:23:21.779+11:00Heritage Sites: Trendy and Not Trendy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DFvnJLf0FpE/VnTQaoyUqWI/AAAAAAAABM0/sCxc9euWtiA/s1600/rievaulxengraving.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DFvnJLf0FpE/VnTQaoyUqWI/AAAAAAAABM0/sCxc9euWtiA/s400/rievaulxengraving.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> During the course of sorting and optimising hundreds of old photographs in order to be able to use them online, I am beginning to see through some of the filters which we put on our interpretation of the past. This was part of the point of the exercise. The way we see medieval sites today is mediated through hundreds of years of history, and yet what we see in front of our eyes, tidied and explained by the heritage industry, defines our perception of people, societies, communities and events.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The above is an engraving of Rievaulx Abbey in beautiful North Yorkshire, derived from a drawing by Turner. It practically defines our image of a Cistercian abbey, even though it was utterly dead and ruinous at the time of its depiction. We imagine something isolated and silent in a wild landscape of unpopulated hills. We imagine the monks walking solemnly, without chatter, no sound echoing off the hills but the melodic singing of the offices. It's a kind of comforting image in today's frantic world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The engraving conforms to what we know about the practicalities of Cistercian monasteries. They did build in isolated sites away from towns. The location in the bottom of the valley and the romantic little stone bridge in the foreground indicate their relationship with running water, for sanitation and for rural production.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Osa21vjz6WA/VnTXTTQEsVI/AAAAAAAABNE/kZXCPcy3inI/s1600/rievaulx05.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Osa21vjz6WA/VnTXTTQEsVI/AAAAAAAABNE/kZXCPcy3inI/s400/rievaulx05.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This romantic imaging was perpetuated by post-medieval owners of the site. From the Rievaulx Terraces, now managed by the National Trust, there were gaps cut through the trees and shrubbery to provide a series of picturesque views of the simple but grand and stately remains. You can imagine the matin bell tolling across the peaceful valley.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In fact, this would have been a busy community. While the monks said their offices, an army of lay brothers carried out the practical duties around the place. There were rural estates providing income and provisions for the community, with the necessary comings and goings. There were important visitors staying in the guest house. There were masons and builders continually adding and renovating. Those massive churches and cloisters were not just deposited there by the angels. There were mills grinding flour and breweries making beer and armies of cooks toiling away in large kitchens. It was probably busier and noisier then than it is now, even on a bank holiday.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I2MqGtvQR-s/VnTdKqnSgsI/AAAAAAAABNU/Z6IefeXMSpQ/s1600/fountains16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I2MqGtvQR-s/VnTdKqnSgsI/AAAAAAAABNU/Z6IefeXMSpQ/s400/fountains16.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Fountains Abbey (above) and Rievaulx Abbey are visited by thousands of people taking in the medieval Cistercian experience. The completeness of their remains and the delightfulness of their surrounds convince us we are immersing ourselves in that world. Other Cistercian remains in Yorkshire like Byland Abbey, Jervaulx Abbey or Roche Abbey are pleasant ruins, but perhaps a bit harder to comprehend in their incompleteness. Then there is Kirkstall Abbey.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K7xkeHYZmK4/VnTesEtsaRI/AAAAAAAABNg/6w3h_t_uCYw/s1600/kirkstall15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K7xkeHYZmK4/VnTesEtsaRI/AAAAAAAABNg/6w3h_t_uCYw/s400/kirkstall15.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Situated in the middle of suburban West Yorkshire sprawl where Leeds and Bradford have kind of oozed together, it lacks the romantic charm of being marooned in a country estate. The walls are blackened with West Yorkshire industrial muck. When the Cistercians built there it was a rural site like the others, sited in a valley bottom by a river in standard form. Even by the late 18th century it appears to have still been farming land. William Bray in his Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire ... etc etc, of 1783, decries the attitude of the owner of the Kirkstall estate, the Duke of Mountague, for allowing his cattle to wander through the church ruins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Vea7DFJeWUI/VnTi-IVNpaI/AAAAAAAABNs/vMYh56WcNS8/s1600/kirkstall07.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Vea7DFJeWUI/VnTi-IVNpaI/AAAAAAAABNs/vMYh56WcNS8/s400/kirkstall07.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It is, however, as complete a ruin as either Fountains or Rievaulx and conveys the complexity of a Cistercian community just as well, albeit with an added layer of urban grime. Yet somehow, because it is in a place whose fame depends on later industrialisation, we let that override the medieval past. Medieval events and processes did not happen outside areas of industrial revolution growth. These happened over the top of them, but not all traces were obliterated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I recently undertook, with my good mate Sjoerd Levelt whom I have never met, the task of reading Camden's Britannia in English translation from beginning to end. We egged each other along by tweeting the experience with the hashtag #DoomBritain. It was notable that Camden had as many murderous tales of the medieval aristocracy, dodgy etymologies and mythological historical events for Doncaster and Halifax, Pontefract and Leeds, as he did for the more romantically preserved medieval places.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M-4rjTJfnoE/VnTl9Ev62UI/AAAAAAAABN4/fyc-n1HAejM/s1600/batleytomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M-4rjTJfnoE/VnTl9Ev62UI/AAAAAAAABN4/fyc-n1HAejM/s400/batleytomb1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The family medievalist grew up in the industrial towns of the West Riding and was amazed to discover that there are fine medieval alabaster tombs, albeit a little browned by their environment, in Batley, for example. He lived there at one time and didn't imagine such things were to be found in the townscape of dreary terraces and housing estates which characterise parts of West Yorkshire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PzUyXto7OKQ/VnTnqoApIDI/AAAAAAAABOE/xRI5GzF1raU/s1600/thornhilltomb2a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PzUyXto7OKQ/VnTnqoApIDI/AAAAAAAABOE/xRI5GzF1raU/s400/thornhilltomb2a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Thornhill, now practically a suburb of Leeds, also has a share of fine medieval tomb monuments, just as elegant as those on the Harewood estate but less romantically situated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8jX5-tX17lI/VnTog16mU4I/AAAAAAAABOQ/ak32Dk2ptSA/s1600/thornhillglass2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8jX5-tX17lI/VnTog16mU4I/AAAAAAAABOQ/ak32Dk2ptSA/s400/thornhillglass2.JPG" width="370" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It also has some fine 15th century stained glass, of the York school but showing that you don't have to be surrounded by lovely white wedding cake walls in order to have some treasures.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-epyhNnNmcD4/VnTqkKDrYKI/AAAAAAAABOc/Tuw9SOAJdOU/s1600/hwhousteads08.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-epyhNnNmcD4/VnTqkKDrYKI/AAAAAAAABOc/Tuw9SOAJdOU/s400/hwhousteads08.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A similar mindset applies to older remains. Hadrian's Wall is typified in our thoughts as a lonely set of outposts stretching across empty bits of Britain. I took the same photographs as everybody else does. In fact, for the one above there could be a little platform with footmarks in it to show you how to get that same shot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8QsSZvmx39A/VnTrkbcL5KI/AAAAAAAABOo/xCM6kVrUb-s/s1600/vindolanda2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8QsSZvmx39A/VnTrkbcL5KI/AAAAAAAABOo/xCM6kVrUb-s/s400/vindolanda2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Things do keep changing though. There have been ongoing excavations at Vindolanda to reveal more about the settlement history. Bits of the wall in other areas have been repaired. But even more interesting, the foundations of the end of the wall at Wallsend have been discovered, not in the remote wastes of Northumberland or Cumbria but under the cleared remains of a now defunct shipyard by the river Tyne. The industrial drama of the 19th and 20th centuries has had its time upon the stage and exited, leaving traces of the earlier history still there. This keeps happening all over Britain. Our perception of medieval and earlier heritage cannot be constrained by post-medieval romanticism. To get a true picture we must look for the traces in our more modern landscapes as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I remember once getting slightly lost in the middle of the city of London. I was doing the revolving lighthouse thing trying to get my bearings amid a forest of steel and glass towers with no reference points except the street names like Pudding Lane and Bread Street, harking right back to the Great Fire and beyond. It doesn't go away, it's just hiding.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7-T5crHCu5A/VnTu2Z9c7UI/AAAAAAAABO8/7DJ0z-GKKNI/s1600/hullbeverleybar2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7-T5crHCu5A/VnTu2Z9c7UI/AAAAAAAABO8/7DJ0z-GKKNI/s400/hullbeverleybar2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Hull, washed up old port and fishing town, bombed to bits in the Second World War, is a bit of a daggy elderly place. I don't know where discussions are up to right now but they were contemplating burying a bit of their history, the Beverley gate foundations, to save the bother of looking after it. You can't imagine that happening in York. They would be having a re-enactment every year of the citizens telling the king to "booger off", all wearing funny hats and big 17th century boots.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, except that heritage should not just be about romanticism, but about history. Help people to find it in the places where it is not so easily seen.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-51368730641220819822015-10-24T18:29:00.000+11:002015-10-24T18:29:24.148+11:00Not Just a Big Church<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I have recently become aware that, with all the nattering on Twitter about Camden and blogging about tombs, I still have about a zillion roughly digitised old photographs to clean up and sort, including numbers that I took of monasteries, cathedrals, hospitals and collegiate churches. What fascinated me about these institutions is how they were entire communities among themselves, connected into the greater society but at least partially self supporting, with their own networks and hierarchies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In fact, the western medieval church can be seen as a society in itself, part of the society of the nations where it resided but not entirely of them, partly a transnational social system with its own rules and structures. As is well known, the relations between secular governments and church authority could get seriously bumpy at times.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The nature of church society and its relationship with secular society changed drastically over the course of the medieval era. There is an image of monks of the Dark Ages living solitary, ascetic lives of literate scholarship, apart from secular society. By the 15th century monasteries were big business enterprises of major economic significance and senior churchmen were influential people wheeling and dealing in the land. In my investigations of important medieval towns (now a defunct multimedia project waiting for a Lazarus revival), it became apparent just what proportion of town real estate had become the property of major church institutions of various kinds. Their impressions on the townscape can still be seen today, even if there is not a stone to show above ground. The big institutions of 19th century urban revival, such as railway stations, libraries, museums or theatres, were often built on land that had formerly belonged to long departed friaries, collegiate churches or the appurtenances to cathedrals. There must have been something there in the meantime, but presumably nothing that couldn't be knocked down.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> It is these accidents of survival and destruction that give us our impression of the medieval church through heritage monuments. I have started tweeting some of these pictures with the hashtag #notjustabigchurch as I go along, to try to build up a picture of the whole pattern.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gXVnzQgxG-Q/VisdodkoTaI/AAAAAAAABKs/e_hmXW4gvfM/s1600/fountains04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gXVnzQgxG-Q/VisdodkoTaI/AAAAAAAABKs/e_hmXW4gvfM/s400/fountains04.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The magnificent Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire preserves much of its structure and complexity, giving us a glimpse of all the facets of life that were conducted there. Because Cistercian abbeys were usually tucked away in remote spots, it wasn't worth anyone's trouble to try to cart away the raw materials. So we have a mental image of monasteries as tucked away in the romantic hills as isolated communities. But they are now ruins. After the Reformation, Fountains Abbey served as a large garden ornament.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aqnNsWGrSY4/Vishl3iZrfI/AAAAAAAABK4/0RQIPA1prUQ/s1600/peterborough.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aqnNsWGrSY4/Vishl3iZrfI/AAAAAAAABK4/0RQIPA1prUQ/s400/peterborough.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Town monasteries that had the good fortune to be converted to cathedrals at the Reformation, like Peterborough above, at least avoided the fate of demolition of their churches, but the survival of all the conventual buildings was dubious, and of course they became crowded around with all the modern appurtenances; living things still, not fossils of an ancient type of society.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iXAxr34mSTk/VisjwQ6F28I/AAAAAAAABLE/gDOl2207BcM/s1600/selby.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iXAxr34mSTk/VisjwQ6F28I/AAAAAAAABLE/gDOl2207BcM/s1600/selby.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The abbey church of Selby survived by becoming a parish church, but no cloister or conventual buildings remain at all. It is now just a big church, and offers few hints about the community that founded, developed, lived and worshipped in it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--PlfmTYad5I/Visl_2Wb3ZI/AAAAAAAABLQ/ioNriYGFMug/s1600/blackfriars.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--PlfmTYad5I/Visl_2Wb3ZI/AAAAAAAABLQ/ioNriYGFMug/s1600/blackfriars.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the major towns, the four orders of friars steadily commandeered quantities of inner city space and their institutions were large and sprawling. Blackfriars' Hall in Norwich was the nave of a huge Dominican preaching church. It and the other surviving buildings and fragments in the complex give some idea of the scope of these enterprises, but these are rare survivals in the towns.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ARnCfYUvRXU/VisnqnMfsGI/AAAAAAAABLc/3zeinihknJI/s1600/gloucesterdominican.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ARnCfYUvRXU/VisnqnMfsGI/AAAAAAAABLc/3zeinihknJI/s1600/gloucesterdominican.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Fragments may survive as multiply re-used fragments, as in the remains of the Dominican Friary in Gloucester. This is a rather desolate wreckage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qWCaT21Oo4I/VisosPSQJMI/AAAAAAAABLo/ooMiuZM7A5I/s1600/richmondfranciscan.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qWCaT21Oo4I/VisosPSQJMI/AAAAAAAABLo/ooMiuZM7A5I/s400/richmondfranciscan.JPG" width="280" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Or there might be some poor decontexted abandoned relic, like this isolated tower from the Franciscan church in Richmond, Yorkshire. Or there might be a few sculpted stones in a heap, or a street called Blackfriars Lane, or a car park with a king buried under it, or nothing recognisable at all. It is very hard to conjure up the lives of the friars from the relics of built heritage that are left behind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zq0ts8F10uI/VisrIxEVdUI/AAAAAAAABL0/gqIXPJF-SVk/s1600/beverleyminsterext4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zq0ts8F10uI/VisrIxEVdUI/AAAAAAAABL0/gqIXPJF-SVk/s400/beverleyminsterext4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Collegiate churches, occupied by secular canons rather than monks, were also complex communities. Because they didn't serve as parish churches, they became extraneous and many became ruinous, partly ruinous or lost. Beverley Minster got lucky, but was only saved in the nick of time before the north transept fell down. The lumpy green pasture beside it once housed an archbishop's palace, but it and all other buildings of community living are vanished. Some undistinguished buildings by the minster hold the remains of canons' houses in their innards.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-orJqLSoj0rg/VisupH35IWI/AAAAAAAABMA/1SecWu0_daw/s1600/yorkbedern.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-orJqLSoj0rg/VisupH35IWI/AAAAAAAABMA/1SecWu0_daw/s400/yorkbedern.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In York in the 1970s there were scruffy little inner city alleyways where you could find mysterious stuff like this, right near the tourist hub of the minster as you can see. This area has all been rejuvenated, consolidated and beautified. It was the Bedern, where the vicars choral who did duty in the Minster lived and ate and carried out their private devotions. The whole community was lost under the jumble of close packed later building. It wasn't just the monasteries that formed communities, the secular clergy had them as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6NUQ9RS4GSQ/ViswwWvsPPI/AAAAAAAABMM/agUrtIAiLYI/s1600/winchesterstcross06.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6NUQ9RS4GSQ/ViswwWvsPPI/AAAAAAAABMM/agUrtIAiLYI/s400/winchesterstcross06.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Hospitals were also large religious communities, housing members of religious orders as well as the lay inmates who were being cared for. St Cross Hospital in Winchester has enough surviving structure to give an impression of this communal life, as well as still carrying out something that resembles its original function. Many others fell to decay after the Reformation, during a couple of centuries when charitable provision became a bit dodgy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I am continuing to plough through the photographs, hoping to eventually be able to put something together to show how these communities within communities functioned. I am slogging my way through monastic communities right now. The work in progress can be seen on my Flickr site as a <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hipbookfairy/collections/72157659911957731/" target="_blank">monastic collection</a>. Tasters can be found by following the hashtag #notjustabigchurch on Twitter. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Meanwhile, I haven't abandoned medieval tombs or my travels with Leland or manuscripts and paleography. Everything in its own good time.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-56780718865278633342015-09-11T18:38:00.000+10:002015-09-11T18:47:57.456+10:00What's With Medieval Tombs? Part 14 What Happened to Them During the Middle Ages?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> We have a mental concept of tomb memorials as being forever: an eternal reminder of those we have lost and perhaps a reminder to the world of who we are on the basis of who our ancestors were. Medieval tombs seem to have been part of a process; aids to passing from this world to the next and not necessarily designed for eternity. I have been flogging the concept of liminality in this series, and how the doctrine of purgatory gave a formal church structure to this concept, which is found in some form in practically every culture.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Certainly tombs were destroyed through accidents of history, but there are some cliches lurking around on this subject. Yes, Henry VIII dissolved and repossessed the monasteries, destroying many church structures and their contents in the process. Nasty bastard that he was, nevertheless it doesn't seem that he set about attempting to destroy every tomb in the land, just the ones that were in the way. The Reformation put an end to purgatory, but there were ways of modifying the memorial to the family ancestors without destroying it utterly. More on that another day. Puritans knocked medieval religious art around, but tombs have survived where stained glass or wall paintings have been demolished.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There are clues that in the medieval period itself, tombs were destroyed, removed or re-used. First let's contemplate the logistics. Churches were for saying mass and the office, and for the congregation to worship. The most prestigious place for burial and commemoration was in the chancel near the altar. Over the centuries, how many people vied for that coveted spot, especially in a small village church? And how many times were they replaced?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H-P9h20v6ow/VeVMoltcw0I/AAAAAAAABH4/VHUdYJq0QLw/s1600/coatesbystowroodscreen.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H-P9h20v6ow/VeVMoltcw0I/AAAAAAAABH4/VHUdYJq0QLw/s320/coatesbystowroodscreen.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The tiny church of Coates-by-Stow in Lincolnshire. Not much room for competitive mortuary commemoration in a minute space like this.</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Spending a bit of the family fortune on building a mortuary chapel might ensure continuity by claiming a bit of real estate in the church, but it is intriguing how often these chapels contain tombs from a limited period of time, somehow just representing the salad days of a local dynasty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1aNsRTL_n4/VeVNokl9M0I/AAAAAAAABIE/EIdSYaL-5ZE/s1600/harphamstqchapel1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y1aNsRTL_n4/VeVNokl9M0I/AAAAAAAABIE/EIdSYaL-5ZE/s320/harphamstqchapel1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The St Quentin chapel in Harpham church on the East Yorkshire wolds contains tombs from a range of dates and styles; stone, incised slab and brasses from the 14th and 15th centuries as well as post-medieval wall monuments. Symbolic of family significance over centuries in a small rural village.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lw5UynAtobk/VeVPwxoib6I/AAAAAAAABIQ/w2zLwDgUhok/s1600/harewood1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lw5UynAtobk/VeVPwxoib6I/AAAAAAAABIQ/w2zLwDgUhok/s320/harewood1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> On the other hand, the alabaster tombs of Harewood in Yorkshire represent a more limited time span. They were originally located in a family chapel, but have been moved around the church over time. I wrote about these in a <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-8.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Churches got added to and altered over the course of the middle ages, as evidenced by the changes to architectural styles within individual buildings. Fittings and furnishings and monuments would have got moved around. The mortal remains of those buried there got moved around. There was probably a time after which these things had served their religious, spiritual and ceremonial usefulness. The reasons for preserving the tomb of a family ancestor may have shifted into the social sphere, where they were always grounded in the first place, but vigilance of surviving family would have been required to conserve the relics of family honour.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4RnBsofQdXE/VeVRa_d8J4I/AAAAAAAABIc/g-s-PkRYpMw/s1600/eastringtontomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4RnBsofQdXE/VeVRa_d8J4I/AAAAAAAABIc/g-s-PkRYpMw/s320/eastringtontomb1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In Eastrington church, Yorkshire, a couple of stone effigies have been roughly squared off and used to patch a gap in the wall. Heaven knows when this was done, but these objects were clearly only valued for their raw materials by this time.</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Before effigy tombs became the big thing, those buried inside the church were commemorated with flat or low relief slabs set into the floor. Sometimes these bore identifying inscriptions, and sometimes not. Often they were inscribed with symbols such as a sword, keys, shears, chalice to identify the profession or status of the individual commemorated, as well as a variant on the crucifix, often in the elaborated form known as a floriated cross. These have been moved around the churches, often to sites unrelated to places of burial.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VxnrmU3nm6U/VeVUOiTuoQI/AAAAAAAABIo/CfHV71epCL0/s1600/sproatleycrossslab.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VxnrmU3nm6U/VeVUOiTuoQI/AAAAAAAABIo/CfHV71epCL0/s400/sproatleycrossslab.JPG" width="168" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A floriated cross slab in the church of Sproatley, East Yorkshire, with a depiction of a chalice and paten, indicating that it commemorated a priest. It has an inscription, which is far from universal with these slabs. It leans against the wall, which is often where these things got parked when discovered in odd places during the course of church restorations.</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Such tomb slabs are also easy material for reappropriation. All that is needed is to carve a new inscription, or simply place it in a new setting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RUrcG5dyPvE/VeVVKUqnb3I/AAAAAAAABI0/W1rvDzCYHLw/s1600/aldboroughtomb1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RUrcG5dyPvE/VeVVKUqnb3I/AAAAAAAABI0/W1rvDzCYHLw/s320/aldboroughtomb1.JPG" width="191" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This floriated cross slab from Aldborough, North Yorkshire, has been reappropriated with a later inscription carved over the base of the cross, upside down to the original. The incised heraldic shield has been given a modern coat of paint.</span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The porch of Bakewell church in Derbyshire contains numerous tomb slabs of this type, propped against the wall, no longer where they were placed for the death ceremonies of those they were commemorating. The church of Brancepeth in county Durham suffered a disastrous fire in 1998, after which it was discovered that numbers of these tomb lids had been hidden in the walls. These are preserved, but no longer in their place of honour.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-13lvRxvS3T4/VeVWx8gKdmI/AAAAAAAABJA/x44xGuZx0c8/s1600/bakewelltomb3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-13lvRxvS3T4/VeVWx8gKdmI/AAAAAAAABJA/x44xGuZx0c8/s400/bakewelltomb3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> This is just a sample of the slabs at Bakewell, representing more tombs than you could imagine artfully arranged on the floor at any one time and highly suggestive that they had a limited life in their original position.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The reappropriation of effigy tombs is at its most unequivocal in the case of some brasses.The earliest brasses in England were large, hefty things containing much metal. Some of them were big rectagonal plates imported from Flanders. Sometimes when later medieval brasses have been lifted from the floor for restoration or whatever, it has been discovered that they have been made from these larger, older sheets, turned over and cut up. These are referred to as palimpsests, a term appropriated somewhat inaccurately from manuscript studies, where a palimpsest refers to a sheet of parchment which has been scraped down and written over the top.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-936c7-c_fRQ/VeVeVGxnz_I/AAAAAAAABJQ/3lHFBlwmlKI/s1600/ossingtonbrass1a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-936c7-c_fRQ/VeVeVGxnz_I/AAAAAAAABJQ/3lHFBlwmlKI/s320/ossingtonbrass1a.JPG" width="257" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Rubbing of a rather sweet little 16th century brass, just post-Reformation but in medieval tradition, from Ossington in Nottinghamshire. The date is 1551, just before the succession of Queen Mary, but the brass has an inscription invoking prayers for the souls of the departed, just showing that everything was not as simple as some folks would like to believe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gevX64RvcRU/VeVgo1jbpuI/AAAAAAAABJc/VMk6c6OrNyk/s1600/ossingtonbrass1c.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gevX64RvcRU/VeVgo1jbpuI/AAAAAAAABJc/VMk6c6OrNyk/s320/ossingtonbrass1c.JPG" width="251" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Photograph of a rubbing of the reverse of the brass, showing that it is made of buts cut out of a larger and bolder composition. Some bits look like the mass vestments of a priest and there is a little dog at the feet of a figure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RJCGfy9xIMU/VeVh7oMHAUI/AAAAAAAABJo/UyKRxQuSeZc/s1600/halvergatebrass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RJCGfy9xIMU/VeVh7oMHAUI/AAAAAAAABJo/UyKRxQuSeZc/s320/halvergatebrass1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bOIA-dH_NcY/VeVh8eaeCyI/AAAAAAAABJw/3W2t4suop7Y/s1600/halvergatebrass2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bOIA-dH_NcY/VeVh8eaeCyI/AAAAAAAABJw/3W2t4suop7Y/s320/halvergatebrass2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The above represent two sides of the same plate, which has simply been flipped and a new image engraved on the reverse, from Halvergate in Norfolk. The earlier figure is a friar, Frater William Jernmuth and the later one is identified as the wife of Robard Swane (d.1540). You might be forgiven for thinking that the lady is no improvement on the original composition.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In many cases it is clear that tomb effigies have been moved around the church, sometimes placed on tombs where they don't fit, or the tombs themselves have been moved into smaller spaces with the loss of some of their panelling. Sections of panelling don't always match. It may be quite unclear when this has actually happened, but I am sure it is not all post-Reformation vandalism. The builders of the royal tombs of Westminster Abbey were quite unfazed about hacking into and damaging those of previous monarchs. There is a <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-5.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> about this too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SoZthgPhGqk/VfKKxFHJ__I/AAAAAAAABKI/6n4PU7Df5j0/s1600/eastringtomtomb3a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SoZthgPhGqk/VfKKxFHJ__I/AAAAAAAABKI/6n4PU7Df5j0/s400/eastringtomtomb3a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A tomb in Eastrington, Yorkshire, which appears to be made up from a miscellany of ill assorted panels.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The ceremonies of death had a range of time cycles, as mentioned in a <a href="http://diannesmedievalwriting.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/whats-with-medieval-tombs-part-9.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>. Some of these were in the period leading up to actual interment and others continued after death. Just how much depended on wealth and status. The most wealthy and elevated might acquire a chantry chapel where a priest was employed to say continuous masses for years, or until the endowment ran out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u6A69nYliIY/VfKOPkwH_lI/AAAAAAAABKU/Dp0nrnhhFwQ/s1600/exeterchantry1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u6A69nYliIY/VfKOPkwH_lI/AAAAAAAABKU/Dp0nrnhhFwQ/s400/exeterchantry1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> An elaborate chantry chapel in Exeter cathedral. These things tend to be found in large major churches, I guess for obvious reasons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> For lesser mortals the priest might be paid to say mass on various commemoration dates and anniversaries, while the poorest and simplest had to make do with an annual prayer for the souls of all who had no other conduit to the almighty. By the late middle ages the access to church rituals had gone a long way from the teachings of Jesus.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The artistic effort of these rituals included the use of expensive but ephemeral materials; banners, hangings, fabric drapery and quantities of fancy beeswax candles. Possibly rough freestone tomb effigies covered with fragile and delicate gesso designs and painted in a riot of colours may have been regarded as expensive ephemera. Ritual destruction of wealth has been a feature of funerary commemoration in many cultures of the past. Spend a bucketload of money on an expensive effigy which might only last until the one for the next generation replaces it and you are a rich and powerful person indeed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Perhaps that is why so many battered effigies are found in tiny little country churches. They may simply represent the last person in the village to be able to afford such extravagance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37270168.post-59659397970282234872015-08-23T13:58:00.000+10:002015-08-23T14:08:14.517+10:00Flying Solo on the Word Wild Web<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I have had a website on medieval paleography and written culture up and running for around 15 years now, with my email contact on it. This blog has been running for a few years. A Flickr site has been up for a couple of years I guess, initially just for my personal use to help me organise and put into usable digital form a large and messy collection of photographs, but now with some embryonic developing projects. I also tweet in order to keep in touch with people and keep up to date with things. They all provide channels of communication.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Periodically I get little waves of communication through email, blog comments or tweets, some of which seem slightly peculiar. I guess when you get out of the institutional environment where the protocols of communication and the hierarchies of expertise are carefully mapped, you get different perspective on how people perceive knowledge and expertise. As the various modes of internet communication have developed, the nature of the chains of communication has changed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> In the early days a common request was from schoolkids wanting answers to very simple questions, or suggestions on subjects for their projects. When I hinted that I thought the idea of their school exercise was to look things up for themselves, I sometimes got told that the teachers had told them to get on the internet and ask somebody. Teachers have got a lot more savvy about the use of the internet since then and I haven't had one of those for a long time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wuRIuwdxneA/VdgYMfsosgI/AAAAAAAABGg/Ij52xY1iGHw/s1600/yorksmcglass1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wuRIuwdxneA/VdgYMfsosgI/AAAAAAAABGg/Ij52xY1iGHw/s400/yorksmcglass1.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I do remember that one of these ran along the lines of "I have to do a project on saints. Do you know any good ones?" Erm. The randomly selected one above is from St Mary Castlegate in York.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Another common communication from the early days involved suggestions for external links for my website, often to very generalised link pages like about.com or Wikipedia or even student assignments or the little hobby pages of individuals pasted together out of scraps from other parts of the internet. With the vast amount of valuable and authoritative information now being loaded on to the internet by all manner of organisations and institutions, these suggestions tend to get drowned in the flood. Replying to such suggestions involved care and discretion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Wikipedia has come a long way since then, even if it still has a lot further to go. One strange discussion got entangled with medieval nomina sacra abbreviations and the Holy Trinity. I know a bit about the first but get a bit lost in the haze with the intricacies of the second, but I remember having to try to explain, as tactfully as possible, that writing an article for Wikipedia then citing it yourself isn't the most totally convincing mode of academic argument, especially back in those days when conflicting views on Wikipedia dissolved into all in cyberbrawls.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NJzsZHdJzTg/VdgcZncy9NI/AAAAAAAABGs/IyGqzIdrV6w/s1600/thornhillglass3a.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="140" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NJzsZHdJzTg/VdgcZncy9NI/AAAAAAAABGs/IyGqzIdrV6w/s400/thornhillglass3a.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Symbolic representations in Thornhill church, Yorkshire.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> A facet which continues to this day is the belief that anyone publishing on the web is a recognised world expert, and furthermore, in a vast array of fields. I have been asked questions on obscure aspects of paleography, textual history and analysis, iconographic representation, authenticity, stuff dug up by metal detectorists, medieval law, medicine and heraldry. Heraldry! I wish the College of Arms would put up a decent website that at least explains some of the concepts of heraldry and why no single individual, let alone one who has never got very deeply into the subject, knows the coats of arms of everyone who ever bore one from the dawn of the concept to the days of somebody's grandfather's boarding school. I've been sent pictures of arms on things from seals to teaspoons to 19th century boilerplates. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8QQYWuUz2U4/VdghQdiLk_I/AAAAAAAABG4/QgabgiT0EEI/s1600/yorkasnsglass6d.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8QQYWuUz2U4/VdghQdiLk_I/AAAAAAAABG4/QgabgiT0EEI/s320/yorkasnsglass6d.JPG" width="293" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> All Saints North Street, York. Treasure house of glass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Then there is the business of reading the legends on seals. Fortunately most of them just say SIGILLUM FREDDI MERCURI or some such, but that always seems to be disappointing to the inquirer. They think they contain coded information. I did manage to partially untangle a trickily organised inscription in old French on a gold ring once (Yay.) but the finder was taking it to the British Museum anyway and I'm sure they did a much better job.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The queries about reading old stuff can be diverse and intriguing. I love the letters from folks who have been trying to decipher something for ten years but think I should knock it off for them over the weekend, with my vast knowledge of every script in use before about 1900 and every language known to man. Sometimes it's only something they've bought on eBay or in an antique shop and you're not sure why they want to know anyway. Other times it's some family thing that they suspect contains an amazing privilege, or links to great people or events, or perhaps the ownership of a suppressed abbey reclaimed by the crown and granted to a family ancestor. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The latter are sometimes very secretive. They want to show you something of their Amazing Document, but they don't actually want you to know what is in it, in case you gazump them and go claim their abbey or something. So they send a picture of a little corner of it, often chopped off without whole words being displayed and you can't see the whole alphabet or how the letters go together. When you say you think it looks 15th century or whatever, but you really don't have enough information to tell them much else, they think you're holding out on them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Envj3C9Wy2A/VdgrEKiIJtI/AAAAAAAABHI/izc3mU5MkHI/s1600/glastonbury1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="137" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Envj3C9Wy2A/VdgrEKiIJtI/AAAAAAAABHI/izc3mU5MkHI/s400/glastonbury1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Any offers? Glastonbury.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There have been some interesting documents cross my tracks this way. Acquittances from the Hundred Years War. A bit of marginalia in a different script to the main text by someone doing a transcription. I got the letters out but didn't know what it meant. One of his academic pals recognised the text when they were having a night at the pub. Nice to participate in an academic pub discussion in Glasgow from this end of the world. A very creepy Reformation era clerical confession found by somebody scrunched up in a hole in a beam in their ancient house. I think I found it more interesting than they did when I ascertained it wasn't about the house.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Occasionally I have had images sent of things that have already been transcribed and published. When I've asked why they are reinventing the wheel they have replied that they believe something is incorrect, omitted, wrongly interpreted, but they can't actually read the thing themselves. Three mysteries here. Why would you set off on a project that you don't have the skills to carry out? Why would you think a previous transcription or interpretation is wrong if you can't read the original? Why would you contact a random unknown person on the internet to aid your cause? Demur politely on those. Not my specific area of interest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Absolutely on the rejection list are people who want their manuscript treasures valued. I had to put a specific disclaimer on the <a href="http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/" target="_blank">Medieval Writing</a> website about that one. No way, no bloody way! Rather more strange are the people who want to know what I paid for my little medieval scraps. I even had somebody once demanding to buy one. Perhaps they think I'm running a clandestine manuscript scraps business on the side.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hr4DlgvdXfY/VdkvlcqlcHI/AAAAAAAABHY/tZdnryH-gW8/s1600/C16spanishventa.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hr4DlgvdXfY/VdkvlcqlcHI/AAAAAAAABHY/tZdnryH-gW8/s320/C16spanishventa.JPG" width="310" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Not for sale. Not even the strange Spanish ones with curly wurly writing that I can't read and mysterious notary's marks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> There are people who send pictures of their treasures wanting them identified in some way, who then get slightly miffed if you don't give them the answer they were looking for. An intriguing oddity is the desire for something to be older than it is, even if it is old and interesting already. Then they want to claim they have the oldest whateveritis in the universe. Or they have read somewhere that a certain script, notation, style first appears in the xth century, so theirs has to be at least that old. I tend to go on a simple assessment that if it swims, quacks and waddles it's probably a duck, not a pterodactyl. But feel free to ask somebody else. Nope. They want to convince me. They don't understand that I really don't care.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SH3BafG5YFc/Vdk0W7-BejI/AAAAAAAABHo/yiPiZYMwme4/s1600/hufnagel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SH3BafG5YFc/Vdk0W7-BejI/AAAAAAAABHo/yiPiZYMwme4/s320/hufnagel.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> An old German duck. Mine. From the same scrap of codex as somebody else's pterodactyl.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /> The type of query that baffles me particularly is when somebody wants me to give a one line, definitive answer to something that is the subject of academic debate. If I refer them to some reading, they say no, they want to know what I think. Why? Am I some kind of international umpire? Why do they think I'm qualified to speak on these diverse debates? The weirdest ones come from people who are interested in (Dare I mention it?) the <span style="font-size: xx-small;">Voynich Manuscript</span>. Quiet now. I have been informed that the VM was written by a Hungarian mystic, that it is in old Dutch, that its mysteries can be solved through the study of late antique beekeeping. VM assertions and queries seem to travel in waves. I once got so sick of them that I wrote a blog post asserting that it was written by Leonard of Quirm (a Terry Pratchett character) and was so screwed up because it had been altered by travelling through the space-time continuum from Discworld. I then got an email from a person who had been trying, valiantly and apparently fruitlessly, to maintain a sensible and sane website on the VM saying that because of me he had had to put up a posting explaining to people the meaning of the word "parody". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> One of the interesting aspects of having an open, non-institutional web presence is that you can get engaged in intriguing cross-disciplinary discussions. Legal contracts in the digital age or modern urban linguistics or medical science can have roots in the medieval past and there are experts in suchlike fields who are interested to explore them. It is surprising that academics out of their field can be as naive about methods of investigation as members of the general public. They can also be just as inclined to want you to do their basic searching for them. "Do you know of images of ... from medieval manuscripts?" Try the British Library images or Gallica for starters. Ten minutes later, when they couldn't possibly have exhausted those, "Aren't there any others?" Try Sexy Codicology. You can find them all there. Nevertheless this does open up interdisciplinary communication, and may even engender some mutual respect between workers in different areas. The disciplinary boundaries are very hard to breach in the seminar room or academic journal, where walls are built for protection against wolves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The madly enthusiastic hobbyists can also generate some great discussion, even if the protagonists get a bit carried away with their obsessions sometimes. I have had a swag of correspondence, by email and blog comment, on the subject of formulations for medieval ink. One modern scribe even wanted to send me a pot of his brew and had to be firmly dissuaded because of what customs and security might make of a vial of nasty, toxic brown stuff in the post. The longest and most enthusiastic blog comments were on this subject, with folks posting their favourite recipes and chemists and paleographers locked in mortal combat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> The opportunity for such freewheeling discussion has been limited by the curse of blog comment advertising spam. It does seem that blog hosts have thrown in the towel on ridding the airwaves of this noxious menace. I can't even see what point it has for the spammers as I don't see how they can get to a target audience by this means. I guess the open invitation discussions just have to migrate to other internet forums.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> I hope this hasn't read like a long whinge or just a series of funny shaggy dog stories, because there is a point here about engagement outside the academic community. When I first started with this stuff, the university mob were more than disinterested. They were determined that they were not going to engage in this nonsense outside the limits of their traditional academic debating forums. A younger generation of academics is changing the way these things operate and using all the digital tools at their command. However, it would be a shame if this was just used to build fenced academic communities in cyberspace. Engaging with folks outside the ivory tower means understanding the interests, skills and aspirations of those who are not members of a club whose rules have been drummed into all its members.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Personally, I think all academics should learn or be taught how to write outside their disciplinary environment. Some do. Some don't. Some won't. You can learn at least as much as you teach.</span>Diannehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13132076792018066412noreply@blogger.com1