40033832, sfgsrg srgvergt, aetcv12u745ihtk rgcsndb

SAHGB Publications Limited is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Architectural History.

http://www.jstor.org

SAHGB Publications Limited

Belief and Patronage in the English Parish before 1300: Some Evidence from Roods Author(s): Carol Davidson Cragoe Source: Architectural History, Vol. 48 (2005), pp. 21-48Published by: SAHGB Publications LimitedStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40033832Accessed: 04-07-2015 17:16 UTC

REFERENCESLinked references are available on JSTOR for this article:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40033832?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents

You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 193.48.45.27 on Sat, 04 Jul 2015 17:16:12 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Belief and Patronage in the English Parish before 1300: Some Evidence from Roods by CAROL DAVIDSON CRAGOE

The late medieval English laity expressed their piety through ostentatious artistic and architectural patronage. The rood, a large-scale image of Christ on the cross, flanked by the Virgin and St John, and placed in or above the chancel arch, was a particular object of both liturgical and financial devotion in the later Middle Ages.1 One of the more interesting conclusions of recent scholarship has been the recognition that the late medieval desire to express one's piety through donations to the church was not limited to the upper classes or to one gender. Both men and women of all social classes and ages participated to the best of their ability through collective as well as individual giving.2 Moreover, people made very deliberate choices about the types of images and architectural forms on which they spent their money.3 Scholars have argued that the roots of this very active lay patronage lie in the mid-thirteenth century when diocesan statutes first assigned responsibility for maintaining the nave and most of a church's ornaments to its parishioners.4

Such arguments grow out of the available documentary sources: the pastoral manuals and vernacular devotional books that appear in the thirteenth century, and the wills, chantry certificates, and churchwardens' accounts that first appear in the later fourteenth century. This article will take a different approach by suggesting that we can look to the physical fabric of parish churches to supply evidence for lay piety at the point where the documentary trail fails. By using a variety of evidence for the introduction of roods and crucifixes into parish churches in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a springboard, it will argue that ordinary lay people were involved in the decoration of their churches well before the thirteenth-century diocesan statutes required their participation. Moreover, it is likely that they were aware of the significance of these images long before the introduction of pastoral manuals and vernacular devotional aids. Even complex theological concepts and debates, such as those surrounding the nature of the consecrated host, could be expressed in small, rural, English parishes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

As is often the case with earlier medieval sources, the best documentary evidence for the use of roods relates to larger churches. This article begins by first looking at this evidence and asking whether it is also evidence for the use of similar objects in smaller churches in the same period. It then goes on to look more specifically at the evidence for the use of roods in smaller churches in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, suggesting that, in fact, roods were not widely used in smaller churches until the late


22 ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY 48: 2005

thirteenth century, although it is very possible that there had previously been a crucifix on the altar in the chancel. The third part of the article looks at issues of theology, setting the introduction of roods into parish churches into the context of much wider debates about the nature of the consecrated host. The fourth, and final, part looks at patronage and argues that parishioners and the parish clergy were responsible for the fabric of their churches even in the early twelfth century; therefore, we should not exclude them as possible patrons of the images and ornaments within their churches. Nor should we assume that they were necessarily unaware of the significance of these images.

ROODS IN LARGER CHURCHES

Although the surviving evidence is fragmentary, it is clear that large and medium-sized Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman churches possessed substantial, permanently mounted images of the crucifixion.5 Their position, however, was not standardized over the entrance to the chancel or choir as it was to become by the later Middle Ages. One popular position, exemplified by Romsey (Hampshire) and Sherborne (Dorset), was on the exterior of the building. Langford (Oxfordshire) has one crucifix on the exterior of the tower, although this may once have been elsewhere on the outside of the church, and a second, apparently ex situ, above the south door. A small crucifix at Walkern (Hertfordshire) is apparently in situ above the former south door.6 There were also roods inside the church. Bibury and Bitton (Gloucestershire) and Bradford-on-Avon (Wiltshire) had roods positioned above the arch into the chancel in an arrangement similar to that in later medieval churches. Headbourne Worthy and Breamore (Hampshire) have a rood above the arch leading from a west chamber or tower into the central nave,7 but it is possible that the main altar was located in the central compartment in these churches.8 If this was the case, then the rood was still located at the entrance to the compartment with the altar.

A crucifix was not the only type of Christological imagery used at the entrance to the choir in the pre-Conquest period. There was a Christ in Majesty over the former tenth- century chancel arch at Barton-on-Humber (Lincolnshire), and the early eleventh-century paintings around the chancel arch at Nether Wallop (Hampshire) depicted, in the lower register, angels holding Christ in a mandorla, and, in the upper register, either a Throne of God or a Pentecost scene.9 St Edith had the timber chapel at Wilton decorated with 'the memorials of the Lord's passion, as she had pictured them in her heart'.10 The precise iconography of Edith's scheme is now lost, but it is likely that it covered the entire interior of the building. It is possible that the schemes at Barton-on-Humber and Nether Wallop represent only part of what was originally there and that crucifixes elsewhere in the church once accompanied them. Large crucifixes were often displayed in close proximity to the high altar in years immediately before the Conquest. That at Peterborough, given by abbot Leofric (1052-66) was a 'great cross which is over the altar, made of silver and gold of marvellous workmanship';11 Waltham Abbey had a crucifix near the corner of the altar (iuxta cornu altaris).12 Other Christological imagery, such as a Christ in Majesty at the entrance to the choir, might have accompanied these images.

As early as the 1060s, however, the rood had begun to assume a more prominent position in the middle of the church. The pulpitum made for Beverley c. 1060-69, for


BELIEF AND PATRONAGE IN THE ENGLISH PARISH 23

instance, accommodated a crucifix of 'Teutonic' work on the top of an arch at its centre.13 In the years after the Conquest, Archbishop Lanfranc, who was determined to bring English liturgical usage more closely into line with that on the Continent, clearly favoured this arrangement. The Decreta Lanfranci assumed the presence of a screen across the entrance to the choir with a large, permanently mounted cross or crucifix above it and made repeated reference to actions performed before this cross.14 The post- Conquest cathedral at Canterbury had 'a screen with a loft [with] ... on the side towards the nave, the altar of the holy cross. Above the pulpitum, and placed across the church, was the beam, which sustained a great cross, two cherubim, and the images of St Mary, and St John the Apostle'.15 At Winchester, the rood formerly hanging above the high altar was moved further west to stand above the pulpitum when the cathedral was rebuilt in the late eleventh century.16

Not all Anglo-Norman churches conformed to the arrangement, however: at Bury St Edmunds as late as c. 1173-80, the crucifixion flanked by images of Mary and St John which had been given by archbishop Stigand around the time of the Conquest remained above the high altar.17 Such varying positions for the rood may have been partly a result of varying liturgical uses, some of which perpetuated pre-Conquest practices, despite early Norman attempts to change them. Eastern England was a stronghold of resistance to the Conquest, and its great churches, including Ely, Bury and St Paul's, seem to have reflected this through a perpetuation of older forms such as gallery chapels, long choirs, and western liturgical spaces.18 The continued association of the rood with the high altar thus may reflect a continuation of Anglo-Saxon liturgical custom in these buildings and a rejection of some of the ideas advocated by Archbishop Lanfranc and his circle.

ROODS IN MINSTERS

While there is good evidence for the use of large-scale crucifixes in larger churches in both the pre- and the post-Conquest periods, albeit in a variety of positions, is this also evidence for the use of large-scale roods in smaller churches in the same period? With the possible exception of Bradford-on-Avon, the evidence for the use of roods inside smaller Anglo-Saxon churches comes mostly from churches of at least minster status, such as Bibury, Bitton, Headbourne Worthy, and Langford, and not from the smaller churches serving only a localized lay community. The distinction between minsters and local churches is an important one.19

There was a two-tier system for providing pastoral care in the Anglo-Saxon period: life-cycle sacraments such as baptism and burial were provided by 'minster churches' served by a group of clerics, who also had a monopoly on feast day services and many other liturgical provisions over a wide area of territory often corresponding to an area of secular jurisdiction. Regular weekly masses for individual communities within the minster's territory were provided in small, outlying chapels, not necessarily having their own resident priest. Their clerical communities, wider ranges of sacraments, and consequently more complex liturgy meant that minsters were often more akin architecturally to great churches than they were the small churches serving outlying areas. Minsters had more complex, often cruciform, plan forms in contrast to the simple



nave and chancel plans that characterized lesser churches. It is possible that in the pre- Conquest period the use of large-scale roods was also in some way considered suitable only for churches with a full range of sacraments. From the late Anglo-Saxon period, the minster system broke down as the outlying chapels gained their own priests and the right to provide more sacraments for parts of the minster's former territory becoming the localized parishes and parish churches we know today. Although they had lost much of their monopoly over pastoral care, former minsters often remained foci of devotion in the twelfth century and many retained a vestige of their clerical community.20

Some of the best evidence for the use of large-scale roods in the twelfth century also comes from former minsters. A piece of timber with billet ornament found at Old Shoreham (Sussex) may be the remains of a twelfth-century rood beam.21 Similarly, the well known, albeit extremely fragmentary, wooden rood figure of c. 1130 found at South Cerney (Gloucestershire), comes from what was probably a minster around the time of the Conquest. The South Cerney figure is similar to surviving roods in Scandinavia, which had close artistic ties to England in this period,22 and it might be possible to argue that this is also evidence for large numbers of similar images in England. Most of the surviving Scandinavian evidence, however, comes either from monasteries or from churches like Giske (Norway) or Sahl (Denmark) that were funded by very wealthy patrons in important regional centres, perhaps making them the equivalent of English minsters. It is not at all clear how representative such buildings were of the arrangements in churches where a single priest served only a small, lay community.

ROODS IN LESSER CHURCHES IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY

There is, however, also some twelfth-century evidence for the use of roods in churches that were not minsters, but it suggests that roods above the chancel arch were by no means universal in these smaller buildings nor was the type of Christological imagery used in the nave standardized. Fragmentary figures carved in relief in niches to either side of the early twelfth-century chancel arch at Halford may be a Virgin and St John that formerly accompanied a now-lost rood in or above the chancel arch, although Deborah Kahn suggested that these figures were part of an Annunciation.23 David Park compared the geometric pattern above the chancel arch at the small church of Kempley (Gloucestershire) to the diaper pattern that forms the background of the Barking Abbey rood of c. 1150 and suggested that it performed a similar function.24 Paintings of the deposition, the three Maries at the empty tomb, and of fragmentary figures probably representing the Virgin and St John provided additional narrative around the rood at Kempley. Similarly, at Compton (Surrey), E. W. Tristram suggested that a late twelfth-century zigzag pattern on the east wall of the nave (Fig. 1) formed a background for a rood.25 The highly unusual gallery chapel above the chancel at Compton may have served as a chapel specifically associated with the rood.

Park also suggested that some of the early twelfth-century Lewes group of wall paintings from Sussex were designed to accompany now-lost sculpted crucifixes or



Fig. 1. Compton (Surrey), view to the east c. 1935. Reproduced by permission of English Heritage, NMR.

roods, as much of their imagery was strongly Christological and especially Crucifixion related.26 For instance, a now-lost scheme at Westmeston in Sussex (Fig. 2) depicted a Christological cycle around a tall, narrow chancel arch, including the Betrayal, Flagellation and Deposition with a Lamb of God or Agnus Dei above the chancel arch.27 Park argued that the Westmeston scheme, and the similar, but more fragmentary, schemes at Hardham and Slaugham (Sussex),28 required a crucifixion in the centre of the chancel arch to complete the narrative.

This combination of the crucifixion narrative with the simultaneously eucharistic and apocalyptic symbol of the Agnus Dei would certainly find close parallels in a number of objects made at Winchester in the late Anglo-Saxon period, including a portable altar now in Paris and a reliquary cross in Brussels.29 On the other hand, the accompanying rood must have been very small - more so if it was accompanied by the figures of the Virgin and St John - if it was to have fitted into the aperture of the chancel arch of a church like Westmeston or Hardham. The presence of figurative paintings above the chancel arch in these buildings suggests that the rood was not located there, and while it is possible that it hung from the roof, or stood on a beam or post in front of the east wall of the nave, such an arrangement might have interfered with the views of the paintings behind.



Fig. 2. Westmeston (Sussex), drawing by Mrs Heathcote Campion c. 1845 of lost painting scheme around chancel arch. Sussex Archaeological Collections, xvi, (1845). J. King and Co. Lithographers, London.

ALTAR CROSSES It is much more likely that the painting schemes at Westmeston, Hardham and Slaugham accompanied a crucifix that hung or stood near the altar inside the chancel in an arrangement paralleling those in the pre-Conquest churches at Winchester and Waltham, and in the twelfth-century church at Bury A parallel for this sort of arrangement is provided by the English-influenced wall paintings of c. 1130 at the small Danish church at Rasted, which has a Traditio Legis over the chancel arch and a crucifixion painted on the wall to the right of the east window behind the altar.30 It is generally held that the crucifix, 'as a central ornament of the altar, began to come into general use in the thirteenth century',31 but there is physical and documentary evidence to suggest that crosses and crucifixes suitable for placing on or near the altar had been common long before that.



Fig. 3. New Minster Liber Vitae of c. 1031 (British Library MS Stowe 944, fol. 6r) (Reproduced by permission of The British Library)

An image of c. 1031 in the New Minster Liber Vitae, for instance, shows King Cnut (1016-35) and Queen Aelfgifu (Emma) placing a cross on an altar (Fig. 3), although it is possible that such a cross would not have been left on permanent display.32 The Monastic Constitutions or Decreta Lanfranci of Archbishop of Lanfranc of c. 1077 describe a cross and other ornaments being brought into the choir and set in their places only for services, although whether this cross was placed on, or simply near, the altar is not entirely clear.33 Documentary sources suggest that monastic and cathedral treasuries were literally full of crosses in the mid-eleventh century: Worcester had fifteen crosses at time of the Conquest; Hereward the Wake stole fifteen precious metal crosses from Peterborough in 1070, and was unable to carry off others, perhaps because they were too large; the treasury at Ely possessed no less than nineteen large and eight small crosses; and in or before 1045 Bishop Brithwold gave twenty-six crosses to Glastonbury, presumably complementing an existing stock of



crosses already in the abbey's treasury.34 Some of these may have been processional crosses or small pectoral crosses worn as ornaments by the clergy, but Brithwold's strangely precise donation suggests that he was providing one each for twenty-six altars.

Cnut's cross in the New Minster Liber Vitae was plain, but English churches also had crosses carrying the figure of Christ from an early date. King Ealdred gave two gold crosses adorned with figures to Hyde Abbey (Winchester New Minster) before his death in 955;35 it is not clear how large these crosses were or what their function was, but there are a number of surviving examples of altar and portable processional crucifixes from the Continent in this period.36 The many post-Conquest metal and morse (walrus) ivory crucifix figures, now without their crosses, testify to the popularity of similar crucifixes in England in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries.37 Most of these figures were around 15 to 25 cm tall on their own; complete with cross, they were probably between 70 and 100 cm tall. They can be compared with the crucifix of c. 1050-75, probably of Danish origin but with close connexions to Anglo-Saxon art, from Lundo (Denmark),38 and with the Monmouth crucifix of c. 1170-80.39 An English morse ivory altar cross of perhaps c. 1100-30 now in the Cloisters museum in New York has lost its figure, but a contemporary morse ivory figure now in Oslo was probably once associated with it.40

Such crucifixes were probably also used in smaller churches. Most of the surviving crosses are without provenance, but the pewter crucifix figure of c. 1160-70 found walled up in the chancel at Ludgvan parish church in Cornwall is comparable in scale with the others and indicates that not only that such crosses were produced outside of major metropolitan centres but also that they were used in lesser churches.41 The surviving small crucifixes are all made of precious materials like ivory, gold, and gilt bronze, but there must once have been innumerable wooden crosses and crucifixes, some plated, others simply painted, which fuelled the bonfires of Protestant reformers or simply came to a holey end at the teeth of woodworms. Crucifixion scenes were also painted directly onto the wall above altars, although the surviving examples, such as those at West Harnham (Wiltshire) and Wisborough Green (Sussex), are mostly thirteenth century or later.42

Some of these small crucifixes may have been accompanied by other figures such as the gilt St John of c. 1180 found at Rattlesden (Suffolk) or a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century bronze Virgin Mary now in the British Museum.43 The British Museum's Virgin is unfinished on the back, indicating that it was once attached to a surface, such as an altar frontal, book cover or reredos, but the St John is worked in the round and would have been part of a three-dimensional group. It has been compared to a collection of now-lost figures, including angels, the sleeping soldiers at Christ's tomb, and perhaps another St John, which probably came from a cross base of c. 1140-50.44 Such a group could have stood on or behind an altar. The extraordinary copper-gilt 'Golden Altar' from Sahl (Denmark) of c. 1200 (Fig. 4) has just such a rood group mounted on top of the reredos.45 A similar arrangement has recently been suggested for Canterbury in the late twelfth century, although Canterbury also had a great rood above the entrance to the choir. The earlier Lisberg altar of c. 1140 and the Broddetorp altar of c. 1160-90 have crucifixes without accompanying figures.46 It has



Fig. 4. Altarpiece from Sahl, Denmark. National Museum of Denmark.

Fig. 5. Great Canfield (Essex), view of chancel and chancel arch in 1965 ( Mrs C. J. Bassham. Reproduction courtesy of the NMR).



been suggested that the niche above the altar in the mid-twelfth-century chancel at Great Canfield (Essex) (Fig. 5) which now has an image of the Virgo Lactans, once contained a Madonna and Child.47 It also possible, however, that this niche once held a crucifix in a arrangement reminiscent of the Lisberg, Broddetorp and Sahl altars (quite coincidentally the modern reredos there has a crucifixion at its centre).

SCREENS IN SMALLER TWELFTH-CENTURY CHURCHES

Such a rood or crucifix would have been visible through the chancel arch as it is unlikely that substantial screens were widely used in smaller English churches in the twelfth century. In particular, the heavy ornament used on both the face and the reveals of Romanesque chancel arches, and the use of decorative paintwork on their soffits and inner jambs, suggests that these arches were intended to be seen in their entirety, without further closure. Hardham and Westmeston (Sussex) had zodiac schemes on the inner faces of their chancel arches; the early twelfth-century Lewes group scheme at Coombes (Sussex) (Fig. 6) includes a figure of Atlas and a geometric pattern; Plumpton (Sussex), another Lewes group scheme, formerly had an Agnus Dei or Lamb of God in this position; and Kempley's chancel arch also has an elaborate geometric pattern on its soffit.48 Single-celled churches of this period without a

Fig. 6. Coombes (Sussex), view of nave to east in 1967 ( Crown copyright. NMR)



structural division between nave and chancel may have had some form of timber partition in this position, but one must question whether this would have been the equivalent of a screen or simply a chancel arch made of timber. The timber partition and chancel opening in the otherwise stone-built church at Ashampstead (Berkshire) (Fig. 7) is an interesting survival of this type.49

OTHER TYPES OF CHRISTOLOGIC AL IMAGERY While it seems likely that a scheme like that at Westmeston or Hardham probably did accompany a crucifix of some form, there are also a number of surviving schemes from this period which utilize other Christological imagery above and around the chancel arch. Coombes has a Christ in Majesty above the chancel arch (Fig. 6). At Plumpton, a now lost painting over the west face of chancel arch depicted angels holding up a large, empty cross;50 there were resurrection scenes in the zone of paintings below this, a representation

Fig. 7. Ashampstead (Berkshire), view to east into chancel showing wooden 'chancel arch' partition and paintings c. 1936 (Reproduced by permission of English Heritage, NMR).



of the instruments of the passion, and an Agnus Dei on the soffit of the chancel arch. In each case, the emphasis is on the resurrection rather than the crucifixion as such.

Clayton (Sussex) has a Christ in Judgement accompanied by angels and apostles over the chancel arch as part of a larger Last Judgement scheme that also spreads across the eastern parts of the north and south nave walls.51 There is a twelfth-century Christ in Judgement on the north wall of the nave at Stowell (Gloucestershire),52 which might have accompanied a crucifixion on the nave east wall or which might have been part of a larger Last Judgement scheme. Patcham (Sussex) has a doom painting of c. 1180-90, with Christ above ranks of the dead above picked out on the chancel arch.53 A similar early thirteenth-century scheme surviving in fragmentary form at Ashampstead depicted Christ above the resurrection of dead and the apostles under semicircular arcades.54 In the later Middle Ages, dooms and last judgements often accompanied crucifixions on the same wall, but this was not necessarily the case in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Indeed at Ashampstead the thirteenth-century doom was partly destroyed in later years by the introduction of a crucifixion scene over the centre of the image, suggesting that the original crucifixion, if there was one, was elsewhere in the building.

Instead of accompanying a crucifix on the altar or by the chancel arch, schemes such as those at Coombes, Clayton and Ashampstead may originally have been accompanied by a painted (or even sculpted) crucifixion at the west end of the nave. At West Horsley (Surrey) paintings of c. 1200 on the nave west wall included a crucifixion, with scenes of the flagellation, the carrying of the cross, and of Adam and Eve.55 The Christ in Majesty schemes at both Clayton and Coombes are only at the eastern end of the nave, and Park has suggested that the paintings once continued along now-lost timber partition walls enclosing a separate compartment at the west end of the church.56 If this was the case, these schemes could well have included a crucifixion like that at West Horsley.

Crucifixion imagery was particularly associated with baptism, with its symbolic representation of death and rebirth. In major churches of both the pre- and post- Conquest periods, the font was at the west end where it was a major station in processional liturgy. This arrangement has been compared to the atria used for baptisms in early Christian churches.57 Similar arrangements may have existed in smaller churches: a font base was discovered in the western compartment at Barton-on-Humber (Lincolnshire) and also at the west end of the much smaller church of St Mary Tanner Street in Winchester.58 West towers, first added to parish churches in large numbers in the twelfth century, may also have been used as baptisteries.59 The combination of a crucifixion at the west end and resurrection imagery at the east end, above the chancel arch, would have created a powerful iconographic statement about the importance of initial salvation through baptism and continued maintenance of this state of grace through participation in the mass.

ROODS IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY Like the twelfth-century material, the early thirteenth-century evidence for the presence of roods in smaller churches suggests that there were some, but they were by no means



universal. It was only in the later thirteenth century that they seem to have become popular. Bands of c. 1200 scroll work above the chancel arch at Finchampstead (Berkshire)60 may have performed a similar function to the geometric patterns at Kempley and Compton. A seemingly early thirteenth-century rood loft door at Colsterworth (Lincolnshire) may be evidence for a rood as well as a loft, and a fragment (now lost) of what Aymer Vallance believed was an early thirteenth-century rood beam carved with trefoiled arcading was found in the early twentieth century at Doddington (Kent) (Fig. 8).61 A sixteenth-century note for the small, unaisled church of Coddington (Herefordshire) referring to the consecration of three altars in 1231 described them as being to the north and south of the cross, although it is, of course, possible that this cross was only introduced at some date between 1231 and the sixteenth century.62 Nevertheless, it is clear from buildings such as Ashampstead that alternative Christological imagery was also still used. Contemporary diocesan statutes suggest that church authorities were concerned to ensure the provision of a portable, processional cross rather than a rood. For instance, the Salisbury diocesan statutes of 1228-56 required the parishioners to find 'the crucifix, crosses, and images',63 but neither the location nor the size of this crucifix was specified. Both the statutes of Salisbury of 1238-44 and those of Canterbury of c. 1295-1313 only required the provision of processional crosses and crosses to accompany the dead (crucem processionalem, crucem pro mortui).6*

A comparison of two sets of visitations relating to the same group of churches belonging to the canons of St Paul's Cathedral - the first made in 1249-52, the second in 1297 - suggests that roods above the chancel arch were largely introduced into those churches in the second half of the thirteenth century.65 In the earlier set of visitations, several of the churches had crosses prominently displayed within the church, but these were in the chancel and not above the chancel arch. For instance, at Walton-on-the-Naze (Essex) there was a cross above the main altar (crux bona et sufficiens super maius altare), and the church also had a portable cross [crux portabilis onesta et sufficiens).66 Albury (Hertfordshire) similarly had a crucifix on the high altar and a second, portable cross;67 at Brent Pelham (alias Pelham Arsa, Hertfordshire), the church's sole cross was that by the main altar,68 and at Twyford (Middlesex) the only cross was one depicted above the altar, again presumably the main altar.69 Elsewhere, the location and type cross or crucifix was not specified: Barling (Essex) had both an enamelled cross and one lignea depicta, probably a wooden crucifix, one of which had a cloth behind it though it is not clear which.70 Not all of the visitations in this period remark on crosses, but this may simply be an omission in the records rather than a defect in the ornaments. At Heybridge (Essex), for instance, it is only because the cloth behind the cross is mentioned that we know there was a cross;71 the mid-thirteenth-century cross at Willesden (Middlesex, now London) is similarly known only from the canvas veil to cover it.72

In contrast, the late thirteenth-century visitations of the same churches refer to what can only have been roods in the late medieval sense. Willesden had a large cross with images of the blessed Virgin and St John on a beam near the chancel.73 Belchamp St Paul (Essex) had in its nave an image of St Cross flanked by the Virgin and St John.74 Similar images of St Cross were recorded at, among other places, Albury,75 St Pancras (formerly



Fig. 8. Doddington (Kent), view to east showing early thirteenth-century chancel arch c. 2956 (Reproduced by permission of English Heritage, NMR).

Middlesex, now London),76 West Drayton and Chiswick (Middlesex),77 Tillingham, Heybridge, Walton-on-the-Naze, Kirby and Thorpe (Essex).78 In some cases, such as Heybridge and Willesden, it is possible that these images had been present, albeit unmentioned by name, c. 1250, but elsewhere it is clear that they were newly installed in the intervening years. At Walton and Albury, for instance, the crosses above the high altar c. 1250 are absent from the 1297 visitations, suggesting that the roods in the nave had replaced them. When precisely this had been done is not clear, although at Brent Pelham it was noted in 1297 that the (not mentioned c. 1250) painted crucifix in the nave had been damaged by rain through the neglect of the parishioners, perhaps suggesting that it had been in place for some time.79

Despite the increased prevalence of roods, not all of the churches visited had roods at the end of the thirteenth century. No crosses at all are mentioned for Navestock (Essex) and Kensworth (Bedfordshire);80 Sandon (Hertfordshire) had a large cross over (ultra) the altar;81 Yardley (Hertfordshire) had an enamelled cross, perhaps to stand on the altar, and a wooden portable cross;82 and Barling had only a wooden processional cross, perhaps the one mentioned c. 1249-52.83 Twyford, which had previously had a



crucifix above the altar, had managed to acquire a wooden processional cross but still had no rood.84 Thus, it seems that the use of roods was becoming more widespread in parish churches in the late thirteenth century, even if some churches continued to have other arrangements. The evidence from the St Paul's visitations must be used some care, as this group of churches was near the metropolis and had connexions to a major cathedral; therefore, other churches may have been even slower to acquire a rood above the chancel arch.

SCREENS IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY In part the use of roods in the nave may have been driven by the more widespread introduction of screens, which would have blocked a view of a rood on or near the altar in the chancel. The earliest fragments of what must almost certainly have been screens in smaller churches date to the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, although it is less clear how representative they are. A small group of minor churches in Yorkshire, including Healaugh, Frickley, (Old) Edlington, and Rossington, have late Romanesque chancel arches apparently standing on low walls across the chancel arch, perhaps derived from a lost local prototype. The use of corbelled chancel arches in late twelfth and early thirteenth-century churches like Coddington and Cumnor (Oxfordshire) hints at low wooden screens that have not survived. The statutes of Worcester of 1229 required the rector to provide a closure between the altar and the upper end of the choir,85 but it is likely that this refers to altar rails of some form, rather than a screen in the chancel arch between the choir and the body of the church. The door at Colsterworth may also be evidence for a screen there.

The earliest chancel screens to survive intact in parish churches are the mid- thirteenth-century examples from Gilston (Hertfordshire), Kirkstead (Lincolnshire) and Stanton Harcourt (Oxfordshire) (Fig. 9), although it has also been argued that the screen now enclosing the north chapel at Thurcaston (Lincolnshire) of c. 1220 was once the chancel screen.86 However, these buildings may not be entirely representative of other churches in either status or plan form: Stanton Harcourt was a cruciform former minster and Kirkstead was the gate chapel for the eponymous Cistercian abbey; moreover, Kirkstead was a single-celled building and thus was perhaps more in need of an internal division than a building with a structural chancel arch.

By the very late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, however, we can say with more confidence that screens were becoming widespread. At Little Wenham (Suffolk), for instance, the remains of a low wall across the opening of the chancel arch testify to the presence of a screen in this newly built church of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century.87 Archaeological evidence at Rivenhall (Essex) suggests that a screen there was installed c. 1325. 88 Although only a few of the surviving screens can be dated to this period, the surviving examples are widely diffused both geographically and in terms of church status, ranging from small churches like Pixley (Herefordshire), to medium-sized ones like Rivenhall and rather grander ones like Northfleet (Kent). In many cases these screens were, as was the case at Rivenhall, part of a larger programme of works that also included rebuilding the chancel arch and extending the chancel



Fig. 9. Stanton Harcourt (Oxfordshire), view to east from nave into crossing showing thirteenth- century screen in 1888 by Henry W. Taunt (Reproduced by permission of English Heritage, NMR).

eastwards to allow the altar to be placed against the east wall, well away from the chancel arch and the nave.89

THEOLOGICAL CHANGE

The introduction of roods above the chancel arch in parish churches was part of a larger contemporary process of theological change within the church as a whole. The reflection of this change at the parish level suggests parishioners and parish clergy were more theologically sophisticated than is often thought. Barbara Raw has argued that in the earlier Anglo-Saxon period the salvific power of the mass, and by extension the iconography of the high altar, was associated with the resurrection and thus with the divine aspects of Christ's nature.90 In the early eleventh-century New Minster Liber Vitae image, for instance, the altar was linked to an image of Christ in Majesty through an empty cross. In contrast, she suggested, in the later Anglo-Saxon period the significance of the mass increasingly came to lie not in Christ's divine nature and resurrection, but in the very human sacrifice upon the cross and in the transformation of the eucharistic



elements into this human flesh and blood. Such changing attitudes can be located more broadly within debates about the nature of the eucharist, most notably as embodied by the controversy surrounding Berengar of Tours who, in the 1040s, denied that Christ's body and blood were actually physically present in the eucharistic elements.91 Berengar was condemned for his opinions and subsequently retracted and restated them several times over.

The debate he sparked off raged in the theological schools for over 150 years, leading to the statement in the first canon of the decrees of the fourth Lateran Council of 1215 that Christ's 'body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread and wine having been changed in substance, by God's power, into his body and blood'.92 The use of term 'transubstantiation' for this change was probably coined c. 1140 by an Englishman, Robert Pullen, who taught in the Paris schools,93 and although it was not used in Lateran IV, it was to become common in the later Middle Ages. Berengar's chief opponent was Abbot Lanfranc of Bee, later to become Archbishop of Canterbury. Lanfranc was a strong proponent of the concept of the real presence of Christ in the consecrated elements, and it seems no coincidence, therefore, that the Decreta Lanfranci attempted to place the rood at the heart of English churches.

It is clear from the evidence discussed above, however, that it was more than two centuries after the Berengarian controversy that large-scale sculpted roods placed above the chancel arch became widespread in parish churches, and as the late twelfth-century evidence from Bury indicates, even in larger English churches, it was a long time before Lanfranc' s ideas were universally adopted. The iconographic differences between, for instance, the painting schemes at Westmeston and Hardham and those at Coombes, Clayton and Patcham strongly suggests that complex theological ideas and debates were being deliberately depicted in the images chosen to adorn the interiors of small parish churches in the twelfth century.

The continued use of variant imagery was not simply a result of a failure to replace older images, but also included the use of different iconographies for new schemes. The resurrected Christs at Clayton and Coombes are more or less contemporary with the probable crucified Christ at Westmeston; the crucifixion on the west wall at West Horsley is similarly proximate to the probable rood above the chancel arch at Compton. Moreover, some of these images were subsequently replaced with new images more in keeping current theological thought: at Ashampstead a crucifixion was painted over the Christ in Majesty in the early fourteenth century, and the Christ in a mandorla at Nether Wallop was also supplanted by a rood at a later date.94 Such changes must mean that the iconographic content of these images was clearly understood and deemed to have become inadequate or unacceptable.

Patronage This raises the question of patronage. In the later Middle Ages, surviving sources such as wills and churchwardens' accounts make it clear that parishioners, perhaps in conjunction with the parish clergy to guide them on matters of theological and iconographic detail, actively and enthusiastically bought all sorts of images, including



roods, for their local churches. Moreover, such patronage was not limited to the advowson holder (who could nominate the church's rector), nor was it limited to the wealthier parishioners; poorer parishioners participated to the best of their ability through guilds and other collective means of donation, and parish clergy also had a role to play

The origins of this very active lay patronage are usually seen to lie in the period after the fourth Lateran council. Christopher Brooke, for instance, remarked that, 'there is much evidence of extreme ignorance, not only among the laity, but among the humbler parish clergy, as to what the mass meant and what happened in it ... doubtless if we were transported to a twelfth-century church we should be astonished by the ignorance and illiteracy of most of its worshippers.'95 It was only with the introduction of pastoral manuals in the thirteenth century, he suggested, that either parishioners or parish clergy came to be taught the subtleties of contemporary theology.95 By extension, it would only have been in the thirteenth century that either parishioners or parish clergy were capable of much in the way of active, informed patronage. Therefore, either we need to look elsewhere for our patrons, or we must challenge the received view of who the potential patrons of twelfth-century decorative schemes might have been.

It is possible, of course, that that parish clergy and their parishioners were more or less ignorant of the theological significance of the decorative schemes imposed on them by others with better connexions to major theological centres. Artists commissioned simply to 'decorate the church' may themselves have chosen the iconography - wittingly or unwittingly - by copying from models provided by artists in monastic centres. There are a number of problems with this idea, however, not least that crucifixion imagery does not always fall into neat iconographic groups by style. For instance, as Park noted, the Lewes group of paintings has both stylistic and iconographic connexions;97 however, despite these stylistic connexions, the iconography of the Lewes paintings is, as was discussed above, theologically quite widely divergent. This makes it more likely that it was the patrons of these images, rather than the artists, who were responsible for their didactic content.

Aristocratic or clerical patrons with better access to the latest theological ideas may have imposed iconographic schemes on parishes. For instance, both art and architectural historians working on the earlier Middle Ages often attribute patronage of a parish church's fabric and imagery to its advowson holder. The donation in the twelfth century of many advowsons to religious institutions, with the concurrent writing of a charter to record this fact, has preserved the names of many advowson holders; it also meant that many churches came under the direct control of monasteries and other religious foundations. While it is easy to associate this one named individual - or the institution to which this person gave the advowson - with contemporary artistic and architectural alterations in that building, the widespread imposition of imagery on parish churches by advowson holders it is not supported by the evidence. For instance, all of the churches in the St Paul's visitations 'belonged' to the cathedral insofar as the canons owned their advowsons, but even in churches with such demonstrably close links to a major ecclesiastical centre, there were still wide differences the use and placement of crucifixion images. Moreover, the visitors sent by



the bishop and canons to check on the condition of these churches do not seem to have bothered by these differences, nor did they issue instructions that decorative schemes should be changed.

This brings us back to parishioners and the parish clergy. A few of the surviving Anglo-Saxon wills mention local churches, but their benefactions were mostly concerned with providing an endowment and not with the creation of images.98 There are some also some post-Conquest eleventh- and twelfth-century references to groups of individuals joining together to fund a church in their locality, including a number in the Domesday Book, but again these usually refer only to construction and not to decoration as such." At Hothorpe (Northamptonshire), however, a charter of c. 1155 stated that, 'the parishioners of Hothorpe themselves will find the lights and the other necessities for their chapel'.100 A charter of c. 1177-81 is clearer: Gerard, rector of Teynham (Kent) granted additional tithes to the use of the chapel of Doddington (Kent), to be used by the chaplain of the chapel and two or three responsible parishioners to provide necessary books, vestments and ornaments for the chapel and to repair its fabric.101 We do not know what kind of ornaments the chaplain and parishioners of Doddington might have bought with their extra tithes, but it is clear that the responsibility for such ornaments was theirs. In any case, this arrangement was clearly in place by the time the now-lost rood and rood beam were bought for the church in the early years of the thirteenth century.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century, English diocesan statutes began to assign formal responsibility for the nave and its ornaments to a church's parishioners. For instance, the 1224 statutes for the diocese of Winchester stated that while the rector was to maintain the chancel, 'the parishioners are to be compelled to repair the body of the church according to what they hold'.102 This arrangement was quickly adopted by other dioceses.103 It was the introduction of this incumbency upon parishioners to maintain the naves of their church that has been seen by most scholars as marking the point at which ordinary parishioners came to have an active role in the patronage of their local church.

A closer look at the history of parish church maintenance, however, quickly reveals that parishioners had always paid for the maintenance of their parish church in its entirety via the tithes they gave to the rector. Anglo-Saxon decrees such as Aelfric's letter to Wulfsige (c. 993-95), the Canons of Edgar (1005-08), and the Laws of Aethelred (1014), divided tithes into three parts, one each for the clergy, the poor, and the 'needs of the church' (e.g. fabric maintenance); the Laws of Cnut (1020-22) similarly stated that 'all people by rights should help to repair the church'.104 Diocesan statutes and decrees of the later eleventh and twelfth centuries took pains to ensure that tithes continued to be collected, suggesting that this system remained in use after the Conquest.105 Thus the principal change in the thirteenth-century statutes was to restrict the use of tithes to the chancel and thereby compel the parishioners to find additional funds for any repairs or improvements to the western parts of the building.

Churchwardens, the small groups of parishioners who looked after the parish's funds for nave maintenance, may have originated in groups of parishioners who had previously aided the priest in redistributing tithes. For instance, the Northumbrian Priests' Law (c. 1008-23) assigned collection of the Rome penny to a mass priest and



two trusty thegns.106 The mid-twelfth-century parishioners of Hothorpe have already been mentioned and those of Doddington were clearly also intended to work together with their vicar.107 The formal assignment to parishioners of responsibility for maintaining the nave without aid from the rector in the mid-thirteenth century undoubtedly meant that new administrative structures had to be developed or improved upon where they already existed. It is also clear from this longer-term view of the sources, however, that parishioners had always had financial and administrative involvement in parish church maintenance, and that the new arrangements were an enhancement of older structures rather than something wholly new.

It is interesting to note that in these sources it is only the parishioners and the parish rector or vicar who are mentioned; advowson holders had no formal role to play except insofar as they were parishioners by virtue of holding land within the parish. There was nothing to prevent the advowson holder from playing a role in the life of the parish, but neither was there an incumbency upon them to do so once they had nominated the rector. Therefore, if we are looking for patrons of images in parish churches, even in the twelfth century, we must be looking primarily for parishioners (perhaps including the advowson holder if he/she lived in the parish) and parish clergy.

TRANSMISSION OF THEOLOGICAL IDEAS

This leads us to the question of how theological ideas were transmitted to the laity in this period. The extent to which the imagery used in parish churches reflected current theological debates suggests that parishioners and parish clergy were well aware of these debates; yet the beginning of the widespread provision of pastoral and theological education for the parish clergy, and by extension for their parishioners, is usually dated only to the introduction of pastoral manuals. These texts, which set out questions and answers for theological and moral issues, originated in the debates of the twelfth- century schools, but only became widely available for popular use in the thirteenth century.108 Pastoral manuals were largely for the use of the clergy, but texts aimed at the laity, such as the Lay Folk's Mass Book, also begin to appear at about the same time.109

Much as was the case with the introduction of diocesan statues for fabric maintenance, it is all too easy to allow the introduction of pastoral manuals, so like the textbooks from which we ourselves learned, to blind us to the possibility that there had previously been other ways of transmitting theological ideas to the lower clergy and through them to the laity. The most obvious of these, of course, is oral teaching, and indeed Gerald of Wales noted in the last years of the twelfth century that he was writing his Gemma Ecclesiastica because,

I have deemed it not inconsistent with my duty to instruct you [the clergy of his archdeaconry], in this writing, on those difficulties about which you were wont to consult me when I was still with you, and on others the knowledge of which is both needful for you, and with which it would be perilous for you to remain unacquainted.110

It is impossible to know, of course, the precise nature or extent of this instruction or 'consultation', but we cannot overlook its existence.

Medieval theologians and writers often justified the use of images in churches


BELIEF AND PATRONAGE IN THE ENGLISH PARISH 41 because they served as 'bibles for the poor' or 'the books of the laity', suggesting that they expected images to be used as teaching tools.111 Images in parish churches seem particularly good candidates for such a purpose, but modern scholars have been somewhat sceptical of this idea. David Park, for instance, expressed doubt about whether the parish priest would necessarily have even been able to read the explanatory inscription in the paintings at Hardham, much less explain its significance to his parishioners.112 There were undoubtedly illiterate clerks, as is demonstrated by the oft-cited example of Vitalis, who in 1222 was unable to translate even a simple Latin sentence when called upon to do so by the Dean of Salisbury;113 however, not all clerks were as ignorant as this Vitalis. Of the 1,958 clerks examined by Bishop Hugh de Wells in the early thirteenth century, only 101 (around 5%) were defective in learning; of these, only five were priests.114 The remaining 95% who were not defective in their learning were presumably able to read the inscription at Hardham and much else.

We know relatively little about clerical education before the thirteenth century, although it is likely that many boys were sent for training in minsters and cathedrals: Theodore of Etampes, for instance, is said to have taught classes of 60 to 100 boys at Oxford in the early twelfth century.115 Moreover, as most parish clergy were married, and many English benefices inherited until well into the late twelfth and even into the thirteenth century, boys would have received some education from their fathers and grandfathers. Henry of Huntingdon, the twelfth-century archdeacon and chronicler is a good example of someone educated by both of these means. Born c. 1088 and perhaps having been taught near home as a small boy, aged 12 he was sent to school at Lincoln, where he lived in the household of Bishop Robert Bloet. Henry inherited his father's benefice, including the rectory of the parish church of Little Stukeley (Huntingdonshire, now Cambridgeshire); his own son, Adam, and grandson Aristotle held the same benefice until c. 1230.116 There is no particular reason to believe that Henry would not have learned at least something of the latest theological debates during his time in Lincoln (Lincoln being an important centre of theological study in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries)117 and also in his capacity as archdeacon;118 moreover, there is no reason to believe that he would not have shared this knowledge with other priests in his archdeaconry, including his son and perhaps his grandson, or with his parishioners at Little Stukeley.

At an even more basic level, we know that mechanisms existed for the potential communication of new ideas to the laity. Both parish priests and more senior clerics, including bishops and archdeacons, preached to the laity in the twelfth century, though it is not entirely clear how often this happened: certainly several times a years, probably rather more often.119 There is also a possibility that lay people received some instruction directly from monastic or cathedral clergy: the Decreta Lanfranci made provision for laymen to enter the monastic church to venerate the cross (apparently a portable cross) on Good Friday,120 and the significance of this ceremony might well have been explained to those attending. Moreover, schools were by no means limited to those intending a career in the priesthood,121 nor were they limited to the upper classes: Ranulf de Glanville (1130-90) remarked that serfs and peasants sent their children to school so that they might become rich.122 Church size was also not necessarily an accurate guide to the potential sophistication of its incumbent or even its parishioners:



Fig. 10. Little Stukeley (Huntingdonshire, now Cambridgeshire), plan (Victoria History of the County of Huntingdonshire, 11, reproduced by kind permission of the Executive Editor)

the twelfth-century church (Fig. 10) at Little Stukeley, probably built during Henry of Huntingdon's tenure, was very small, although some ex situ Romanesque architectural fragments preserved in the present church suggest a degree of stylistic sophistication in that period.123

CONCLUSION The evidence presented here suggests that roods above the chancel arch were introduced into parish churches gradually, becoming popular in the later thirteenth century, but crucifixes were used elsewhere in the building from a much earlier date, along with other types of Christological imagery. It will never be possible to say with absolute certainty that the parishioners of a small church like Hardham would have understood every theological nuance of the images that decorated their church. What we can say, however, is that it seems likely that they would have understood at least part of the significance of these images. Moreover, as the parishioners would probably often have paid for these images through their tithes, they might, in conjunction with the parish clergy, have had a hand in choice of iconography. Diocesan officials such as archdeacons may also have had some input, but the degree of local variation in the type and nature of images used suggests that local preferences, and not central input, were the key determining factor. This is borne out by the diocesan statutes which are



concerned that there should be a cross or crucifix in the church but which make no reference to where this cross should be located.

Documents as evidence can only ever tell part of the story of twelfth- and thirteenth- century England.124 Nowhere is this more apparent than in parish churches where the use of Latin as the language of written record has conspired with a more general lack of enthusiasm for writing things down to edit ordinary lay people out of the sources. It was only in the later Middle Ages, when English once again became a widely used written language, that we can see lay people through their own eyes. What this article demonstrates, however, is that if we use physical evidence in conjunction with the very limited written sources from this period, we can begin to reconstruct the religious lives of ordinary people.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am most grateful to Jeremy Ashbee, William Campbell, Helen Gittos, Sarah Hamilton and Charles Tracy for their generous comments, assistance and loans of unpublished material. As usual this article would not have been written without the support of my husband, Matthew Cragoe.

NOTES 1 Eamon Duffy, The parish, piety, and patronage in late medieval East Anglia: the evidence of rood screens', in The Parish in English Life 1400-1600, ed. Katherine French, Gary Gibbs and Beat Kumin (Manchester, 1997), pp. 132-62. The history of roods has not been satisfactorily discussed in the existing literature, as they are almost always discussed as adjuncts to screens. For instance, Francis Bond, Screens and Galleries in English Churches (London, 1908); Francis Bligh Bond and Dom Bede Camm, Roodscreens and Rood Lofts (London, 1909); Aymer Vallance, English Church Screens: being Great Roods, Screenwork and Rood- lofts of Parish Churches in England and Wales (London, 1936), pp. 1-12. Richard Marks, Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Stroud, 2004) does not discuss roods, arguing that they needed an entire book of their own (p. 10). 2 For instance, Christine Peters, Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender, and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England (Cambridge, 2003); Katherine French, The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (Philadelphia, 2001); Beat Kumin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish c. 14.00-1560 (Aldershot, 1995); Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (New Haven, 1992). 3 John A. A. Goodall, God's House at Ewelme: Architecture in a Fifteenth-Century Almshouse (Aldershot, 2001); Marks, Image and Devotion. 4 Charles Drew, Early Parochial Organisation in England: The Origins of the Office of Churchwarden, St Anthony's Hall Publications VII (London, 1954); Emma Mason, 'The role of the English parishioner', Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 27 (1976), pp. 17-29. The earliest statutes to make this clearly explicit are those of Salisbury of 1217-19: Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the History of the English Church, ed. F. M. Powicke and C R. Cheney, 11, a.d. 1205-1313 (Oxford, 1964), p. 82. 5 Harold Mary and Joan Taylor, 'Architectural sculpture in pre-Norman England', The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd series, 29 (1962), pp. 3-51; Elizabeth Coatsworth, 'Late pre-Conquest sculpture with the crucifixion south of the Humber', in Bishop Aethelwold: his Career and Influence, ed. Barbara Yorke (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 161-93 (pp. 164-66); Barbara Raw, Anglo-Saxon Crucifixion Iconography and the Art of the Monastic Revival (Cambridge, 1990); Helen Gittos, 'Sacred space in Anglo-Saxon England' (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 2001), pp. 183-90. 6 Coatsworth, 'Late pre-Conquest', pp. 167-69 (Romsey); Harold Mary and Joan Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 521-22 (Sherborne), p. 372 (Langford), pp. 628-39 (Walkern).



7 Taylor and Taylor, ibid., p. 64 (Bibury), pp. 74-76 (Bitton), p. 87 (Bradford-on-Avon), p. 290 (Headbourne Worthy); Warwick J. Rodwell and Clive E. Rouse, 'The Anglo-Saxon rood and other features in the south porch of St Mary's church, Breamore, Hampshire', Antiquaries Journal, 64 (1984), pp. 298-323 (pp. 315-17). 8 P. S. Barnwell, 'The Laity, the Clergy and the Divine Presence: the Use of Space in Smaller Churches of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries', The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 157 (2004), pp. 41-60. 9 Warwick J. Rodwell, 'Anglo-Saxon painted sculpture at Wells, Breamore and Barton-upon-Humber', in Early Medieval Wall Painting and Painted Sculpture in England, ed. Sharon Cather, David Park and Paul Williamson, British Archaeological Report, British Series, 216 (1990), pp. 161-76 (pp. 165-66); Pamela Tudor- Craig, 'Nether Wallop reconsidered', in ibid., pp. 89-104. 10 Richard Gem, 'Towards an iconography of Anglo-Saxon architecture', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 46 (1983), pp. 1-18 (pp. 14-15). 11 Otto Lehmann-Brockhaus, Lateinishche Schiftquellen zur Kunst in England, Wales und Schottland vom Jahre 901 bis zum Jahre 1307 (Munich, 1956) (hereafter L-B), pp. 5952, 3454: magnam crucem que super altare est mirabili opere de argento et auro. 12 Ibid., pp. 469-71, 4479-80. This image, which was carved of black stone, was apparently miraculously discovered on the banks of the Thames, and one cannot help but wonder if it was a piece of Roman spolia. 13 Ibid., p. 326. Super ostium etiam chori pulpitum ... et ex utraque part pulpiti arcus, et in medio supra pulpitum arcum eminentiorem crucem in summitate gestantem ... opere Theutonico fabrefactos erexit. 14 The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, ed. and trans. Dom David Knowles, rev. C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford, 2002), pp. xxviii, 24, 28, 36-40, 62, 70, 78, 86-88, 96-98, 106. 15 Translation in Robert Willis, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (Cambridge, 1845), p. 37. It is not clear if this pulpitum belonged to Lanfranc's choir of the 1070s or to the choir as rebuilt by Archbishop Anselm at the end of the eleventh century. It is likely, however, that it was made of timber as it had to be replaced before the monks could enter their new choir in 1180 following the fire in 1174. 16 William St J. Hope, 'Quire screens in English churches, with special reference to the quire screen formerly in the cathedral church of Ely', Archaeologia, 68 (1916-17), pp. 42-110 (p. 88); Raw, Crucifixion Iconography, p. 48. 17 L-B, p. 501 (c. 1148-56): Crucem in choro et Mariam et Iohannem per manus magistri Hugonis incomparabiliter fecti insculpi; ibid., p. 506 (c. 1173-80): crux que erat super magnum altare, et Mariola et Iohannes, quas ymagines Stigandus archepiscopus magno pondereauri et argenti ornaverat et s. Aedmundo dederat. 18 Arnold Klukas, 'The continuity of Anglo-Saxon liturgical tradition in post-Conquest England as evident in the architecture of Winchester, Ely, and Canterbury cathedrals', in Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Les mutations socio-culturelles au tournant des xf-xiie siecles (Paris, 1984), pp. 111-23, 192-94; Carol Davidson Cragoe, 'Fabric, tombs and precinct 1087-1540', in St Paul's: the Cathedral Church of London 604-2004, ed. Derek Keene, Arthur Burns and Andrew Saint (New York and London, 2004), pp. 127-42. 19 John Blair, Church and Society in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2005) is the most recent work on this subject, but see also Richard Morris, Churches in the Landscape (London, 1989), pp. 93-167. 20 Gervase Rosser, 'The Anglo-Saxon gilds', in Minsters and Parish Churches, ed. John Blair (Oxford, 1988), pp. 31-34; John Blair, 'Clerical communities and parochial space: the planning of urban mother churches in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries', in The Church in the Medieval Town, ed. T. R. Slater and Gervase Rosser (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 272-94. 21 Vallance, English Church Screens, p. 38. A. P. Baggs in The Victoria County History of Sussex, ed. T P. Hudson, vol. 6, pt 2 (London, 1980), p. 170 calls this a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century roof tie-beam. 22 Martin Blindheim, Painted Wooden Sculpture in Norway c. 1100-1250 (Oslo, 1998); Aron Anderrson, Hart Scandinave, 11 (Yonne, 1968). 23 S. Rickersby and David Park, 'A Romanesque "Visitatio Sepulchri" at Kempley', Burlington Magazine, 133, no. 1054, pp. 27-31 (p. 30); Deborah Kahn, 'The Romanesque sculpture of the church of St Mary at Halford, Warwickshire', The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 133 (1980), pp. 64-73. 24 David Park, 'Romanesque wall painting at Ickleton', in Romanesque and Gothic: Essays for George Zarnecki, ed. Neil Stratford, 2 vols (Woodbridge, 1987), 1, pp. 159-70 (p. 166); Rickersby and Park, 'Romanesque "Visitatio Sepulchri'", p. 30. 25 E. W. Tristram, English Medieval Wall Painting. The Twelfth Century (London, 1944), p. 115. 26 David Park, 'The "Lewes Group" of Wall Paintings', Anglo Norman Studies, 3 (1983), pp. 200-35.



27 C. H. Campion, 'Mural paintings in Westmeston church', Sussex Archaeological Collections, xvi (1864), pp. 1-19. 28 Audrey Baker, 'Adam and Eve and the Lord God: the Adam and Eve cycle of wall paintings in the church of Hardham, Sussex', Archaeological Journal, 155 (1998), pp. 207-25; Tristram, Twelfth Century, pp. 145-46. 29 Paris, Musee de Cluny, CL 11.459; Brussels, Cathedral of S Michel; The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966-1066, ed. Janet Backhouse, D. H. Turner and Leslie Webster (London, c. 1984), pp. 91-92. 30 Lise Gotfredsen, Rdsted Kirche: Spil og Billede (Arhus, 1975). 31 The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. F. L. Cross, 3rd edn, ed. E. A. Livingstone (Oxford, 1997), p. 434. 32 London, British Library, MS Stowe 944, fol. 6r. 33 Monastic Constitutions, pp. 78-79. 34 Raw, Crucifixion Iconography, pp. 40-41. 35 L-B, p. 5952. 36 For instance: Lothar Cross, c. 985-91, Aachen, Palace Chapel, Treasury; cross of Abbess Mathilde (973-1011), Essen Minster, Treasury; cross of Queen Gisela, c. 1006, Munich, Residenz, Treasury. Collum Hourihane, The Processional Cross in Late Medieval England: The

'

Dally e Cross', Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 71 (London, 2005) discusses the history of processional crosses.

37 Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Z. 11503, c. 1080; idem., Z. 11502 of c. 1130-40; idem., Z. 11501 and 1905.66, both second quarter twelfth century; London, Museum of London, 4980, c. 1120-30. 38 Copenhagen, Danish National Museum, D.894. 39 English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, ed. George Zarnecki, Janet Holt and Tristram Holland (London 1984), pp. 246-47. 40 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, no. 63 / 12, and Oslo, Museum of Applied Art, no. 10314. The cross is sometimes dated to c. 1180, but an earlier dating is convincingly argued by Peter Lasko, Ars Sacra 800-1200, 2nd edn (New Haven, 1994), pp. 151-52. The link between the two objects was made by Martin Blindheim, 'Scandinavian Art and its relations to European art around 1200', in The Year 1200: a Symposium, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1975), pp. 429-67 (pp. 434-35). 41 English Romanesque Art, p. 245. 42 Royal Commission for Historic Monuments (of England), Churches of South-East Wiltshire (London, 1987), pp. 43-44, pis 11 & 37; E. W. Tristram, English Medieval W T all-Painting. 1, Text: the 13th Century (Oxford, 1950), p. 625. 43 English Romanesque Art, p. 247; London, British Museum, MLA, 1968, j-j, 1. 44 English Romanesque Art, pp. 242-43. 45 Anderrson, L'art Scandinave, pp. 343-44. 46 Ibid., pp. 336-40. Charles Tracy and Paul Woodfield, 'The "Adisham Reredos". What is it?', The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 156 (2003), pp. 27-78 (pp. 50-56 and fig. 26). 47 Marks, Image and Devotion, p. 47. 48 Tristram, Twelfth Century, pp. 128-36, 142-43, 149-52; Clive Rouse and Audrey Baker, 'The early wall paintings in Coombes church, Sussex and their iconography', Archaeological Journal, 136 (1979), pp. 218-28. 49 Vallance, English Church Screens, p. 19. 50 It is possible that this cross once had a figure, but its square shape with roughly equal arms, which is reminiscent of the empty cross in the Winchester Liber Vitae, militates against this. 51 Tristram, Twelfth Century, pp. 113-15. 52 Ibid., pp. 147-48. 53 C. E. Keyser, 'Mural paintings of the Doom at Patcham Church, Sussex', The Archaeological Journal, 38 (1881), pp. 80-95. 54 Tristram, Thirteenth Century, pp. 501-03. ^ Tristram, Twelfth Century, p. 133. 56 Rickersby and Park, 'Visitatio Sepulchri', p. 31. yj Regularis Concordia: The Monastic Agreement, ed. T. Symons (Oxford, 1953), pp. 47-48; Harold Mary Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 111 (Oxford, 1978), p. 1065; G. Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England: Anglo-Saxon Architecture (London, 1925), p. 329.



58 Warwick J. Rodwell and Kirsty A. Rodwell, 'St Peter's church, Barton-on-Humber: excavation and structural study, 1978-81', Journal of the Society of Antiquaries, 62 (1982), pp. 283-315 (fig. 6); Martin Biddle, 'Excavations in Winchester 1966: fifth interim report', Journal of the Society of Antiquaries, 47 (1967), pp. 262-63. 59 For a discussion of the use of western spaces, including the bases of west towers, as baptisteries in eleventh- and twelfth-century England, see C. F. Davidson, 'Architecture, Liturgy and the Laity in English Parish Churches c. 1125-C.1250' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1998), pp. 261-63. 60 Tristram, Twelfth Century, p. 124. 61 Vallance, English Church Screens, p. 2. An early date is sometimes suggested for the rood stairs at Thurlby (Lincolnshire) on the basis of an early English shaft near the top of the rood stair; this shaft, however, was reset in its present position at a later date. 62 'Aliud vero altare sub cruce ad austrum in honore beate Marie ... alterum vero altare ad boream in honore sacnte virginis Milburge.' Registrum Caroli Bothe, Episcopi Herefordensis a.d. MDXVI-MDXXXV, ed. A. T. Bannister, Canterbury and York Society, 28 (1921), p. 199. 63 'Parochiani ... debent invenire ... crucifixum, cruces, et ymagines.' Councils and Synods II, pp. 512-13. 64 Ibid., pp. 379, 1385. 65 Visitations of some churches belonging to St Paul's Cathedral, 1249-52 , ed. W. S. Simpson, Camden Miscellany 9, Camden Society, 53 (1895), pp. iii-38; ibid., Visitations of Churches Belonging to St Paul's Cathedral in 1297 and in 1458, Camden Society, 55 (1895). 66 Simpson, 1249-52, pp. 26-27. 67 'Crux stagnea et depicta super majus altare, et alia parva et portailis ad efferendum.' Ibid., p. 17. 68 Unica crux est ibi in maiori altari nee altera ad efferendum. Ibid., pp. 20-21. Efferendum is probably a misspelling of offerendum, suggesting that the visitors were criticizing the lack of a processional cross. 69 Crux una super altare lignea depicta. Ibid., pp. 4-5. 70 Una crux admallo et alia lignea depicta ... item lintheamen retro crucem. Ibid., p. 9. 71 Unum lintheamen ante crucem. Ibid., p. 11. 72 Velum ad cooperiendum crucem in ecclesia de canopo. Ibid., p. 2. 73 Crux magna cum ymaginibus super trabem iuxta cancellum de beata Virgine et b. Iohanne Ewangelista. Simpson, 1297, p. 59. 74 Ymaginibus Sancte Crucis. Ibid., p. 36. 7^ Ibid., p. 45. 76 Ibid., p. 61. 77 Ibid., pp. 54, 57. 78 Ibid., pp. 12, 17, 20, 24, 27. 79 'In medio navis ymago crucifixi pingenda, cuis pictura de formata per cadenciam pluie de negligencia parochianorum, cum ymaginibus beate Virginis et Sanct Johannis a diuerso latere.' Ibid., p. 43. 80 Ibid., pp. 1-6, 52-53. 81 Ibid., p. 49. 82 Ibid., p. 50. 83 Ibid., p. 10. 84 Ibid., p. 63. 85 'Operimentum decens et honestum inter altare et summitatem chori.' Councils and Synods II, p. 171. 86 Vallance, English Church Screens, pp. 34-36. 87 H. M. Cautley, Suffolk Churches and Their Treasures, 5th edn with supplement (Ipswich, 1982), pp. 362-63. 88 W. J. Rodwell, Rivenhall: Investigation of a Villa, Church, and Village, 1950-1977, Council for British Archaeology Research Report, ^ (1985), pp. 142-44. 89 Carol F. Davidson, 'Change and change back: the development of parish church chancels', Studies in Church History, 35 (1999), pp. 65-76. 90 Raw, Crucifixion Iconography, pp. 50-51. 91 Gary Macy, Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period (Oxford, 1984). 92 Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. N. P. Tanner, 2 vols (London, 1990), Lateran IV, c.i. 93 Joseph Goering, 'The invention of transubstantiation', Traditio, 46 (1991), pp. 147-70. 94 Tristram, Thirteenth Century, pp. 501-03; Ann Ballantyne, Conservation of the Anglo-Saxon wall painting at Nether Wallop', in Cather et al., Early Medieval Wall Painting, pp. 105-10.



95 C. N. L. Brooke and Rosalind Brooke, Popular Religion in the Middle Ages: Western Europe 1000-1300 (London, 1984), pp. 115-16; similar sentiments are found in many standard works on the English church, such as Martin Brett, The English Church Under Henry I (London, 1975), pp. 220-21, and more recently, inter alia, in Andrew Brown, Church and Society in England, 1000-1500 (Basingstoke, 2003), pp. 44-50. A more balanced view is expressed by Helen Gittos, 'Is there any evidence for the liturgy of parish churches in late Anglo- Saxon England? The Red Book of Darley and the status of Old English', in Pastoral Care in late Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Francesca Tinti (Woodbridge, forthcoming). 96 Brooke, Popular Religion, pp. 124-25. 97 Park, 'Lewes group', pp. 210-13. 98 Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930). 99 Peter Warner, 'Shared churchyards, freeman church builders, and the development of parishes in eleventh-century East Anglia', Landscape History, 8 (1986), pp. 36-52; Blair, Church and Society, pp. 409-10. 100 F. M. Stenton, Documents Illustrative of the Social and Economic History of the Danelaw (London, 1920), p. 342. 101 English Episcopal Ada II: Canterbury 1162-1190, ed. C. R. Cheney and B. Jones (Oxford, 1986), pp. 45-46. 102 Councils and Synods II, p. 128. 103 Davidson, 'Written in Stone', pp. 115-19. 104 Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, Martin Brett and C. N. L. Brooke, I. A.D. 87 1-1204 (Oxford, 1981): Aelfric, pp. 209-10; Canons of Edgar, p. 333; Aethelred, pp. 390-91; Cnut, p. 500. 105 Councils and Synods II: Winchester 1070, p. 576; Windsor 1070, p. 581; Westminster 1127, p. 748; Westminster 1138, p. 778; York 1195, p. 1050; Westminster 1200, pp. 1066-67; Canterbury 1213-14, p. 33; Salisbury 1217-19, p. 75. 106 English Historical Documents I, 500-1042, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (London, 1979), p. 464. 107 Stenton, Documents Illustrative, p. 342; 'et per dispositionem capellani et duorum aut trium parrachianorum fidelium expendantur ad sacra texta, ad libros, ad vestimenta, sue ornamenta, que eidem capelle necessaria fuerint procuranda/ English Episcopal Ada II, pp. 45-46). 108 Joseph Goering, William de Montibus (c. 1140-1213): the Schools and Literature of Pastoral Care (Toronto, 1992) (pp. 58-99); Leonard E. Boyle, 'The Fourth Lateran Council and manuals of popular theology', in Popular Literature of Medieval England, ed. J. T. Heffernan (Knoxville, 1985), pp. 30-43; idem., 'The inter- conciliar period 1179-1215 and the beginnings of pastoral manuals', in Miscellanea Rolando Bandinelli papa Allessandro III, ed. F. Liotta (Siena, 1986), pp. 45-56. 109 The Lay Folk's Mass Book, ed. T F. Simmons, Early English Text Society, 71 (London, 1879). 110 'Absens quidem corpore sed spiritu praesens et caritate, diligentiam vestram scripto praesenti instruere dignam duxi et offici debito non alienum, quatinus qualem erga vos dilecionis affectum habeam ex hoc perpendere, et quia curam vestri propter locorum distantias non abjecerim, intelligere valeatis.' Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. S. Brewer, Rolls Series, 21, 8 vols (London, 1861-91), 11, pp. xi, 5-6. 1 am very grateful to William Campbell for bringing this passage to my attention. 111 Goering, William de Montibus, p. 261, n. 2. 112 Park, 'Lewes group', p. 209. 113 Register of St Osmund, ed. W. H. R. Jones, 2 vols, Rolls Series, 78 (London, 1883-84), 1, p. 304. 114 Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (London, 1973), p. 17. 115 Goering, William de Montibus, p. 64, n. 13; Orme, English Schools (pp. 167-93). 116 Henry of Huntingdon The History of the English People 1000-1154, trans. Diana Greenway, rev. edn (Oxford, 2002), p. xiv. 117 Goering, William de Montibus, p. 76 and passim. 118 Brian Kemp, 'Archdeacons and parish churches in England in the twelfth century', in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt, ed. George Garnett and John Hudson (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 341-64. 119 Robert Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, (Oxford, 2000), pp. 451-54; see also Kathleen Greenfield, 'Changing emphases in English vernacular homiletic literature, 960-1225', Journal of Medieval History, 7.3 (1981), pp. 283-97; Mary Swan, 'Aelfric's Catholic Homilies in the twelfth century', in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. Mary Swan and Elaine M. Treharne (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 62-82; and Jonathan Wilcox, 'Wulfstan and the twelfth century', in ibid., pp. 83-97, explore the continued use of these two well known Anglo-Saxon homilists in later years.



120 Monastic Constitutions, pp. 60-61. 121 Orme, English Schools, p. 60. 122 Walter Map. De Nugis Curialium, ed. M. R. James, rev. C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), p. 12. 123 The Victoria History of Huntingdonshire, ed. William Page, 11 (reprinted London, 1974), pp. 236-37. 124 C. R. Cheney, 'The so-called statutes of John Pecham and Robert Winchelsey for the province of Canterbury7, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 12.1 (1961), pp. 14-34 discusses the development of ecclesiastical statutes through multiple councils; Michael Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307 (Oxford, 1993) discusses the development of written record keeping in England more generally.


Article Contentsp. [21]p. 22p. 23p. 24p. 25p. 26p. 27p. 28p. 29p. 30p. 31p. 32p. 33p. 34p. 35p. 36p. 37p. 38p. 39p. 40p. 41p. 42p. 43p. 44p. 45p. 46p. 47p. 48

Issue Table of ContentsArchitectural History, Vol. 48 (2005), pp. i-vi, 1-326Front MatterIslam and the West: The Early Use of the Pointed Arch Revisited [pp. 1-20]Belief and Patronage in the English Parish before 1300: Some Evidence from Roods [pp. 21-48]Moral Edification at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge [pp. 49-68]Suburban Models, or Calvinism and Continuity in London's Seventeenth-Century Church Architecture [pp. 69-106]The Architects of Christ Church Library [pp. 107-138]Female Architectural Patronage in the Eighteenth Century and the Case of Henrietta Cavendish Holles Harley [pp. 139-162]New Drawings for the Interiors of the Breakfast Room and Library at Pitzhanger Manor [pp. 163-172]Thomas Jefferson and Franois Cointereaux, Professor of Rural Architecture in Revolutionary Paris [pp. 173-206]Henry Cole's European Travels and the Building of the South Kensington Museum in the 1850s [pp. 207-234]Criminal Skins: Tattoos and Modern Architecture in the Work of Adolf Loos [pp. 235-256]The 'Beginnings of a Noble Pile': Liverpool Cathedral's Lady Chapel (1904-10) [pp. 257-290]Churches for a Changing Liturgy: Gillespie, Kidd & Coia and the Second Vatican Council [pp. 291-322]The Royal Festival Hall: A Postscript [pp. 323-326]Back Matter

40033832, sfgsrg srgvergt, aetcv12u745ihtk rgcsndb

Documents

architectural patronage

jstor terms

jstor archive

english parish

lay piety

architectural history

architectural forms

active lay patronage