English Alabaster Carvings and Their Cultural Contexts 1783274077, 9781783274079

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ZULEIKA MURAT is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the History of Medieval Art at the University of Padua. Contributors: Jennifer Alexander, Jon Bayliss, Claire Blakey, Stephanie De Roemer, Rachel King, Andrew Kirkman, Aleksandra Lipinska, Zuleika Murat, Luca Palozzi, Sophie Phillips, Nigel Ramsay, Christina Welch, Philip Weller, Kim Woods, Michaela Zöschg. Cover image: English Workshop, Virgin and Child. London, British Museum, Inv. 2016,8041.1 (Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum) Cover design: www.stay-creative.co.uk

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS

This volume incorporates a variety of new approaches to these artefacts, employing methodologies drawn from a number of different disciplines. Its chapters explore a range of key points connected to alabasters: their origins, their general history and their social, cultural, intellectual and devotional contexts.

ZULEIKA MURAT (ed.)

E

nglish alabasters played a seminal role in the artistic development of late medieval and early modern Europe. Carvings made of this lustrous white stone were sold throughout England and abroad, and as a result many survived the iconoclasm that destroyed so much else from this period. They are a unique and valuable witness to the material culture of the Middle Ages.

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS Edited by

ZULEIKA MURAT

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS

BOYDELL STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL ART AND ARCHITECTURE ISSN 2045–4902 Series Editors Professor Julian Luxford Professor Asa Simon Mittman This series aims to provide a forum for debate on the art and architecture of the Middle Ages. It will cover all media, from manuscript illuminations to maps, tapestries, carvings, wall-paintings and stained glass, and all periods and regions, including Byzantine art. Both traditional and more theoretical approaches to the subject are welcome. Proposals or queries should be sent in the first instance to the editors or to the publisher, at the addresses given below. Professor Julian Luxford, School of Art History, University of St Andrews, 79 North Street, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL, UK Professor Asa Simon Mittman, Department of Art and Art History, California State University at Chico, Chico, CA 95929-0820, USA Boydell & Brewer, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK Previously published titles in the series are listed at the back of this volume.

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS

Edited by Zuleika Murat

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Contributors 2019 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2019 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 978 1 78327 407 9

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This publication is printed on acid-free paper

CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements xv List of Contributors xvii

Introduction 1 Zuleika Murat

1

‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ The evolving study of medieval English alabaster sculpture Nigel Ramsay

35

Stone to ensure victory and to generate friendships. On the meaning of alabaster Aleksandra Lipińska

51

Contextualising English alabasters in the material culture of the medieval Mediterranean Luca Palozzi

71

English alabaster images as recipients of music in the long fifteenth century: English sacred traditions in a European perspective †Philip Weller and Andrew Kirkman

93



2

3

4

5

Contextualising alabasters in their immersive environment. The ‘ancona d’allabastro di diverse figure’ of the Novalesa abbey: meaning and function Zuleika Murat

127

vi CONTENTS

6

7

8

9

Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire Jennifer Alexander

150

‘Tabernacles, howsynges and other things’. Three alabasters from the Burrell Collection in context Claire Blakey, Rachel King and Michaela Zöschg

173

Conservation study of three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums Sophie Philipps with Stephanie de Roemer

194

‘Smooth as monumental alabaster’. The alabaster tomb industry in England 1550–1660 Jon Bayliss

214

10 Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

11

Kim Woods

236

Exploring Alice: the theological, socio-historical, and 276 anatomical context of the de la Pole cadaver sculpture Christina Welch

Bibliography 296 Index 340

ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES I II

III IV

V VI VII

VIII

IX X

English Workshop, Virgin and Child. London, British Museum, Inv. 2016,8041.1 (Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum) English Workshop, St Ursula and the Virgin Martyrs. Paris, Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen-Âge, Inv. Cl. 19336 (Photo: © RMN-Grand Palais (musée de Cluny – musée national du Moyen-Âge) / Gérard Blot) English Workshop, Prophets. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. A.188-1946 (Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London) English Workshop, St Peter. Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Museum (Photo: © Fondo Edifici di Culto – Direzione Centrale per l’Amministrazione del Fondo Edifici di Culto del Ministero dell’Interno) Joan de Tournai, Tomb of St Narcissus. Girona, Church of St Felieu (Photo: © Gustavo A. T. Mendoza, Cabildo Catedral de Girona – All rights reserved) Andrea Pisano, Virgin and Child. Berlin, Museen Dahlem (Photo: © bpk / Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, SMB / Antje Voigt) English Workshop, Tabernacle with the Virgin and Child, St Catherine of Alexandria, St Apollonia, St Margaret of Antioch, and (possibly) St Mary Kleophas. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Inv. 2014.60.1 (Photo: Creative Common) English Workshop, Tree of Jesse. Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Inv. 1945-25-108. Purchased with Museum Funds from the George Grey Barnard Collection, 1945 (Photo: © Genevra Kornbluth) English Workshop, The Assumption of the Virgin. Susa, Museo Diocesano (Photo: © Massimo Sebastiani, Archivio Fotografico Centro Culturale Diocesano di Susa) English Workshop, Head of St John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.34 (Photo: © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection)

viii illustrations XI XII

English Workshop, Head of St John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.33 (Photo: © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection) English Workshop, Head of St John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.35 (Photo: © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection)

FIGURES Introduction  Zuleika Murat Fig. 0.1 Fig. 0.2 Fig. 0.3

Woodcut image from the 1563 edition of John Foxe’s Book 11 of Martyrs English Workshop, Holy Trinity in Mandorla Surrounded by 15 Symbols of the Evangelists. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, Inv. 27.307 (Photo: The Walters Art Museum) English Workshop, St Anne teaching the Virgin Mary to read. 17 Lisbon, Museo Nacional de Arte Antiga, Inv. 654 ESC (Photo: © José Pessoa, Direção-Geral do Património Cultural / Arquivo de Documentação Fotográfica (DGPC/ADF))

1 ‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ The evolving study of medieval English alabaster sculpture  Nigel Ramsay Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2

English Workshop, St Catherine refusing to sacrifice to the idol. 38 London, British Museum, Inv. 1914,0521.1 (Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum) Dr Walter Leo Hildburgh, internationally acclaimed skater 43 (Photo: author)

2 Stone to ensure victory and to generate friendships. On the meaning of alabaster  Aleksandra Lipińska Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 2.5 Fig. 2.6

English Workshop, Head of St John the Baptist. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. A.164-1946 (Photo: ©  Victoria and Albert Museum, London) The Dyneley Casket. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. 24-1865 (Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London) The Dyneley Casket. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. 24-1865 (Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London) Willem van den Broecke, Venus and Amor. Private collection, Belgium (Photo: © Léon Lock) Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Imp. London, Tate Gallery (Photo: © Tate, London 2018) Sir Jacob Epstein, Jacob and the Angel. London, Tate Gallery (Photo: © Tate, London 2018)

59 61 61 64 67 68

ix

illustrations

3 Contextualising English alabasters in the material culture of the medieval Mediterranean  Luca Palozzi Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4 Fig. 3.5 Fig. 3.6 Fig. 3.7

Florentine Workshop, Window pane. Florence, Church of 76 San Miniato al Monte (Photo: © Peter W. Syme) Giovanni di Balduccio, Bishop Saint (alternatively identified 79 as St Petronius or St Nicolas). Bologna, Church of Santo Stefano (Photo: © Ufficio diocesano Beni culturali, Diocesi di Bologna) Giovanni Pisano, Virgin and Child. Pisa, Museo della 82 Primaziale Pisana (Photo: © Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut) Giovanni Pisano, Virgin and Child. Prato, Cathedral of 83 Santo Stefano, Chapel of Sacra Cintola (Photo: © Archivio Fotografico Ufficio Beni Culturali Diocesi di Prato) Workshop of Nicola Pisano (vertical support) and Giovanni 85 Pisano (holy-water basin), Baptismal font. Pistoia, Church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas (Photo: © Ivan Bianchini) Bonino da Campione, Equestrian Monument of Bernabò 89 Visconti. Milan, Raccolte d’Arte Antica, Museo d’Arte Antica del Castello Sforzesco (Photo: Courtesy of the museum) Nino Pisano, Virgin and Child. Trapani, Church of Our Lady 90 of Mount Carmel (Photo: ©  Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut)

4 English alabaster images as recipients of music in the long fifteenth century: English sacred traditions in a European perspective  Andrew Kirkman and Philip Weller Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4

English Workshop, Virgin and Child (‘The Flawford Madonna’). Nottingham, Nottingham Castle Museum (Photo: © Nottingham City Museums and Galleries) English Workshop, Coronation of the Virgin. Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham (Photo: © Barber Institute of Fine Arts) English Workshop, Seated Virgin and Child (‘Our Lady of Westminster’). London, Westminster Cathedral (Photo: ©  Father Laurence Lew O.P.) English Workshop, The Annunciation. Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Inv. 1945-25-107. Purchased with Museum Funds from the George Grey Barnard Collection, 1945 (Photo: © Genevra Kornbluth)

5 Contextualising alabasters in their immersive environment. The ‘ancona d’allabastro di diverse figure’ of the Novalesa abbey: meaning and function  Zuleika Murat

95 111 115 116

x illustrations English Workshop, Fragments of an Adoration of the Magi. 131 Private Collection (Photo: author) 5.2 English Workshop, Fragment of an Adoration of the Magi. 131 Private Collection (Photo: author) 5.3 Fragments of Carving which came from the Novalesa Abbey 132 Church (after Biscarra, Frammenti di Bassorilievi, 1875, Pl. III) 5.4 English Workshop, Crucifixion and Coronation of the 133 Virgin (Photo: © Sabap-To – all rights reserved; by kind permisison of the Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali) 5.5 English Workshop, Coronation of the Virgin. Turin, Palazzo 134 Madama, Museo Civico d’Arte Antica (Photo: © Bruna Biamino 2001; by kind permission of the Fondazione Torino Musei. Further reproduction or copying is not allowed.) 5.6 English Workshop, Crucifixion. Monselice, Castello Cini 135 (Photo: © Matteo De Fina. By kind permission of Regione Veneto. Further reproduction or copying is not allowed.) 5.7 Reconstruction of the Novalesa alabaster altarpiece 136 (Reconstructed by the author, Drawing © Paolo Vedovetto) 5.8 Antoine de Lonhy, Prophet. Novalesa, Abbey Church 141 (Photo: © author; by kind permission of the Abbazia Benedettina dei SS. Pietro e Andrea, Novalesa) 5.9 Antoine de Lonhy, Prophet. Novalesa, Abbey Church 142 (Photo: © author; by kind permission of the Abbazia Benedettina dei SS. Pietro e Andrea, Novalesa) 5.10 Antoine de Lonhy, Prophet. Novalesa, Abbey Church 142 (Photo: © author; by kind permission of the Abbazia Benedettina dei SS. Pietro e Andrea, Novalesa)

Fig. 5.1 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

6 Alabaster carvings in late medieval Lincolnshire  Jennifer Alexander English Workshop, Alabaster retable fragments. Scartho, Church of St Giles (Photo: author) Fig. 6.2 English Workshop, St John the Baptist. Scartho, Church of St Giles (Photo: author) Fig. 6.3 English Workshop, St John the Evangelist (?). Scartho, Church of St Giles (Photo: author) Fig. 6.4 English Workshop, The Annunciation. Scartho, Church of St Giles (Photo: author) Fig. 6.5 English Workshop, The Adoration of the Virgin. Scartho, Church of St Giles (Photo: author) Fig. 6.6 English Workshop, The Adoration of the Magi. Scartho, Church of St Giles (Photo: author) Fig. 6.7 English Workshop, The Assumption of the Virgin. Scartho, Church of St Giles (Photo: author) Fig. 6.8 English Workshop, The Assumption of the Virgin. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. A.115-1946 (Photo: ©  Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Fig. 6.1

155 156 157 158 159 160 161 161

illustrations

Fig. 6.9 Fig. 6.10 Fig. 6.11 Fig. 6.12 Fig. 6.13 Fig. 6.14 Fig. 6.15 Fig. 6.16 Fig. 6.17 Fig. 6.18

English Workshop, The Coronation of the Virgin. Scartho, 162 Church of St Giles (Photo: author) English Workshop, The Coronation of the Virgin. London, 162 Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. A.157-1946 (Photo: ©  Victoria and Albert Museum, London) English Workshop, Alabaster retable of the Life of the Virgin. 163 Bordeaux, Church of Saint-Michel (Photo: author) Stonehouse, Drawing of fragments from the Crucifixion 168 (Photo: author; Courtesy of Lincoln Cathedral Library) Stonehouse, Drawing of fragments from the Crucifixion 168 (Photo: author; Courtesy of Lincoln Cathedral Library) English Workshop, The Crucifixion. London, Victoria and 169 Albert Museum, Inv. A.105-1946 (Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London) Stonehouse, Drawing of fragments from the Crucifixion of 170 St Peter (Photo: author; Courtesy of Lincoln Cathedral Library) English Workshop, The Crucifixion of St Peter. London, 170 Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. A.60-1926 (Photo: ©  Victoria and Albert Museum, London) Stonehouse, Drawing of the Beheading of St John the Baptist 170 (Photo: author; Courtesy of Lincoln Cathedral Library) English Workshop, The Beheading of St John the Baptist. 170 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Inv. A.70-1946 (Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

8 Conservation study of three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums  Sophie Philipps and Stephanie de Roemer Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2 Fig. 8.3 Fig. 8.4

Fig. 8.5

Drawing of Head of Saint John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. 197 Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.33 (Drawing: Sophie Philipps) Drawing of the alabaster components of Head of Saint John 200 the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.34 (Drawing: Sophie Philipps) Drawing of the wooden case from Head of St John the 202 Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.34 (Drawing: Sophie Philipps) Drawing of the Alabaster components of Head of St 205 John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.35 (Drawing: Sophie Philipps) Drawing of the wooden case from Head of St John the 207 Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.35 (Drawing: Sophie Philipps)

xi

xii illustrations 9 ‘Smooth as monumental alabaster’. The alabaster tomb industry in England 1550–1660  Jon Bayliss Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 9.3 Fig. 9.4 Fig. 9.5 Fig. 9.6 Fig. 9.7

Cornelius Cure, Monument to Robert Dudley. Warwick, 216 Church of St Mary (Photo: author) Epiphanius Evesham, Tablet Commemorating Edward 219 Games. Scarning, Norfolk (Photo: author) William White, Monument to Sir John Newdigate. Harefield, 220 Middlesex (Photo: author) William Hargrave, Monument to Sir John Manners. Bakewell, 224 Derbyshire (Photo: author) Garrett and Jasper Hollemans, Monument to Sir George and 226 Frances Shirley. Breedon-on-the-Hill (Photo: author) Hugh Hall, Monument to Sir Thomas Smith. Nantwich, 228 Cheshire (Photo: author) Somerset Alabaster Workshop, Tablet Commemorating 232 Martin Pringe. Bristol, Church of St Stephen (Photo: author)

10 Merchants’ tombs in alabaster  Kim Woods Fig. 10.1 English Workshop, Tomb of John Crosby and wife. London, 238 St Helen’s Bishopsgate (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Helen’s Bishopsgate) Fig. 10.2 English Workshop, Tomb of John Crosby and wife. London, 239 St Helen’s Bishopsgate (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Helen’s Bishopsgate) Fig. 10.3 English Workshop, Effigy of John Chircheman (formerly 242 identified as John de Oteswich) and wife Emma. London, St Helen’s Bishopsgate (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Helen’s Bishopsgate) Fig. 10.4 English Workshop, Effigy of John Chircheman (formerly 243 identified as John de Oteswich) and wife Emma. London, St Helen’s Bishopsgate (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Helen’s Bishopsgate) Fig. 10.5 English Workshop, Effigies of William de la Pole and 249 Katherine de Norwich. Hull, Holy Trinity church (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of Holy Trinity church, Hull) Fig. 10.6 English Workshop, Effigies of William de la Pole and 251 Katherine de Norwich. Hull, Holy Trinity church (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of Holy Trinity church, Hull) Fig. 10.7 English Workshop, Effigies of William de la Pole and 252 Katherine de Norwich. Hull, Holy Trinity church (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of Holy Trinity church, Hull) Fig. 10.8 English Workshop, Tomb of John Pyel and wife Joan. 256 Northants, Irthlingborough, Church of St Peter (Photo:

xiii

illustrations

Fig.

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig.

Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Peter’s, Irthlingborough) 10.9 English Workshop, Tomb of John Pyel and wife Joan. Northants, Irthlingborough, Church of St Peter (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Peter’s, Irthlingborough) 10.10 English Workshop, Tomb of John Samon. Nottingham, Church of St Mary (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary’s, Nottingham) 10.11 English Workshop, Tomb of John Samon. Nottingham, Church of St Mary (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary’s, Nottingham) 10.12 English Workshop, Tomb chest of John Tannesley. Nottingham, Church of St Mary (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary’s, Nottingham) 10.13 English Workshop, Alabaster effigy of a merchant. Nottingham, Church of St Mary (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary’s, Nottingham) 10.14 English Workshop, Tomb of Thomas Ricard and wife. Lincolnshire, Harlaxton, Church of St Mary and St Peter (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary and St Peter, Harlaxton) 10.15 English Workshop, Tomb of Thomas Ricard and wife. Lincolnshire, Harlaxton, Church of St Mary and St Peter (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary and St Peter, Harlaxton) 10.16 English Workshop, Tomb of Thomas Ricard and wife. Lincolnshire, Harlaxton, Church of St Mary and St Peter (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary and St Peter, Harlaxton) 10.17 English Workshop, Tomb of Richard Patten/Barbour. Oxford, Magdalen College. (Photo: author; Reproduced by permission of The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford) 10.18 English Workshop, Tomb of William Blythe and wife. Sheffield, Norton, Church of St James (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St James, Norton) 10.19 English Workshop, Tomb of William Blythe and wife. Sheffield, Norton, Church of St James (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St James, Norton) 10.20 English Workshop, Tomb of William Blythe and wife. Sheffield, Norton, Church of St James (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St James, Norton) 10.21 English Workshop, Tomb of William Canynges. Bristol, St Mary Redcliffe (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary Redcliffe) 10.22 English Workshop, Effigy of a canon. Bristol, St Mary

257

258 260 261 262 264 265 266 267

268 269 270 271 272

xiv illustrations Redcliffe (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary Redcliffe) Fig. 10.23 English Workshop, Effigy of a canon. Bristol, St Mary Redcliffe (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary Redcliffe) Fig. 10.24 English Workshop, Effigy of a canon. Bristol, St Mary Redcliffe (Photo: author; Reproduced by kind permission of St Mary Redcliffe)

273 273

11 Exploring Alice: the theological, socio-historical, and anatomical context of the de la Pole cadaver sculpture  Christina Welch Fig. 11.1 Fig. 11.2 Fig. 11.3 Fig. 11.4 Fig. 11.5 Fig. 11.6

English Workshop, Alice de la Pole’s tomb. Ewelme, 277 Church of St Mary (Photo: author) English Workshop, Alice de la Pole’s tomb. Ewelme, 280 Church of St Mary (Photo: author) English Workshop, Alice de la Pole’s tomb. Ewelme, 285 Church of St Mary (Photo: author) English Workshop, Alice de la Pole’s tomb. Ewelme, 286 Church of St Mary (Photo: author) English Workshop, Alice de la Pole’s tomb. Ewelme, 292 Church of St Mary (Photo: author) English Workshop, Cadaver effigy of a now anonymous 294 man. Stalbridge, Church of St Mary (Photo: author)

TABLES 8 Conservation study of three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums  Sophie Philipps and Stephanie de Roemer Table 8.1 EDXRF spectra for pigment samples from Head of St 211 John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.33 Table 8.2 EDXRF spectra for pigment samples from Head of St 212 John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.34 Table 8.3 EDXRF spectra for pigment samples from Head of St 213 John the Baptist in a Tabernacle. Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums, Inv. 1.35

The editor, contributors and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and persons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I

would like to acknowledge the contributions of the authors of the essays that comprise this book, and of other individuals and institutions that have supported our research. First of all, mention should be made of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for having generously supported the publication of this book with a Publication Grant. The University of Warwick, Department of History of Art, has made the project possible by supporting and hosting the conference at which part of the papers published in this volume were given. I am especially grateful to the University of Padua, Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali: archeologia, storia dell’arte, del cinema e della musica, for having awarded me a post-doctoral research fellowship devoted to English alabasters, during which this project and my research matured. I am indebted to Julian Gardner for his help and constructive criticisms. I would also like to express my gratitude to Catherine Blake, Louise Bourdua and Luca Mor. The essays’ authors would like to remember and thank Caroline Barron, Chris Caple, Matthew Champion, Claire Cooper, Gavin H. Evans, Mark Evans, Vicky Garlick, Nathalie Jacqueminet, Annika Joy, Julian Luxford, Richard Marks, David Morrison, Freyja Ómarsdóttir, Rebecca Quinton, James Robinson, Iona Shepherd, Paul Sibley, Christian Steer, Jeremy Warren, Rosemary Watt, Paul Williamson, Matthew Winterbottom, Geoffrey White and Roy York. Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the memory of Philip Weller who sadly died before this volume reached publication. His eloquent words in Chapter 4 must now stand to the memory of a dear and generous colleague. Zuleika Murat University of Padua

Supported by a Publications Grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

CONTRIBUTORS Jennifer Alexander, University of Warwick Jon Bayliss, Independent Scholar Claire Blakey, The British Museum, London Stephanie de Roemer, Glasgow Museums/Glasgowlife Rachel King, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Andrew Kirkman, University of Birmingham Aleksandra Lipińska, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Zuleika Murat, Università degli Studi di Padova Luca Palozzi, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz-Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Sophie Philipps, Independent Scholar Nigel Ramsay, University College London Christina Welch, University of Winchester † Philip Weller, University of Nottingham Kim Woods, The Open University Michaela Zöschg, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

INTRODUCTION ZULEIKA MURAT

E

nglish alabasters played a seminal role in the artistic development of late medieval and early modern Europe. The production of alabaster was one of the main industrial activities in medieval England. The numerous alabaster workshops, often family run,1 were engaged in many different kinds of highly specialised work: both the extraction and working of the stone, sculpting reliefs that were then completed with polychrome finishes and gilding,2 as well as the sale of both the raw material and the finished products.3 Alabaster was mined and worked

1 From the evidence of documents we can ascertain that many workshops were family run and were handed down from generation to generation. Richard Parker of Burtonon-Trent, for instance, who was described as ‘alablaster man’, was the son-in-law of Margery Walker, who appears to have traded in alabaster tables. She was a widow and was probably carrying on her husband’s business. Some of the workshops were indeed managed by women: in 1496, Elizabeth Spenser took Emma Spenser, widow of the ‘imagemaker’ John, to court in relation to certain assets that the woman possessed, among which were specified ‘diverse altarpieces and other images of alabaster lying in her shop’. This documentary testimony seems to indicate that the woman managed the alabaster workshop after the death of her husband: Records of the Borough of Nottingham. Volume III. 1485–1547 (London, 1885), 38–9 [electronic edition: https://archive.org/ details/recordsofborough03nott/page/n1] (last accessed April 2018); Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a catalogue of the collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2nd edn (Woodbridge 2005), 14–16. 2 Many alabaster sculptors were multi-skilled artisans, also working as painters, or working in other mediums such as marble sculpting. In July 1483, for instance, Walter Hilton, mentioned as an ‘imagemaker’ in 1480 and as an ‘alablasterman’ in 1496, was involved in a court action over the painting of a tabernacle. Between 1493–and 1500 he was involved in the making of the tomb of Richard III. Another artisan, Edward Hilton, is also described as an imagemaker and as a painter. Records of the Borough of Nottingham. Volume II. 1399–1485 (London, 1883), 332, 419 [electronic edition: https://archive.org/ details/recordsofborough02nott/page/n1] (last accessed April 2018); Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 13–14. 3 In 1414, for example, Thomas Prentis supplied a block of crude alabaster for export to Normandy, while in 1418–19 he signed a contract, together with Robert Sutton, to sculpt the tomb of Ralph Greene and his wife, still conserved in its original location in Lowick Church, Northamptonshire. Prentis’ workshop was therefore occupied with both the extraction and export of the material, as well as its various stages of working, up to and including the final consignment of the work. Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 14.

2

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS

in England as early as the twelfth century. Initially it was used mainly as a material for sculpting funerary monuments and architectural features, but from the late 1300s onwards it was also used to produce sculpture in the round at various scales, destined for the furnishing of altars or to be placed on church screens. Even more widespread came to be the carved reliefs in a rectangular format that, when mounted in sequence, formed monumental altarpieces. During this same period, works in alabaster began to be exported on a large scale, produced in England and then sold in France, northern Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal.4 The industry continued to flourish until the Reformation, when the practice of iconoclasm signalled the end of the production of sacred images in English territory. This book is about those alabaster sculptures. Naturally, it is not the first publication to focus on this type of object; indeed, if anyone were to scan the complete list of previous studies on alabasters, they would be amazed at the incredible number of publications on the subject that have accumulated from the late eighteenth century onwards, with a decisive upturn in the course of the last century.5 This book furthers that tradition, while also aiming to investigate the origin, history and context – broadly intended as social, cultural, intellectual and devotional context – of these works of art from several novel points of view. Some of these new approaches may at first appear divergent to the reader, but the idea is that they will offer a complementary and stimulating overview of the subject. The first scholarly contributions on English alabasters appeared towards the end of the eighteenth century, following the fortuitous discovery of a significant number of reliefs under the pavements of churches or hidden in the walls, where they had been placed for safekeeping by parishioners hoping to protect them from the iconoclastic destruction that followed the Reformation. As they began to be uncovered, these reliefs attracted

4 The bibliography on alabasters is vast, and will be cited in later footnotes in relation to the specific issues that will be discussed. For a general overview of the production of sculpture and relief sculpture in alabaster, see Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 339–47. With specific regard to the exportation of works to Europe, the modes by which this was achieved, and the social implications of such a practice, see: Ramsay, N., “La production et exportation des albâtres anglais médiévaux,” in X. Barral i Altet (ed.), Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen Age. Volume 3. Fabrication et consommation de l’oeuvre (Paris, 1983), 609–19; Idem, “Alabaster,” in J. Blair and N. Ramsay (eds), English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products (London, 1991), 29–40; Idem,“La diffusion en Europe des albâtres anglais,” in G. Duby (ed.), Le Moyen Age, Histoire artistique de l’Europe (Paris, 1995), 316–21; Idem, “Medieval English alabasters in Rouen and Evreux,” Apollo 147:435 (1998), 50–1; Woods, K., “The Supply of Alabaster in Northern and Mediterranean Europe in the Later Middle Ages,” in J. Kirby, S. Nash and J. Cannon (eds), Trade in Artists’ Materials. Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700 (London, 2010), 86–93; Murat, Z., “Medieval English Alabaster Sculptures: Trade and Diffusion in the Italian Peninsula,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 22 (2016), 399–413. 5 For a list of the essential literature, see the detailed bibliography given in Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 339–47.

Introduction

the interest of local writers.6 Arguably the most important discovery of alabaster in the eighteenth century was that of three free-standing statues representing the Virgin Mary (Fig. 4.1), St Peter and a Bishop Saint at St Peter’s church in Flawford, Nottingham.7 In 1779, these pieces, which are now housed in the Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, were found underneath the paving in the altar area. This significant discovery was reported by local newspapers, and was subsequently mentioned in the 1790 edition of Thoroton’s History of Nottinghamshire.8 During the same period, numerous guidebooks and local journals reported the frequent discoveries of similar sculptures during the course of excavation works. The authors of these articles, who were not always or necessarily scholars, mostly limited themselves to the announcement of the discovery and perhaps a brief discussion of its iconography, often outlined in rather fanciful terms.9 A more systematic approach, underpinned by a solid methodology, was pioneered by members of the London Society of Antiquaries, many of whom were also collectors themselves, in particular Sir William St John Hope (1854–1919), Edward Prior (1852–1932) and Philip Nelson (1872– 1953).10 The antiquarian Sir William St John Hope, appointed as Assistant Secretary of the Society in 1885, was among the first scholars to study alabasters, a subject which constituted one part of his wider interest in architecture, archaeology, heraldry and ‘a variety of antiquarian subjects’.11 In numerous articles published between 1890 and 1913 Hope established a sound basis for the critical history that followed, and he also published the first important documents about alabasters, which were fundamental in terms of anchoring the reliefs against a historical grid.12 Further, he promoted the exhibition organised by the Society of Antiquaries in 1910, an event that marked a turning point in the history of English alabasters, 6 For a general overview see: Anderson, W., “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display of English Medieval Alabasters,” Journal of the History of Collections 16:1 (2004), 47–58. 7 Cheetham, F., Medieval English Alabaster Carvings in the Castle Museum, Nottingham (Nottingham, 1962), 16–23. 8 Pitman, C.F., “Speculations on fourteenth-century English alabaster work,” Connoisseur 155 (1964), 82–9; Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display,” 49. 9 Cf. Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display,” 49–50. 10 On the scholarly activity of the three men, see the chapter by Nigel Ramsay in this volume. 11 A.V., “In Memoriam. Sir William St. John Hope,” Archaeologia Cantiana 34 (1920), 149–52: 149. 12 Particularly significant is the 1904 article which presents an extremely important document, dated 1367, referring to the commission to Peter the Mason from Nottingham of an alabaster altarpiece for the chapel of St George in Windsor: St John Hope, W.H., “On the Early Working of Alabaster in England,” The Archaeological Journal LXI:1 (1904), 221–40; later reprinted in Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of English Medieval Alabaster Works held in the Rooms of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1913), 1–15. This prestigious royal patronage shed new light on the appreciation of sculpted alabasters amongst the noble classes. Furthermore, the reference to Nottingham as a centre for the production of alabaster altarpieces offered an initial, critical geographic reference, one which was later confirmed by the discovery of further documentary evidence.

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greatly increasing the scholarly attention directed towards the medium. On this occasion, a significant number of sculpted alabasters were presented to the public for the first time, with a special focus on single reliefs derived from polyptychs. These pieces were also included in the exhibition catalogue published in 1913.13 The exhibition was significant in two ways: first, it led to critical reflections that in turn inspired numerous studies dedicated to various aspects of the production of alabaster, and second, it attracted the attention of collectors. It was following this 1910 exhibition that the first major collections began to be formed, both private and public,14 together with the systematic work of cataloguing and classifying pieces, with alabasters now flooding the market at a rather dizzying pace. Indeed, just a few years later, in 1925, Edward Prior – ‘the doyen of the Arts and Crafts Movement’,15 who was a member of the Society of Antiquaries, and who was also involved in the organisation of the 1910 exhibition – was able to list up to 1200 single reliefs as well as approximately thirty polyptychs that had come onto the market, or that had been newly noted still in their original locations, in response to the excitement of those first discoveries and early studies.16 As a result, the production of English alabasters began to be considered as a phenomenon of much vaster reach than previously considered, produced via methods that could rightly be considered an industry developed on a European scale. On the basis of the large quantity of pieces that had become available, and which formed a relatively coherent sample, Prior, with the help of Arthur Gardner, was able to formulate a system of classification and dating of sculpted alabasters, based primarily on the format of panels and canopies, as well as on the depth of the carving and specific iconographic details. He formulated a chronological sequence divided into four sub-sections, which, notwithstanding small changes introduced shortly after by Philip Nelson17 and, more recently, by Francis Cheetham18 and Lynda Rollason,19 has remained largely unchallenged. Philip Nelson’s contribution to our knowledge of English alabasters is highly significant, since his investigations extended well beyond a Illustrated Catalogue. Cf. Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display.” 15 This description is given by Simon Jenkins in his text, England’s Thousand Best Churches (London, 2000), 203–4. On Prior’s involvement in the Art and Craft movement, see Cook, M.G., Edward Prior: Arts and Crafts Architect (Marlborough, 2015). 16 Hildburgh, W.L., “A Group of Panels of English Alabaster,” The Burlington Magazine for Conoisseurs 46 (1925), 307–15. 17 Nelson, P., “English Alabasters of the Embattled type,” The Archaeological Journal LXXV (1918), 310–34; Idem, “Some Fifteenth-century Alabaster Panels,” The Archaeological Journal LXXVI (1919) 133–38. 18 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 41–4. 19 Rollason, L., “Notes on a Late Medieval Art Industry,” Art History 9 (1986), 86–94; Eadem, “English Alabasters in the Fifteenth Century,” in D. Williams (ed.), England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium (Woodbridge, 1987), 245–54. 13

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Introduction

clarification of Prior’s earlier theories. A scholar as well as a collector, Nelson helped to push the interpretation of alabasters in new directions, focusing on topics such as the in-depth analysis of the carpentry of large polyptychs, and inquiry into their structural elements.20 Nelson also identified other altarpieces dispersed in Europe, demonstrating that the circulation of English alabasters had been much more widespread than previously thought and thus opening up a line of enquiry that was further developed by later scholars.21 Among the most significant scholars who influenced modern perception of alabasters was Walter Leo Hildburgh (1876–1955), a conscientious and passionate collector, as well as the author of several studies that attempted to direct the scholarly gaze on alabasters towards questions of broader cultural import.22 Hildburgh was the first to show interest in the devotional role of these works in contemporary society. By focusing his attention on form as well as iconographical details, Hildburgh formulated a theory which greatly influenced future generations of scholars, namely his view that alabasters ought to be considered significant not only for their material qualities, but also as expressions of contemporary popular culture, since the work of the sculptors and carvers ‘was largely intended for the edification and enjoyment of humble folk like themselves’.23 Furthermore, Hildburgh argued that there was a connection between the sacred ceremonies frequently performed in medieval churches and specific features of sculpted alabasters, such as the garments, the armour, or the grotesque aspect of the figures, which he identified as alluding to a negative characterisation, the dark complexion suggesting their vicious temperament. According to this theory, in turn based on previous hypotheses formulated by Emile Mâle and shared by Prior, English alabasters played a fundamentally educational role, and their production and function were essentially directed towards egalitarian ends: ‘their art was, as was that of the English mystery plays, a people’s art’.24 Up until this point, the study of alabasters had been largely the preserve

20 Nelson, P., “The Woodwork of English Alabaster Retables,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 72 (1920), 50–60. 21 Nelson, P., “English Medieval Alabaster Carvings in Iceland and Denmark,” The Archaeological Journal LXXVII (1920), 192–206. 22 Cf. Oakes, C., “Dr Hildburgh and the English Medieval Alabaster,” Journal of the History of Collections 18:1 (2006), 71–83. On Hildburgh and the earliest scholars of alabasters, see also the chapter by Nigel Ramsay in this volume. 23 Hildburgh, W.L., “Folk-Life Recorded in Medieval English Alabaster Carvings,” FolkLore 60:2 (1949), 249–65. 24 Prior, E.S., “The Sculpture of Alabaster Tables,” in Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of English Medieval Alabaster Works held in the Rooms of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1913), 16–50; Mâle, E., “La renouvellement de l’art par le ‘mystères’ a la fin du Moyen Age,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts XXI (1904), 89–106, 215–30, 283–301, 379–94; Hildburgh, W.L., “English Alabaster Carvings as Records of the Medieval Religious Drama,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity XCIII (1949), 51–101.

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of antiquaries, who played a decisive role in setting the critical and historiographical coordinates for research. Equally important was their activity as collectors, which had facilitated the cataloguing of hundreds of individual pieces as well as the formation of significant collections, which were then given as bequests to the major British museums: William Burrell, for example, donated his entire collection, which included approximately one hundred alabasters, to the city of Glasgow, where they are still preserved. Walter Leo Hildburgh, for his part, collected about 300 works – some acquired from Philip Nelson – and he donated these to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1946, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.25 Once these collections became available to the public, they attracted even more attention from scholars, since they provided a rich and wide-ranging sample of works that offered an excellent basis for reconstructing the whole production of English alabasters. The legacy of the earliest scholars discussed thus far was continued by Francis Cheetham (1928–2005), who has long been viewed as the peerless authority in the field of English alabasters. Cheetham – who earned a degree in Spanish, and worked as a teacher, before pursuing a curatorial career in museums in Nottingham and Norwich – wrote various monographs on the subject, beginning with his 1962 booklet on the works held at the Nottingham Castle Museum.26 Easily Cheetham’s most important contribution, which has had a decisive impact on later scholarship and is still considered a cornerstone of the literature on alabasters, is English Medieval Alabasters, first published in 1984, and then re-printed in 2005.27 It consists of a full catalogue of the alabasters in the V&A, as well as a detailed introductory chapter that presents general information relating to the historical context of alabaster production. The catalogue entries are organised according to subject and are helpfully accompanied by lists of works for each geographical area; these lists, even today, constitute a valuable tool for scholars interested in this subject. In addition to the publications already mentioned, it is useful to recall several other contributions that focus on specific collections (including

25 Cf. “A Magnificent Gift to the Nation: The Hildburgh Alabaster Collection Now Exhibited at South Kensington,” Illustrated London News 446 (19 October 1946). Cf. also Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display.” On Burrell, in addition, see the chapter by Claire Blakey, Rachel King and Michaela Zöschg in this volume. 26 Cheetham, F., Medieval English Alabaster Carvings. 27 Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984); and Idem, English Medieval Alabasters. In addition to these volumes, the scholar also published a condensed version of his monograph: Alabaster Images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003); and an illustrated catalogue which further developed the one published in 1962: Unearthed: Nottingham’s Medieval Alabasters (Nottingham, 2004).

Introduction

museum catalogues)28 or geographical areas,29 as well as studies dedicated to single works that appear particularly relevant.30 It is worth mentioning three important exhibitions: the Age of Chivalry;31 Gothic: Art for England,32 in which several alabasters were displayed alongside works in different media that relate to the same historical and cultural background, and Object of Devotion, which was dedicated exclusively to sculpted alabasters, with a specific focus on the works held at the V&A, accompanied by a catalogue that included essays by different authors dealing with key historical issues.33 As this scholarship has developed, so too the interest of collectors has kept growing. Even today, interest remains strong, as evidenced by the significant number of reliefs which appear periodically on the market, with sale figures recording some outstanding prices.34 Considering the large number of studies published to date, as outlined in this very brief summary, it is worth questioning whether it would be appropriate to dedicate another book to English alabasters. The first 28 See, for example, the catalogues of the Castle Museum in Nottingham (Cheetham, Medieval English Alabaster Carvings); the Musée de Cluny–Musée National du Moyen Âge in Paris (Prigent, C. [ed.], Les sculptures anglaises d’albâtre au musée national du Moyen Âge, Thermes de Cluny [Paris, 1998]); and the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisboa [ed.], Alabastros medievais ingleses. Colecçao do Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga [Lisbon, 1977]). 29 See, for instance, studies focused on American collections (Tavender, A.S., “Medieval English Alabasters in American Museums, Part I,” Speculum 30:1 [1955], 64–71; Eadem, “Medieval English Alabasters in American Museums, Part II,” Speculum 34 [1959], 437–9), on pieces kept in Spain (Franco Mata, Á., “Un camino de ida y vuelta: alabastros ingleses en España de regreso a Inglaterra. Referencias iconográficas,” in M. Cabañas Bravo [ed.], El arte foráneo en España [Madrid, 2005], 238–53; Alcolea, S., “Relieves Ingleses de Alabastro en España: Ensayo de Catalogación,” Archivio Español de Arte 44 [1971], 137–53) or Croatia (Fisković, I., “English Monuments in Dalmatia,” in R. Filipović and M. Partridge [eds], Dubrovnik’s Relations with England. A Symposium April 1976 [Zagreb, 1977], 157–85). 30 For example the essays of Samantha J.E. Riches on the La Selle polyptych (Riches, S.J.E., “The Alabaster altarpiece of La Selle, Normandy: a preliminary report,” in J.S. Alexander (ed.), Southwell and Nottinghamshire. Medieval Art, Architecture, and Industry [Leeds, 1998], 93–100; Eadem, “The La Selle Retable: An English Alabaster Altarpiece in Normandy”, PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 1999), or the article by Isabelle Isnard on the altarpiece of the church of Saint-Martin at Gondreville, in France (Isnard, I., “A fifteenth-century English alabaster altarpiece in the church of Saint-Martin, Gondreville, Picardie,” The Burlington Magazine 149:1251 [2007], 407–10). 31 Alexander, J. and Binski, P. (eds), Age of Chivalry. Art in Plantagenet England 1200– 1400, Exh. Cat., London, Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1987). 32 Marks, R. and Williamson, P. (eds), Gothic: Art for England, 1400–1547, Exh. Cat., London, Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 2003). 33 Williamson, P. (ed.), Object of Devotion. Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Exh. Cat., Palm Beach, FL, Society of the Four Arts, and five other institutions, with contributions by F. Cannan, E. Duffy and S. Perkinson (Alexandria, 2010). 34 I am referring, for instance, to the wonderfully preserved Martyrdom Altarpiece, complete with its original carpentry, which was sold at Sotheby’s in 2017 for the stunning price of $1,332,500 (http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/masterpaintings-sculpture-day-sale-n09602/lot.166.html – last accessed: March 2018).

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immediate answer is that a synthesis is desirable, in order to reflect on the status quaestionis of the field: while following the threads of existing scholarly debates, this also offers the opportunity to re-establish the research on new footings. Second – and this was the strongest stimulus for this book – there is an urgent need for new methodologies. These methodologies should be applied within a framework of updated interpretative horizons and theories, and they must be capable of broadening the focus of analysis, couching the study of alabasters in the context of current lines of research in the art-historical field and in related disciplines. The method that I have adopted and encouraged here is experimental. I use the term ‘experimental’ quite consciously, with intentional, implicit reference to all the various meanings it can assume. That is, it is not only the essays collected here that explore new lines of research in pursuit of a more flexible approach to the material; it is the book itself that is conceived as a test case, an opportunity to appraise and verify the validity of the chosen system of analysis. It is not, of course, intended to be exhaustive: on the contrary, the hope and the ambition is that by opening up these new methodological horizons and using innovative criteria of analysis, this volume can inspire new studies and critical responses. The intention is that the work will continue, extending the investigation to contexts and subjects that are not part of this current selection.35 This project is also experimental in the sense that it is the first volume wholly dedicated to alabasters that involves the collaboration of numerous different scholars, as well as the first to present the subject from a global perspective by significantly expanding both the chronological and geographical framework.36 In his English Medieval Alabasters, Cheetham lamented the fact that, although alabasters were one of the most important media in medieval English art, they had not yet received ‘their full appreciation’, suggesting that the reason for this was ‘the sheer volume of material […] which has daunted enthusiasm.’37 If indeed this is the case – and certainly it is true that there are thousands of extant fragments38 – the coordination and cooperation of different minds envisaged here may help to address the problem, looking at the material from diverse and complementary points of view. Further, the very fact that such a large 35 There are various new research projects currently in the process of being prepared, some of which will involve the author and scholars who have collaborated on the present volume. 36 An exception is provided by Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion, with contributions by different scholars, focused on several aspects connected to alabasters. However, it is worth noting that the bulk of this volume consists of pieces from the V&A, thus providing only a partial view of what is a much larger artistic phenomenon. 37 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 9. 38 It is estimated that the at least fifty intact polyptychs survive, and more than 3000 single pieces, either from larger works or conceived as individual panels. The total quantity, however, must be much greater, if we add to these the reliefs in private collections that are continually appearing on the global antiques market, and which are then sold to either museums or new private collectors.

Introduction

quantity of alabasters has survived might, in fact, be viewed as an advantage and an opportunity, as it ensures the abundant availability of data and, by extension, the possibility of exploring that data from numerous crosssectional perspectives. Recently there have been several excellent examples of how studies focusing on various types of “industrial” production, in media similar to alabaster, can ultimately lead toward a greater comprehension of broader cultural phenomena: works like the Gothic Ivories Project,39 studies dedicated to Limoges enamels,40 or those on the bone, horn and ivory reliefs that came from the workshop of the Embriachi.41 The researchers involved in these projects have elaborated an ordered and rational system for dealing with the large number of surviving pieces, and have been able to extrapolate information from their data that has a broad application and relevance. It is clear at this point that a malleable, empirical approach is needed, and it must be cross-sectional: thematically, methodologically, and chronologically. This strategy has guided all the research presented here, and it has even guided the choice of the volume’s title. The title, that is, shies away from establishing either chronological or geographical limits for the material or confines of any other type, and this is an editorial choice that is quite deliberate. Contrary to what Cheetham has suggested, the reasons for the inadequate state of modern scholarship on alabasters, and for what has been a rather partial comprehension of such a wide-ranging and important cultural phenomenon, have nothing to do with a lack of enthusiasm on the part of scholars. Rather, it is linked to the fact that in large part, the studies published so far have tended to analyse alabasters from a narrow and narrowing point of view, one that has ended up isolating the medium from its larger historical and cultural context. Scholars have generally failed to provide a historical context or reference for the pieces studied and, on the few occasions when broader questions have been raised, these tend to have been focused only on alabaster altarpieces, with the resultant marginalisation of different categories of works: categories that are in fact an integral, hugely significant part of the overall production in alabaster. Examples include sculptures of standing saints,42 objects for private 39 For an overview of the project, see: http://www.gothicivories.courtauld.ac.uk/index. html (last accessed February 2018). See also the monograph edition of The Sculpture Journal dedicated to Gothic ivories, with an introduction by Glyn Davies and Sarah M. Guérin: The Sculpture Journal 23:1 (2014). 40 Cf. Giusti, P. and De Castris, P.L. (eds), Medioevo e produzione artistica di serie: smalti di Limoges e avori gotici in Campania (Florence, 1981); Gauthier, M.-M. (ed.), Émaux méridionaux. Catalogue international de l’oeuvre de Limoges, 2 vols. (Paris, 1987–2011). See also the general overview on the production of enamels in the Middle Ages offered in Gauthier, M.-M. (ed.), Émaux du moyen âge occidental (Fribourg, 1972). 41 Cf. Tomasi, M., Monumenti d’avorio. I dossali degli Embriachi e i loro committenti (Pisa, 2010). 42 A rare exception that considers this particular category is provided by the book: Land, K., Die englischen Alabastermadonnen des Späten Mittelalters (Düsseldorf, 2011).

9

10 FIG. 0.1  (OPPOSITE) WOODCUT IMAGE FROM THE 1563 EDITION OF JOHN FOXE’S BOOK OF MARTYRS, SHOWING EPISODES OF ICONOCLASM. IN THE TOP PART OF THE IMAGE THE CHURCH IS PURGED OF IDOLS, SACRED IMAGES ARE BEING BURNED, WHILST ‘PAPISTS’ ARE PACKING AWAY THEIR ‘PALTRY’ AND SHIPS ARE BEING FILLED WITH CHRISTIAN IDOLS. THE BOTTOM LEFT

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS

devotion, and single relief panels that, although intended for ritual use, do not belong to altarpieces of larger dimensions.43 Moreover – and this second point is obviously dependent on the first, even if each ultimately ends up influencing the other – most studies have concentrated on pieces in specific collections. In the past (and often even today, for that matter) collections have divided their works according to specific categories or genres, and studies have followed these automatic divisions, with the result that scholarship has not communicated across genre lines. Furthermore, the overall judgement on this subject is still affected by the negative view of alabasters as secondary works of art of minor quality, characterised by a standardised stylistic and iconographic repertory. The first reason – i.e., the lack of historical context – dates back to the Reformation of the English Church and the iconoclasm that followed. During the Reformation, virtually all figurative works were torn down from religious sites in England, and churches and monasteries were stripped of their furnishings, amongst which were many alabasters. Numerous objects were destroyed, a few were saved by being hidden; the greater part, however, were sold, ending up on the European market.44 The impressive number of objects sent to the Continent, enough to fill whole cargo ships, is evoked by eye-witness accounts of the period (Fig. 0.1). The most significant account is perhaps that offered by Sir John Mason, English ambassador in France, who on 10 September 1550 records: ‘Three or four ships have lately arrived from England laden with images, which have been sold at Paris, Rouen, and other places, and being eagerly purchased.’45 Among the objects originally executed for the British market and

DEPICTS CLERICS RECEIVING THE BIBLE FROM KING EDWARD VI, WHILE ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT WE SEE THE MAIN ELEMENTS OF PROTESTANT WORSHIP, INCLUDING PREACHING OF THE WORD AND THE TWO PROTESTANT SACRAMENTS OF COMMUNION (WITH BREAD AND WINE) AND BAPTISM.

43 Generally it is thought that single panels have resulted from the dismembering of altarpieces, originally formed by more than one relief mounted in sequence. In reality, we now know that panels conceived as individual, autonomous objects did exist. Documentary sources are witness to the phenomenon; for example, the will made in 1506 by John Colyns of Hunworth, Norfolk, where the testator declares: ‘Item. I will that my executors prvey a table of alabaster of the story of our lady and sent Anne her moder’ (Harrod, H., “Extracts from Early Norfolk Wills,” Norfolk Archaeology I [1847], 111–28: 123), which might have been an individual panel showing, for instance, St Anne teaching the Christ Child to Read, such as the piece housed in the V&A (A.99-1946; cf. Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 74, no. 3). In all likelihood, this kind of panel was contained in a tabernacle, i.e. a painted and gilded wooden box, to be used as an aid to private prayer. A rare example is offered by the tabernacle containing a panel showing the Annunciation and the Trinity housed in the V&A (A.193-1946; cf. Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion, 108–9, no. 17). The existence of individual panels is further demonstrated by the original furnishing of the parish churches of Whittlesford in Cambridgeshire and St Kerrian in Exeter, which will be discussed in due course. 44 On this phenomenon, cf. Haigh, C. (ed.), The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987); Aston, M., England’s Iconoclasts. Volume I. Laws against Images (Oxford, 1988); Marks, R., Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Stroud, 2004), particularly Chapter 10, “Deface and Destroy”; Duffy, E. “The Reformation and the Alabastermen,” in Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion, 54–65; Aston, M., Broken Idols of the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2016). 45 Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 399.

Introduction

intended for local sites, the pieces that were sent to Europe after the Reformation are – in percentage terms – those that survive in the greatest numbers. Naturally, this is problematic, since these objects are now housed in contexts that have no correspondence with their original one in Britain: they are now either conserved in European religious sites or, more often, displayed in museums on the Continent or elsewhere, and almost always without any surviving documentation to testify to their original arrangement. This hinders the possibility of studying the reliefs or figures in relation to their original function or in terms of the relationship that they originally would have had with the surrounding sacred space and the spiritual practices of the time. In addition to this, we are dealing often with fragmentary works that have resulted from the dismembering of larger pieces. These works were offered to the market

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divided up into single panels because they were more easily transported that way, and perhaps also because they were more accessible in this form as autonomous devotional images. The irreversible impact of the iconoclastic laws in terms of our perception of sacred space and its furnishings is demonstrated by two exemplary cases. A series of fragments recovered in the parish church of Whittlesford in Cambridgeshire, all pieces of alabaster, have been re-integrated from information provided by documentary sources. These include a sculpture of a Virgin breastfeeding the Christ Child, set up in the chancel; a Trinity; a Pietà displayed on an altar dedicated to the theme; a Nativity; an image of St Anne teaching the Virgin Mary to read; and representations of St Zita of Lucca, St Paul, St Eligius and other unidentified saints.46 An inventory for the church of St Kerrian in Exeter, drawn up in 1417, suggests that there were numerous alabasters, amongst which were an image of St Anne and two of St John inside tabernacles with closable shutters.47 These examples show that in many cases alabaster reliefs constituted an entire sacred space, including various typologies of works that were not limited just to altarpieces. Each piece had its place in a hierarchical system of images and each offered a kind of devotional fulcrum, orientating the spiritual experiences of the faithful. The diaspora of alabaster works following the Reformation is the primary reason for many scholarly mis-attributions, and indeed the numerous English alabasters held in Europe were for a long time considered to be Continental works. The first relief acquired in 1856 by the South Kensington Museum (today the V&A), for example, was described as ‘Italian’.48 The confusion only deepened in 1901, when Boiullet published an article on some alabasters conserved in France, ignorant of their English origin. The scholar reported the opinion of some of his colleagues, affirming that the piece had been judged Italian, Flemish, or even the work of Flemish sculptors active in France.49 Knowledge of the English origin of these reliefs progressed only gradually, beginning with the article by Hope, “On the Early Working of Alabaster”.50 It is precisely because alabasters are scattered for the most part outside England that they have never been considered objects that were truly representative of a “national” art. They 46 The pieces were first published in Middleton, J.H., “On Fragments of Alabaster Retables from Milton, and Whittlesford, Cambridge,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society XXXII:7.2 (1891), 106–11, and illustrated there on Pls XXX-XXXIII. See also: Marks, Image and Devotion, 2–4, 251–3; Duffy, “The Reformation,” 62–3. A large group of these fragments was presented at an exhibition held at the Tate Gallery, London; see: Barber, T. and Boldrick, S. (eds), Art under Attack: Histories of British Iconoclasm, Exh. Cat., London, Tate Britain (London, 2013), 60–2. 47 Marks, Image and Devotion, 89. 48 Cf. Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display,” 50. 49 Bouillet, A., “La fabrication industrielle des retables en albâtre (XIV–XV siècles),” Bulletin Monumental LXV (1901), 45–62; Hodgkinson, T., “A Collection of English Alabasters,” The Burlington Magazine for Conoisseurs 88:525 (1946), 292–7: 292. 50 St John Hope, “On the Early Working of Alabaster.”

Introduction

don’t function, that is, as markers of English identity linked to a specific “spirit of the age”, or indeed to any kind of national consciousness. This role has been assumed by Gothic architecture, identified as a material representation, almost an emanation, of the British spirit par excellence.51 The second problem I have mentioned has to do with the kind of studies published – studies that mainly concentrate on alabasters in single collections. Naturally, collections are the result of curatorial choices that are worked out only retrospectively. Only rarely can a collection speak objectively of actual cultural realities, or even be truly representative of them in the first place. The trend for collection-specific alabaster studies has resulted in a paradoxical impasse: if, on the one hand, it has promoted typological and iconographically-based studies, on the other hand it has been the cause of a partial point-of-view on these very things, since the research is necessarily limited to those iconographies and typologies that are represented in the studied collections. The pieces conserved at the V&A have become, as a result, the iconographic, formal and typological status quo, the term of paragon or the canon by which to measure the entire production of alabaster. The principal nucleus of the V&A’s collection was amassed by Walter Leo Hildburgh who, over the course of several decades, collected hundreds of examples in England and Europe. Hildburgh was a dedicated scholar, but he could not escape from personal bias and preference. He only acquired pieces that adapted easily to his personal perception of alabasters as products of “popular” or “folk” art; after all, Hildburgh himself regarded his purchases as ‘the raw material for research’52, and it is perfectly evident that his choices as a collector reflected his interests as a scholar. The result is that Hildburgh’s subjective vision has ended up dominating the field, orientating successive scholars towards quite specific lines of inquiry. This means that many types of work have been excluded from the critical debate – for example sculptures of isolated standing saints, a crucial aspect of alabaster production which has thus far been thoroughly marginalised. I am thinking, for instance, of the marvellous statue of the Virgin and Child acquired by the British Museum in December 2016,53 characterised 51 For a detailed analysis of the development of the concept of “English Art”, see the essay by Richard Marks “The Englishness of English Gothic Art?,” in the volume by that same author Studies in the Art and Imagery of the Middle Ages (London, 2012), 1–32. In this sense we could consider paradoxical, but still significant, the interpretation offered by Nicolas Pevsner, who saw in the carved alabasters a reflection of the English spirit, only with regard to the elongated faces and figures which recalled the vertical lines of Gothic architecture; Pevsner, N., The Englishness of English Art (Birkenhead, 1956), 94. 52 Oakes, “Dr Hildburgh”, 71. 53 Inv. 2016,8041.1; see Land, Die englishen, 402–4, with bibliography. The acquisition was announced by the British Museum with a Press Release (https://www.artfund. org/news/2016/12/12/british-museum-acquires-rare-alabaster-of-the-virgin-and-child) and bounced for days in the local press (see, for instance, the article published by The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/dec/10/british-museum-medievalvirgin-child-statue).

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by its outstanding quality (Pl. I). The piece was carved between 1350 and 1375, i.e. at the very beginning of the period when alabaster was becoming the leading sculptural material in England. Another example is provided by the alabaster relief showing St Ursula and the Virgin Martyrs, housed in the Musée national du Moyen-Âge – Thermes de Cluny, in Paris (Pl. II).54 The fundamental role that works of this type assumed in the religious context of the era is evidenced – in my view – in the record of one particular chronicle. On Palm Sunday 1471, King Edward IV visited the church of Daventry, and a chronicler describes how: ‘in a pillar of the churche, directly aforne the place where [the] Kynge knelyd, and devowtly honoryd the Roode, was a lytle ymage of Seint Anne, made of alleblaster, standynge fixed to the piller, closed and clasped togethars with four bordes, small, payntyd, and gowynge rownd about the image.’55 The same source continues with other interesting information, such as the detail that the sculpture was ‘shett [shut], closed, and clasped, accordynge to the rulles that in all the churchis of England be observyd, all ymages to be hid from Ashe Wednesday to Estarday in the morninge’. Naturally, an integrated analysis of documents and works that belong to this category can open up new perspectives on the devotional practices of the period, restoring meaning and context to many isolated alabaster sculptures. Equally, important iconographies that are not represented in the collections of the V&A have been marginalised, for example singular subjects such as the Resurrection and the Arming of St George performed by the Virgin Mary, represented in the La Selle polyptych in Normandy,56 or the Holy Trinity in Mandorla Surrounded by Symbols of the Evangelists, as in the example in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (Fig. 0.2).57 These pieces demonstrate that ‘alabastermen’ were not simply executors of repetitive formulas, but rather were capable of great inventiveness, coming up with original configurations and executing carvings of an extremely high quality. Even today, Hildburgh’s vision continues to dominate. The main 54 On this work, see: Prigent (ed.), Les sculptures anglaises d’albâtre, 60, no. 2; Marks and Williamson (eds), Gothic: Art for England, 395, no. 282. According to Paul Williamson (ibidem) it is likely that the relief, whose back is flat, ‘was originally contained within a winged tabernacle, perhaps displayed on a pier or wall within a church or on an altar in a side chapel.’ 55 Bruce, J. (ed.), Historie of the arrivall of Edward IV in England and the finall recoverye of his Kingdomes from Henry VI, A.D. MCCCCLXXI, Camden Society, I (London, 1838), 13–14; Nelson, “The Woodwork.” 56 Hildburgh, W.L., “Iconographical Peculiarities in English Medieval Alabaster Carvings (Continued),” Folk-Lore 44:1 (1933): 123–50; on this piece, see: Samantha Riches, “The La Selle Retable”. 57 Hildburgh knew this piece, which he published in his article “Seven Medieval English Alabaster Carvings in the Walters Art Gallery,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery XVII (1954), 18–33: 30–3. Yet, because of his personal taste and interest, he never acquired works of uncommon iconographies such as this one. On the relief see, more recently, The International Style. The Arts in Europe around 1400, Exh. Cat., Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore 1962), 86–7, no. 84, Pl. LXXII.

15

Introduction

FIG. 0.2  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, HOLY TRINITY IN MANDORLA SURROUNDED BY SYMBOLS OF THE EVANGELISTS. BALTIMORE, WALTERS ART MUSEUM

publications on alabasters, even very recent ones, are mainly concerned with the pieces in the V&A. The studies by Francis Cheetham are obviously fundamental in this category. Although Cheetham was clearly conscious of a wider general context and discussed it in the introductions to his books, citing documents and hinting at the bigger cultural questions, he never actually pushed his analysis of individual pieces beyond a basic, clinical iconographic reading. This is usually limited to a simple recognition of depicted subjects,58 a method deployed narrowly in a manner that has 58

For a critical discussion of the method adopted by Cheetham, see: Ward, S.L., “Review

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seemed impervious to the more innovative research and methods that other scholars have been using alongside him. Cheetham’s analysis of the Joys of the Virgin reliefs, for example, does not exhibit the same rich contextual approach that includes insights about devotional practices and Marian depictions in England, as in Jean-Marie Sansterre’s study59 or in Catherine Oake’s informative Ora pro nobis,60 of a few years later. There is a substantial contribution to be made by utilising a betterstructured, more broad-ranging iconographic analysis, and this has been demonstrated in a study by Josemi Lorenzo Arribas entitled “Metáforas visuals de libertad femenina”.61 Arribas’ detailed examination of the alabaster retable formerly in the Parish Church of Cartagena and now housed in the Museo Arqueologico National of Madrid, dedicated to the life of Mary (with depictions of episodes such as the Birth of Mary, the Presentation of Mary at the Temple, and the Education of the Young Mary) offers a reading that considers questions of autonomy and independence in a female context. These insights offer the possibility of treating alabasters under the generative rubric of gender studies, a field from which they have, until now, remained excluded. Perhaps other representations may be read in this way: for example, the ubiquitous standing sculptures of St Anne teaching the Virgin Mary to read and write, a popular iconography that was frequently represented in many different media62 – examples now in Salamanca, in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona, or a very similar one in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon (Fig. 0.3).63 Works of this type may have been made for female monastic organisations. In such a context, these sculpted images would have offered to the novices a didactic exemplum, showing the young Mary completely absorbed in her lessons, of Cheetham, Francis: Alabaster images of medieval England. – Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2003,” Speculum 81:1 (2006), 161–3. 59 Sansterre, J.-M., “‘Omnes qui coram hac imagine genua flexerint…’. La vénération d’images de saints et de la Vierge d’après les textes écrits en Angleterre du milieu du XIe siècle aux premières décennies du XIIIe siècle,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 49 (2006), 257–94. 60 Oakes, C., Ora Pro Nobis: the Virgin as Intercessor in Medieval Art and Devotion (London, 2008). The scholar examines the Virgin’s fundamental role as mediatrix in medieval piety. 61 Arribas, J.L, “Metáforas visuales de libertad femenina en dos retablos de finales del S. XV: el de alabastro inglés del Museo Arqueológico Nacional y el de Fernando Gallego (Arcenillas, Zamora),” in P. Amador Carretero and R. Ruiz Franco (eds), Representación, construcción e interpretación de la imagen visual de las mujeres: Actas del Décimo Coloquio Internacional de la Asociación Española de Investigación de Historia de las Mujeres (Madrid, 2003), 155–71. 62 On this iconography and its meaning, see Peters, C., Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England (Cambridge, 2003), 118–20. 63 Images and basic information on these pieces are available on line: http://www. museunacional.cat/en/colleccio/saint-anne-and-virgin-child/anonim-escola-denottingham/004353-000; https://www.dpeck.info/portugal/lisbon2017b.htm (last accessed February 2018). On the Portuguese sculpture, cf. also Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (ed.), Alabastros medievais ingleses, 33–4, no. 18.

17

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FIG. 0.3  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ST ANNE TEACHING THE VIRGIN MARY TO READ. LISBON, MUSEO NACIONAL DE ARTE ANTIGA

engaged in the pursuit of knowledge.64 To use a helpful expression coined by Dominique Rigaux, we are dealing then with striking examples of ‘pédagogie par l’image’.65 But it is possible, too, that these same images were made for domestic contexts, and that they functioned as exemplary, idealised representations of the crucial role that mothers had in the education of their children – an aspect of social European history of considerable importance (and which has been thoroughly studied in the Venetian context, for example, by Stanley Chojnacki).66 64 Cf. Whitehead, B.J. (ed.), Women’s Education in Early Modern Europe: a History, 1500–1800 (New York, 1999). For general literature on the methods and pedagogical aids for learning between the Middle Ages and early modern era: Lucchi, P., “La santacroce, il salterio e il babbuino: libri per imparare a leggere nel primo secolo della stampa,” Quaderni storici 38 (1978), 593–630; Klapisch-Zuber, C., “Le chiavi fiorentine di barbablù: l’apprendimento della lettura a Firenze nel XV secolo,” Quaderni storici 57 (1984), 765–92. 65 Rigaux, D., “Les couleurs de la prière. L’image sainte dans la maison à la fin du Moyen Âge,” Religione domestica: Quaderni di Storia Religiosa 8 (2001), 249–71: 257; see also Idem, “Dire la foi avec des images, un affaire de femmes?,” in J. Delumeau (ed.), La religion de ma mère. Le rôle des femmes dans la transmission de la foi (Paris 1992), 71–90. For a new discussion which extends to the Venetian context, with reference to painting: Baradel, V., “Immagini per ‘muover divozione’ a Venezia all’inizio del Quattrocento,” in G. Baldissin Molli, C. Guarnieri and Z. Murat (eds), Pregare in casa. Oggetti e documenti della pratica religiosa tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Rome, 2018), 175–94: 185–7. 66 Chojnacki, S., “‘The Most Serious Duty’: Motherhood, Gender, and Patrician Culture in

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In recent years, however, something has begun to shift. Works by Kim Woods,67 Aleksandra Lipińska,68 Nigel Ramsay,69 and Jon Bayliss,70 along with the many articles that have appeared in different issues of the journal Church Monuments,71 have experimented with different approaches to looking at alabasters. This new wave of scholarship has begun to deepen understanding of collecting practices, historiography, allegorical meanings and documentary considerations: aspects only sporadically considered up to now. Furthermore, an article by Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman, eloquently entitled “A Question of Style,”72 emphasizes the need to overcome the enduring prejudice applicable to this field, according to which alabasters have been seen as works of secondary importance and quality. De Beer and Speakman’s essay presents new hypotheses and alternatives that will need to be developed in the future. The essays that make up this volume are informed by the research context just outlined. They attempt to situate the study of alabasters within new interpretative schemas, pushing at the limits that have previously been imposed on this material.

Renaissance Venice,” in the volume by that same author Women and Men in Renaissance Venice. Twelve Essays on Patrician Society (Baltimore and London, 2000), 169–82. 67 Woods has broadened the scholarly gaze to include alabaster sculptures produced in different parts of Europe; see in particular Woods, K., “The Master of Rimini and the tradition of alabaster carving in the early fifteenth-century Netherlands,” Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek 62 (2012), 56–83; Eadem, “Towards a morphology of Netherlandish altarpieces in alabaster,” in J. Fait and M. Hörsch (eds), Niederländische Kunstexporte nach Nord- und Ostmitteleuropa vom 14. bis 16. Jahrhundert (Ostfildern, 2014), 41–58; Eadem, Cut in alabaster: a material of sculpture and its European traditions 1330–1530 (Turnhout, 2018). I regret that I was unable to consult the book before completing this study, since it was not published yet. 68 Lipińska has written extensively on the European production of alabasters, utilising a transcultural perspective. Without wanting to cite the full list of publications, for reasons of space, I limit myself to mentioning the following: Lipińska, A., “‘Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis’. Alabaster in the Low Countries sculpture. A cultural history,” in A.-S. Lehmann, F. Scholten and H. P. Chapman (eds), Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 62: Meaning in materials (Leiden and Boston, 2013), 84–115; Eadem, Moving sculptures: southern Netherlandish alabasters from the 16th to 17th centuries in central and northern Europe (Leiden, 2015). 69 Ramsay, “Alabaster”; Idem, “La diffusion en Europe”; Idem, “Medieval English alabasters”; Idem, “La production et exportation.” 70 The work of this scholar is extensive, covering quite a wide set of chronological parameters. Again, I limit myself to citing only a few: Bayliss, J., “Richard Parker ‘The Alabasterman’,” Church Monuments V (1990), 39–56; Idem, “Richard and Gabriel Royley of Burton-upon-Trent, Tombmakers,” Church Monuments VI (1991), 21–41; Idem, “A Dutch Carver: Garrett Hollemans l in England,” Church Monuments VIII (1993), 45–56; Idem, “An Indenture for Two Alabaster Effigies,” Church Monuments XVI (2001), 22–9. 71 A complete list of articles published in the journal is available on line: http://www. churchmonumentssociety.org/The_Journal.html (last accessed February 2018). Many of those listed are specifically about alabasters; moreover, the research published in this journal has contributed to being able to reconstruct much of the spatial, liturgical and cultural context relevant to alabaster carvings. 72 De Beer, L. and Speakman, N., “A Question of Style,” Apollo 66 (2013), 66–71.

Introduction

The present project grew out of a conference organised by the writer at the University of Warwick in September 2014, although its themes have been developed further over the course of the intervening years, involving the collaboration of various scholars, some of whom are recognised experts in the study of alabasters, and incorporating many different approaches and ideas. The book is articulated into four conceptual groupings, each of which aims to explore an important aspect of alabaster production that has not been sufficiently investigated in the scholarship to date. The first grouping focuses on establishing a set of theoretical and interpretive reference points. It engages with key historiographic and critical problems, with an additional emphasis on aesthetics and materiality. The first essay, by Nigel Ramsay, examines the origins of the unfortunate scholarly neglect of alabasters. Ramsay demonstrates how a rather unbalanced perception of alabaster production has dominated, influenced by the publications and collecting practices of William St John Hope, Philip Nelson and Walter Leo Hildburgh. This essay is deliberately placed at the beginning of the volume, since it deals with issues that are critical in terms of the general approach that has prevailed in the study of alabasters. One of the most important contributions made by Ramsay is his comparative analysis of the activity of St John Hope, Nelson and Hildburgh. He compares their working methods, their interests, their approaches and their collecting practices, revealing both common threads and the essential differences and specificities that separate the three. Ramsay also explores the interest of these men in alabasters as part of a broader set of collecting concerns and research practices, thus reading their scholarship on alabasters in parallel to their interest in other artistic forms, and within the context of their general mindset. What emerges is a more complete, balanced and historically contextualised picture of these early scholars’ activities. Ramsay, alert to the critical prejudices that remain influential in the field, concludes by inviting modern scholars to put these categories of traditional thought to one side and to adopt a more considered approach, free of historiographic preconceptions, offering some points for reflection that exhort scholars to continue broadening their disciplinary horizons. The entire volume follows from this point of departure, with the objective of overcoming those entrenched and biased judgments along with the limitations of traditional approaches. Aleksandra Lipińska’s essay discusses the main currents of thought on alabasters that have characterised Western culture between late antiquity and the modern era, ranging from Pliny to Henry Moore. Although such a range may at first appear dispersed or somehow incongruent, the vast chronological and geographic parameters of her study are really aimed at broadening the horizons of research, analysing transformations that have happened over time in terms of the meanings and uses of this stone, and

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recovering a sense of what Lipińska herself defines as ‘a cultural image of alabaster’. In order to do this, she adopts an innovative approach to the material that is based around not only the works of art themselves but also written texts that make reference to alabaster. The essay demonstrates how the choice of alabaster as a material by artists and patrons, along with the reception of alabaster works by their eventual audiences, were influenced not only by aesthetic, technical and economic factors, but by even more complex cultural dynamics. Alabaster was thought, for example, to have magical and therapeutic properties. This was believed so strongly that during the nineteenth century, it was common practice in rural areas of England to remove fragments of alabaster from tombs in order to use them as a remedy against insomnia or leg pain. This ancestral practice (which was often performed in Europe)73 is paralleled, I suggest, by particular practices that developed over the course of the Middle Ages in the Basilica of St Peter in Rome, in which carbon generated by the burning of incense on the Confessions of Peter and Paul was believed to be curative – it was dissolved in water and distributed to the faithful to drink as a cure for fever.74 A similarly thaumaturgic material, or what was at least believed to be such, was the so-called “manna” of Saint Nicholas, a sacred oil that oozed from the relics of the saint, first at Myra, and then after the translation to Bari. The solemn process of collecting the sacred liquid – always done in glass ampullae decorated with painted scenes, featuring images of the life of the saint – took place on 9 May every year, the feast day of the saint, after which the oil was distributed to the faithful, diluted with water.75 The practices and the cultural framework discussed by Lipińska offer an alternative explanation for the incredible predilection shown for alabaster in different European regions in the medieval period and indeed, right up to the modern age. Her study recovers, moreover, a sense of the place that the stone once enjoyed in the general hierarchy of materials. By exploring the various meanings attributed to alabaster in the past, Lipińska positions her study within the context of research on materiality, a branch of inquiry that has been increasingly generative from the 1990s

73 Comparisons can be made, for instance, with the tomb of St Sigismund in the church of Santa Maria in Regola at Imola. According to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers, people used to scrape the stone surface of the sepulchre. The dust obtained was dissolved in water and was used to treat patients suffering from fever: Tomasi, M., Le arche dei santi. Scultura, religion e politica nel Trecento veneto (Rome, 2012), 254. In general, on these practices, see: Ortalli, G., “Bere le polveri. San Sigismondo, pratiche terapeutiche e virtù delle reliquie,” in G. Barone, L. Capo and S. Gasparri (eds), Studi sul Medioevo per Girolamo Arnaldi (Rome, 2000), 355–78. 74 Ballardini, A., “‘Incensum et odor suavitatis.’ L’arte aromatica nel Liber Pontificalis,” in G. Bordi, et al. (eds), L’officina dello sguardo. Scritti in onore di Maria Andaloro. Volume I. I luoghi dell’arte. Immagine, memoria, materia (Rome, 2014), 263–70: 265. 75 Lavernicco, N., Le ampolle di San Nicola da Mira a Bari: IX Centenario (Bari, 1987).

Introduction

onwards. A similar emphasis is seen in essays by Stefania Gerevini on rock crystal, for example,76 or those on amber by Rachel King,77 with equally promising results. Luca Palozzi, in his essay, is also interested in the material of alabaster, although he approaches it from a slightly different perspective. Palozzi is focused on the aesthetics of the sculpted surface, as well as on the technical solutions developed by artists and consciously sought out by patrons to obtain varied effects of coarseness, polish, and transparency. Palozzi sets up a comparison between Italian sculptors of marble and alabaster and their English contemporaries and colleagues, demonstrating a commonality of intention and practice between the two groups never previously proposed. Palozzi’s study is therefore one of the few that locates English alabasters within a broadly European context, discussing them alongside works realised in the same period in other geographic areas. This in turn challenges that complete isolation of alabasters from related media and geographies that has prevailed in modern thought.78 Palozzi also deals with stylistic and formal questions from a novel perspective, piloting a method that may yet prove useful for similar works. Usually, art historians deal more or less with form, form being understood as an essential expression of style. Palozzi on the contrary explores surface as an expressive means in its own right. This kind of study problematises (and at the same time integrates) traditional approaches, shifting the axis of stylistic analysis decisively towards more innovative foci – ones that are not limited to the resolution of basic attributive questions, but that rather champion a more flexible approach to the material. The second conceptual group is focused on context. The importance of knowing and analysing the liturgical and spatial context of medieval art is now broadly recognised, and the potentialities of such a method of study have been discussed and applied, for example, by Staale Sinding-Larsen.79 More recently, the methodology has been adopted in the English context

76 Gerevini, S. “‘Christus crystallus.’ Rock Crystal, Theology and Materiality in Medieval West,” in J. Robinson and L. de Beer (eds), Matter of Faith. An Interdisciplinary Study of Relics and Relic Veneration in the Medieval Period (London, 2014), 92–9. 77 King, R. “‘To counterfeit such precious stones as you desire’: amber and amber imitations in early modern Europe,” in B. Ulrike Münch (ed.), Fälschung–Plagiat–Kopie. Künstlerische Praktiken in der Vormoderne (Petersberg, 2004), 87–97; Eadem, “The beads with which we pray are made from it: devotional ambers in early modern Italy,” in W. de Boer and C. Göttler (eds), Religion and the Senses in Early Modern Europe (Leiden, 2013), 153–75. 78 Kim Woods (“The Fortunes of Art in Alabaster: a Historiographical Analysis,” in C. Hourihane [ed.], From Minor to Major. The Minor Arts in Medieval Art History [Princeton, 2012], 82–102: 100), for instance, lamented that ‘There is only a limited sense as yet, however, that English alabasters are being integrated into the canon of European sculpture as they so clearly were in their own day.’ 79 Sinding-Larsen, S., Iconography and ritual: a study of analytical perspectives (Oslo, 1984).

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by Eamon Duffy,80 Richard Marks,81 and Paul Binski.82 These scholars have examined the characteristics of late-medieval piety in England, probing at the nexus between religious practice, the perception and function of images, and the performativity of rituals. The essay in this volume by Andrew Kirkman and Philip Weller offers a continuation of the studies just cited, asking contextual questions of alabaster production that have never previously been posed. Armed with a new, anthropological approach, they consider alabasters from the point of view of the medium’s interaction with music and liturgical performance, offering a pioneering interpretation of particular iconographic, typological and formal characteristics of the reliefs studied. This aligns with the stated need for a more malleable approach to the material, grounded in the integration of different disciplinary perspectives and cognisant of the multisensorial nature of the devotional experience in the medieval and the early modern sphere. This is an approach previously explored, for instance, in a study by Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti on the relationship between music and architecture,83 and one that is informing more broadly research now in progress on the sensorial perceptions (not only the visual ones, but all the sensory feedback) that characterised the spiritual experience of the faithful in the Middle Ages.84 As the authors demonstrate, the two arts – i.e. music and alabaster production – co-existed and often worked in tandem. Their primary purpose was to generate – then to deepen, and so further intensify – the experiential qualia of devotional wonderment, contemplative depth, and religious emotion. This essay shows how the authors have set out to reconstruct, as consistently and sympathetically as possible, something of the original formative context for both these arts. The result – historically, aesthetically, temporally, culturally – may be described as a fusion of horizons (Horizontverschmelzing), in the HansGeorg Gadamer sense.85 In addition, the essay by Kirkman and Weller can help to furnish a new 80 Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven and London, 2005); Idem, Marking the Hours: English People and their Prayers, 1240–1570 (New Haven and London, 2006). 81 Marks, Studies in the Art. 82 Binski, P. and Massing, A. (eds), The Westminster Retable: History, Technique, Conservation (Turnhout, 2009); Binski, P., Becket’s Crown. Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170–1300 (New Haven and London, 2004). 83 Howard, D. and Moretti, L. (eds), Sound and space in Renaissance Venice: architecture, music, acoustics (New Haven, 2009). 84 Cf. James, L., “Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium,” Art History 27 (2006), 522–37; Pentcheva, B.V., The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (University Park, 2010); Eadem, “Hagia Sophia and Multisensory Aesthetics,” Gesta 50:2 (2011), 51–69; Eadem, “Performing the Sacred in Byzantium: Image, Breath, and Sound,” PRI Performance Research International 19:3 (2014): 120–28; Macauda, A., “Voir l’odeur. La représentation parfumée de l’Assomption de la Vierge,” in A. Paravicini Bagliani (ed.), Parfums et odeurs au Moyen Âge. Science, usage, symboles, Micrologus Library, 67 (Florence, 2015), 109–30. 85 For a discussion on Gadamer’s approach: George, T., “Gadamer and German

Introduction

interpretive reading – alternate to, or perhaps complementary to, what has already been proposed – of the widespread interest in alabasters in particular regions of Europe where English music was popular. This interest in liturgical and spatial context is one that is shared by the author, whose essay about the alabaster polyptych made for the abbey church of Novalesa, located close to Turin, explores the iconographic, functional and devotional relationship that existed between the altarpiece, its surrounding space, other works that decorated that space, and the propagandistic and spiritual requirements of its patron. The premise for this discussion is the observation that, although alabaster doubtless constituted a genre in and of itself, it cannot ultimately be studied as an isolated object. Through the case study presented here, the author proposes an alternative model of study whereby the sculpted altarpiece is discussed as part of a global decorative plan that comprised also frescoes and other liturgical furnishings. In this essay, the author recognises a particular opportunity in the study of polyptychs that are still in one piece (or at least reconstructable with a degree of certainty), and made specifically for exportation, arriving in Europe before the Reformation. As scholars have already argued, the ‘alabastermen’ were able entrepreneurs, who, thanks to sophisticated systems of assemblage and transport of works, were able to secure themselves a generous share of the foreign market, sending their reliefs by ship along the coast of northern Europe and all throughout the Mediterranean basin.86 From this point of view, ‘alabastermen’ were no different from the entrepreneur-sculptors of the Roman age, artisans who have been the object of a recent study by Ben Russell,87 or indeed the great masters of the Italian Renaissance who conquered – culturally-speaking – Europe with their Carrara marble sculptures.88 Some alabaster reliefs are even still preserved in the place for which they were originally acquired: a good example is the polyptych of Santiago de Compostela.89 Others that are now in museums can often be hypothetically reunited with their Idealism,” in N. Keane and C. Lawn (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics (Wiley Online Library, 2016), 54–62; Nenon, T.J., “Horizonality,” ibidem, 248–52. 86 The complexity and sophisticated organisation of the systems of packing and transport relative to alabasters, both by land and sea, are suggested by eye-witness accounts. Archival documents, for example, inform us that the polyptych signed off by Peter the Mason for the chapel of Saint George at Windsor in 1367 was transported to London via ten carriages, each with eight horses, and that the journey took 17 days – from the 20 October to the 6 November. In terms of transport by sea, we know that in 1372 John Nevill of Raby ‘caused to be made the new work of marble and alabaster beneath the shrine of St. Cuthebert […] And he caused it to be enclosed in boxes in London, and sent by sea to Newcastle’. In 1380, he donated £500 for ‘the work above the altar which is called La Reredos’, that was then shipped to London inside cases. St John Hope, “On the Early Working,” 225. 87 Russell, B., The Economics of the Roman Stone Trade (Oxford, 2013). 88 Cf. Klapisch-Zuber, C., Les maîtres du marbre Carrare, 1300–1600 (Paris, 1969). 89 Barral Iglesias, A., La Catedral de Santiago de Compostela: meta de peregrinación (Trobajo del Camino, León, 2003).

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original context on the basis of historical information: examples include the polyptych of Cartagena,90 and that of the abbey at Novalesa, the object of this essay. Looking at these works in such a way provides the keys for an analysis of context, allowing us to recover the full range of meanings that alabasters had at the moment of their creation. It permits us, further, to return these works in a hypothetical way to their original, immersive environment – visual, liturgical and spatial – furnishing scholars with interpretative tools that can then be applied more generally to the study of sacred English spaces prior to the destructions of the Reformation. Jennifer Alexander also shares this interest in context, although in her case it relates more specifically to a geographic context. In her detailed essay, which has recourse both to medieval and antiquarian documentary evidence, she integrates the data of written sources with a direct analysis of the few surviving fragments. Alexander focuses on the working of alabaster in Lincolnshire, looking at the making of tombs as well as alabaster altarpieces and other reliefs. This essay offers an important counterpoint, especially since it problematises the idea of Nottingham as the principal centre of alabaster production – a notion popularised by studies by William St John Hope on alabasters depicting heads of St John the Baptist.91 In so doing, the author outlines a fresh “geography of alabaster”, both alternative and complementary to those already delineated by other scholars, thus providing a more balanced, complete view of the production of alabaster in the Middle Ages. Medieval Lincolnshire as a locale opens up interesting new panoramas, and will require further investigation in the future. The third conceptual group is aligned with museum and conservation studies. It is not concerned with recycling that partial viewpoint discussed in my opening remarks; on the contrary, this is museum scholarship in its best form, working to integrate diverse perspectives and competencies, and taking advantage of modern, non-invasive analytical technologies for the close study of works. Claire Blakey, Rachel King and Michaela Zöschg’s essay discusses some pieces in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow that until now have been largely overlooked. This essay is enriched with an appendix by Sophie Philipps and Stephanie de Roemer which presents the results of recent scientific investigations conducted on these works. Specifically, these are three Heads of St John the Baptist, all still conserved in their original tabernacle with closable, painted wings. Because of the preservation of their original form, the Burrell works offer the possibility of establishing how alabaster reliefs and their wooden tabernacles worked in a complementary way 90 Franco Mata, Á., El retablo Gótico de Cartagena y los alabastros ingleses de España (Murcia, 1999). 91 St John Hope, W.H., “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets called St John’s Heads,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to Antiquity LII:2 (1890), 669–708.

Introduction

to generate meaning. Although works of this type have been known to scholars for some time, Blakey, King and Zöschg utilise an absolutely fresh approach, free of preconceptions: they consider these works as multifunctional pieces, whose moving parts helped to alter purpose and meaning according to various modalities that conditioned and orientated the devotional response of their viewers. Of course, it is critically important that these objects were able to be manipulated by the individual, and we imagine that the faithful would have established their own, very personal relationships with them, based around practices of meditation and self-identification. This was a common phenomenon in Europe inspired by the Devotio Moderna; following the popularisation of this movement, different types of works made to accommodate close, personal contact with the devotee became widespread.92 An example is the Florentine Giovanni di Paolo Morelli, who, on the anniversary of the death of his son, addressed his prayers to a painting on panel depicting the Crucifixion that he had in his room. Not only did he look at it, recognising repeatedly in the sacred personalities his own sufferings in empathetic reflection, he also held it in his hands and kissed it, crying.93 The analyses conducted on the St John’s Heads by Sophie Philipps and Stephanie de Roemer, recounted in the essay in this volume, provide evidence of signs of repeated handling of the works, not only of constant movement of the wooden shutters, but marks of more quotidian devotional practices, which are easily grasped in relation to the spiritual, “interactive” customs just noted. The essay by Blakey, King and Zöschg is a means, as it were, of opening up the doors of private English residences in the Middle Ages, providing a framework for an investigation of domestic devotional practices. Their study is particularly topical given that medieval England has generally been excluded from the otherwise dense concentration of scholarship on private devotion. Personal and familial piety, however, were foundational elements in English society, influencing the lives of people well beyond the doors of domestic homes. To my mind, research that is open to these broader thematics can end up offering an analysis of larger questions linked to the nature of society itself in the Middle Ages. This acquires even greater significance when we consider that it was not only the lower social 92 On this, a discussion that is still highly relevant is: The Private Image, in Ringbom, S., Icon to Narrative. The Rise of the Dramatic Close-Up in Fifteenth-Century Devotional Painting. Second Edition Revised and Augmented. With a Postscript (Doornspijk, 1984), 30–9; Freedberg, D., The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago, 1991), in particularly the chapter titled Invisibilia per visibilia, 161–91; Belting, H., Il culto delle immagini. Storia dell’icona dall’età imperiale al tardo Medioevo (Rome, 2001; orig. German edition, Munich, 1990), especially the chapter Il dialogo con l’immagine, 501–56. 93 The account is provided by Morelli himself in his Ricordanze, written between 1393 and 1411; cf. Bacci, M., Pro remedio animae. Immagini sacre e pratiche devozionali in Italia centrale, secoli XIII e XIV (Pisa, 2000), 138–41.

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classes, those frequently cited in sources, who used devotional works in alabaster. Even royal palaces were attracted to the medium: the private chapel of Queen Isabella, mother of Edward III, contained a sculpture of the Virgin in alabaster and one of St Stephen in the same material, both described as ‘movable items’.94 It is clear that private homes in this period were generously fitted out with cult objects, and that various articulations of pious practice were undertaken in homes with the help of those artworks. This is indirectly proven by the evidence of a series of ordinances issued in the summer of 1547, during the Reformation, which specify that all sacred images had to be removed not only from public religious sites, but also from private dwellings.95 The close, complementary relationship that works like the St John’s Heads had with the spirituality of the period – understood here as a global phenomenon, involving the whole of medieval Christianity – is difficult to fully appreciate today, and this has no doubt contributed to their marginalisation and their miscued perception. Given this, and in addition to the links already explored by different scholars with Amiens Cathedral, where the relic of the skull of St John the Baptist is housed,96 it is opportune to recall that the original plate which carried the actual severed head of the Baptist was then, or so tradition claimed, in Genoa, in the Treasure of the Cathedral, where it had been since the 1400s.97 Decorated at its centre with a miniature representation of the face of the Baptist, it was most likely this plate which inspired the compositional type of the Head of St John, a widescale production of analogous objects in different materials in various European regions. One of the tasks of future scholarship will be to explore these works comparatively. Such potential relationships are even more important given the fact that in Genoa, in the very same cathedral, there used to be an alabaster polyptych dedicated to Stories of the Baptist – a coincidence, surely, that can hardly be ignored. Three fragments of the Genoa polyptych were acquired by Nelson in 1926, and from Nelson they were bought by Hildburgh, who donated them to the V&A in 1946.98 Two of the reliefs depict totally unique 94 Palgrave, F. (ed.), The Antient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury of His Majesty’s Exchequer, vol. III (London, 1836), 245. 95 Frere, W.H. and Kennedy, W.M. (eds), Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation, vol. 2 (London, 1910), 169; Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 480. 96 Scholars have already explored possible links between the Amien’s skull and English St John’s Heads in alabaster. See note 42 in Blakey, King and Zöschg’s essay in the present volume. 97 Di Fabio, C, “Il ‘Piatto del Battista’ nel tesoro della Cattedrale di Genova: un capolavoro dell’‘Émail en ronde-bosse’ franco-borgognone,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia. Quaderni 15 (2003), 49–68; Idem, Il ‘Piatto del Battista’ di Genova: le origini e il viaggio di un ‘joyau’ franco-fiammingo,” in P. Coccardo and C. Di Fabio (eds), Genova e l’Europa atlantica. Opere, artisti, committenti, collezionisti. Inghilterra, Fiandre, Portogallo (Cinisello Balsamo, 2006), 35–47. 98 Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster”, 411–12. The reliefs in question depict St John the Baptist before Herod (A.124-1946; http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70554/st-john-the-

Introduction

subjects – the Burial of St John the Baptist and the Quenching of the ashes of St John the Baptist – which would be difficult to explain were it not for the fact that the cathedral also holds the ashes of the saint, traditionally thought to have been brought there in 1098–99 by Guglielmo Embriaco, and now housed in an ark made between 1438 and 1445.99 Whoever takes up the study of these works in the future will rely on the conclusions of this research, and with these points in mind, may even be able to push their analysis towards an understanding of the relationship between the St John’s Heads (when displayed in a church rather than in a domestic context) and other material objects linked to the Eucharistic celebration (an example of which is clearly this plate: a symbol of sacrifice offered to the faithful.) It will be important to investigate, for example, the relationship that inevitably developed between these objects and the rites that took place around Easter Sepulchres, the sites where the consecrated host was placed on Holy Friday, before being ritually removed on Easter Sunday, mimicking the resurrection of Christ.100 Sophie Philipps and Stephanie de Roemer have contributed an essay that deals with a different aspect of conservation and scientific analysis: that of the colouring and gilding of the Burrell sculptures, a theme that has only briefly been touched on in previous studies about alabasters.101 This is not, to be clear, an exercise in scientific analysis as an end in itself. On the contrary, English alabasters constitute a window through which we can observe the devotional practices and the beliefs of their medieval viewers. We are now conscious of the fact that the polychrome surface was fundamental in terms of the meaning that these sculptures assumed in their original contexts. However, since the colours and gilding on these works have today in large part disappeared, we have lost a sense of the range of iconographic and formal subtleties that such finishes once lent to the works. This line of analysis has been important also in the field of antique statuary, as exemplified in a study by Mark Bradley.102 baptist-before-panel-unknown/), The Burial of St John the Baptist (A.125-1946; http:// collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70561/the-burial-of-st-john-panel-unknown/), and the Quenching of the Ashes of St John the Baptist (A. 126-1946; http://collections.vam.ac.uk/ item/O70567/quenching-of-the-ashes-of-panel-unknown/) (last accessed February 2018). 99 Di Fabio, C., “L’Arca processionale del Battista nella cattedrale di Genova: le radici internazionali e il cantiere di una micro-cattedrale gotica,” in É. Antoine-König and M. Tomasi (eds), Orfèvrerie gothique en Europe. Production et réception (Rome, 2016), 271–94. 100 Sekules, V., “The Tomb of Christ at Lincoln and the Development of the SacramentShrine: Easter Sepulchres Reconsidered,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Lincoln Cathedral, The British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions for the Year 1982, vol. VIII (Leeds, 1986), 118–31. 101 Porter, J., “The Analysis and Conservation of Polychromed English Medieval Alabaster Carvings”, Institute of Archaeology, University of London, thesis for B. Sc. degree, 1983; Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 26–7, 56–7. For general insights on polychromy in medieval sculpture: Park, D., “The Polychromy of English Medieval Sculpture,” in S. Boldrick, D. Park and P. Williamson (eds), Wonder: Painted Sculpture from Medieval England, Exh. Cat., Leeds, Henry Moore Institute (Leeds, 2002), 31–55. 102 Bradley, M., “The Importance of Colour on Ancient Marble Sculpture,” Art History

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The discoveries made thanks to these new scientific tests offer important indices for the hypothetical reconstruction of the original polychrome surface of the works, an approach which both deepens our knowledge of the processes of production and working of these objects, and at the same time enriches our comprehension of their ritual meaning. This first aspect, relating to workshop practices, is especially interesting if we consider that it was often the ‘alabastermen’ themselves who were charged with the polychrome finishing and gilding of each piece. The second aspect, the reconstruction of ritual meaning, is useful in terms of its ability to compensate for incorrect modern assumptions about these works – works now in large part deprived of their original colouring. Such research is able to offer new suggestions of how the faithful may have once perceived these objects. These are all fundamental arguments that concern not only the analysis of single pieces, but also larger cultural questions, which future scholarship will need to reintegrate with theoretical, historical and technical sources. Such approaches will both enable the recovery of a sense of alabaster as a material, and help us to reconstruct some sense of the whole system of practices, competencies and knowledge that underpinned its manufacture. The implications of such a study in terms of extending knowledge and opening up new lines of research are obviously of critical importance: it will help to contextualise alabasters in a European context by comparing what the ‘alabastermen’ knew and did with what their contemporaries – in ivory, for example – were doing, a topic already thoroughly investigated by other scholars.103 The final conceptual group is geared towards deepening arguments relating to the typologies of sculptures that, until this point, have only been looked at from a rather partial perspective. It does this with a specific focus on funeral monuments. By casting the gaze narrowly towards this type of object the intention is not to limit the perspective of analysis, but rather, to use close study of one object type as a proxy for investigating broader questions linked to the complexity and diversity of alabaster production, as well as questions about the organisation of workshops, the management of labour and personnel, and the relationship with patrons. A focus on these monuments further encourages a concurrent investigation into the history of the buildings that have housed these tombs. In this way, the research forms part of a denser historical weave, illuminating the preferences of different social classes for different religious orders or parish buildings as the sites of their eternal repose. Given that alabaster is a medium usually deployed in sacred contexts and for sacred purposes, alabaster tombs – when commissioned by lay patrons 32:3 (2009), 427–57. 103 Kowalski, C., “Polychromy on Medieval Ivories from the LVR-Landesmuseum, Bonn,” Sculpture Journal 23:1 (2014), 94–8; Connor, C.L., The Color of Ivory: Polychromy on Byzantine Ivories (Princeton, 1998). Cf. also Tomasi, Monumenti d’avorio, 184–8, 226–30.

Introduction

– offer a rare, intimate link to the lay and secular world. These tombs have a rather ambivalent character: on the one hand, they are located inside a sacred space, yet on the other, they serve to commemorate laymen. They act as a fulcrum, therefore, between the different exigencies of two worlds: reflecting both the desire of patrons to be remembered and even celebrated in the earthly realm, and their need to present themselves in the best possible light ahead of their meeting with the divine. These works were realised, in sum, ‘with an eye on the sky and another on one’s neighbour, intent on looking good to both parties’.104 It is not surprising, then, that these tombs were often at the cutting-edge of alabaster production, reflecting the level of effort required of the artists to satisfy the demands of the richest and most exacting patrons. These patrons wanted portraits that were ever more realistic and refined, along with a skilful rendering of precious fabrics and decorations. It is really these portraits and gisants that offer us the most reliable testimonies on the clothing and customs of the time. When integrated with information from other types of sources, it is possible to reconstruct, for example, the ballistic capabilities of knights in the period, as their effigies show them well-equipped with all kinds of metal weapons and armour, both offensive and defensive.105 We should not forget that these tombs were made by workshops that specialised in the working of alabaster; these were the same ‘alabastermen’ who made polyptychs and other kinds of sculptures too. Tombs, having escaped the destructions of the Reformation, have the advantage of generally being intact (or at least well-conserved), datable and still in situ. Perhaps even more significantly, there are often known documents that relate to the commission and execution of funeral monuments, often mentioning the names of the artists and patrons involved and detailing information on how the execution of the work actually took place. As such, they offer a rich framework for exploring the wider context in which the workshops operated. There are several documents published by Frederick Herbert Crossley106 nearly a century ago that demonstrate these points, and these documents continue to constitute an excellent point of departure for the investigation of funerary practices in medieval England. However, the studies conducted thus far on alabaster tombs (and I am thinking mostly of the fundamental research of Arthur Gardner)107 have for the most part still been limited 104 The definition is Evelyn Sandberg Vavalà’s, used to describe paintings with sacred subjects on the external walls of private dwellings. These works were also characterised by a certain ambiguity, placed at the liminal divide between the public and the private, between spiritual needs and promotional strategies explored in visual terms; Sandberg Vavalà, E., La pittura del Trecento e del primo Quattrocento (Verona, 1926), 112. 105 Cf. Blair, C., “Arms and Armour”, in Alexander and Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry, 169–70. 106 Crossley, F.H., English Church Monuments AD 1150–1550 (London, 1921). 107 Gardner, A., Alabaster Tombs of the Pre-Reformation Period in England (Cambridge, 1940); see also, more recently, Routh, P.E., Medieval Effigial Alabaster Tombs in Yorkshire

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by the fact that they only superficially address these larger questions of culture and workshop. The authors of the essays collected here circumvent this limitation by offering innovative methodologies and alternate routes of investigation. The essay by Jon Bayliss is exemplary, demonstrating the kind of research skills acquired after a long period of painstaking study on alabaster and funerary monuments. Bayliss’s starting point is a group of tombs in the English Midlands, which he uses to frame a discussion on the manufacturing practices of the period. This appears alongside a general review of relevant debates on alabaster funerary monuments. Through recourse to a rich anthology of documents, Bayliss is able to reconstruct whole workshops – often run by single families – and he can evoke something of the workshops’ relationships both with their patrons (often members of the aristocracy) and other artists. In this way, Bayliss has been able to create a concept of the workshop that is far more ductile than has previously been thought. In an area of study where often the names of individual practitioners have been lost, Bayliss has managed to restore an identity to these sculptors, using documents to place them in discussion with surviving works. The analysis is also extended in directions that are yet to be fully explored: he refers to ‘masons whose major occupation was probably the building of houses for local nobles, gentry and merchants’, suggesting that the alabaster industry was even more diverse and articulated than hitherto supposed. Further, the industry may not have died with the Reformation, as imagined, but rather was transformed in ways that are yet to be discovered and clarified. Bayliss, moreover, engages with the question of collaboration between artists of different nationalities: both the many Europeans who transferred to England to work in alabaster, and the Englishman who emigrated to the Continent. This is an aspect of research that future scholarship can look at in greater depth, focusing on questions of geography and materiality as they relate to the mobility of personnel, works, technical competencies and culture in early modern Europe. By analysing the careers of migrant artists, it is possible to explore how European artists who transferred to England were culturally and professionally integrated and vice versa, re-evaluating their role as agents of artistic and cultural change. Even those physical and material circumstances through which art has been transmitted, received, dislocated and finally re-contextualised in the modern world can be (London, 1976). A text that is still invaluable, and which provides crucial information on sculptors and their workshops, including many archival and documentary references: Harvey, J.H., English Mediaeval Architects. A Biographical Dictionary Down to 1550 Including Master Masons, Carpenters, Carvers, Building Contractors and Others Responsible for Design (London, 1954). For a general framework on tomb monuments, see also: Llewellyn, N., Art of Death: Visual Culture in the English Death Ritual c.1500 – c.1800, 2nd edn (London, 1997). With specific reference to alabasters, an excellent study that references the volumes cited above is: Badham, S., “The Rise of Popularity of Alabaster for Memorialisation in England,” Church Monuments XXXI (2016), 11–67.

Introduction

explored, alongside the creation of new markets, publics and meanings. As amply demonstrated by the many studies that position workshops as important players in the society of the period (I am thinking here of research conducted on Italy of the Quattro-Cinquecento,108 and especially the analyses of Michelle O’Malley on the central-Italian Renaissance109 and Susan Connell for Venice at the end of the Middle Ages110), this type of research can broaden our historical perspective by exploring the various cultural, economic, productive and social dynamics that workshops helped to shape. The essay by Kim Woods looks at alabaster tombs from a totally new point of view, at the same time integrating what knowledge has already been accumulated to date. Up to this point, most studies on alabaster funerary monuments have concentrated on the tombs of kings and monarchs, members of the aristocracy, knights, bishops and abbots. Woods instead focuses on merchants’ tombs – a profoundly original perspective. She recounts the various stages in the history of these tombs, and interrogates the reasons that led merchants to this choice of material, analysing the formal aspects of the tombs in relation to the social status of their patrons. A study of this type throws new light not only on our knowledge of alabasters, and of course tombs in alabaster, but also more generally, on debates about the wider society of the period. Today, the interior spaces of churches are being understood more and more as an arena in which the various social classes and opposite genders could interact. Even though the organisation of the church space and the configuration of liturgical furnishings were an expression of social hierarchies that were substantially fixed, laymen could often manipulate the terms of their participation and circumvent these hierarchies. From a sociological or phenomenological point of view, it is accordingly becoming possible to consider a cult’s space, together with the architecture that encloses it and the works that decorate it, as something that articulates a whole range of social and spiritual preoccupations. This area of research has real potential to expand our knowledge about corporate identities and the specific commemorative culture flowing out from them, using an analysis of typologies, locations and spatial relationships that concerns previously ignored social categories. By considering these types of funerary monuments as an expression of fundamental identity as well as of a patron’s spiritual concerns, this work

108 Wackernagel, M., The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist: Projects and Patrons, Workshop and Art Market, transl. A. Luchs (Princeton, 1981); Cassanelli, R. (ed.), La bottega dell’artista tra Medioevo e Rinascimento (Milan, 1998). 109 O’Malley, M., The Business of Art: Contracts and the Commissioning Process in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, 2005); Eadem, Painting Under Pressure: Fame, Reputation and Demand in Renaissance Florence (New Haven, 2013). 110 Connell, S., “The Employment of Sculptors and Stonemasons in Venice in the Fifteenth Century”, PhD thesis, Warburg Institute, 1976.

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aligns with other scholarly approaches, exemplified in the classic studies on the tombs of the Doctors in Bologna and Padua, which attempt to draw out the deeper meanings associated with these monuments.111 To conclude the volume, Christine Welch has contributed an essay about the alabaster tomb of Alice de la Pole (1401–1475) in the church of St Mary the Virgin in Ewelme. Her study looks at this monument in its broad historical and cultural context, concentrating in particular on its relationship with contemporary spiritual concerns, and especially its references to purgatory, which were typical of England in the late medieval period. Welch further contextualises the monument in terms of the social status, devotional and promotional concerns of its patron, analysing in detail the most revealing iconographic and formal aspects of the monument. Welch’s exemplary iconographic analysis is not limited to a banal matching of figures and written sources, but is genuinely attentive to the work as a totality of interconnected signifiers, clarifying its function and meaning with reference to these points. Welch’s study, furthermore, challenges the widespread belief that alabaster sculptors were simple stonemasons, incapable of any invention or of rendering represented subjects in a truly realistic way. If Welch’s hypothesis is correct, the maker of Alice de la Pole’s tomb anticipates more modern studies of anatomy; the representation of the transi of Alice is so sophisticated that it seems to suggest that the sculptor had studied real life cadavers – that he was not only conscious of the processes that a body undergoes after death, but also capable of reproducing them masterfully in sculpture. Although this volume is articulated by the groupings I discussed above, I have chosen, for reasons of homogeneity and coherence, not to subscribe to a strict division into sections. The reader, therefore, will not be able to find these groupings by looking at the index, or even by reading the book: they are not rigid taxonomies. This is emphasised for two reasons: first, as argued earlier, it is critical that the study of alabaster is decoupled from the inflexible categorisations and schemas to which it has been subjected in the past. Second, since the studies collected in this volume are deliberately malleable and cross-sectional, it follows that none of them could be expected to fit exclusively into one single historiographic, critical or thematic approach. It is really only from reading the various essays as a whole that the reader can trace the most interesting thematics, and explore the many fils rouges that link these studies. To look at an example of how this crossweaving works: the hypothesis explored by Aleksandra Lipińska on the 111 Grandi, R., I monumenti dei dottori e la scultura a Bologna (1267–1348) (Bologna, 1982); Wolff, R. “Le tombe dei dottori al Santo: considerazioni sulla loro tipologia,” in L. Baggio and M. Benetazzo (eds), Cultura, arte e committenza nella basilica di S. Antonio di Padova nel Trecento (Padua, 2003), 277–97.

Introduction

value given to alabaster in the seventeenth century, both in a literary and artistic context, in which alabaster becomes ‘a symbol of flesh’ by virtue of the ‘carnality’ of the material, finds correspondence and explanation in documents identified and discussed by Jon Bayliss. In 1634, as Bayliss tells us, Garrat Hollemans signed a contract to make an alabaster portrait of Sir Thomas Skrymsher, to be placed on the latter’s tomb in the church of Forton, in Staffordshire. Skrymsher requested that the portrait be left without any coloured finishing; in the same contract he also asked that the sculptor remove any trace of colouring from the effigy of Lady Skymsher (which was already in place on the tomb) so that the natural colour of the stone might be revealed. This is a rather eloquent example of admiration for the colouristic and material qualities of the naked stone, and one that can likely be explained with reference to ideas that various intellectuals were beginning to form in the period and set out in written texts that circulated widely, as discussed by Lipińska. There are correspondences too between suggestions advanced by Phillip Weller and Andrew Kirkman – the relationship between alabasters and music, understood as different, yet communicative artistic forms – and my own essay, in terms of the relationships between alabasters and frescoes. Last, there is a correspondence between Jennifer Alexander’s reflections on the St John’s Heads that made up part of the devotional setting of certain dwellings in Lincolnshire, and the ideas discussed by Claire Blakey, Rachel King, and Michaela Zöschg on the tabernacles in the Burrell Collection, with both these essays connecting alabaster objects to practices of piety in medieval England. Alabasters remain, even today, the richest physical testimony of the English medieval and early modern period.112 As such, they hold the answers to many of the questions that modern scholarship is asking about the period. If subtly and intensively interrogated, alabasters can open up important panoramas, offering the interpretative key to many of the questions and debates central to the discipline of art history and beyond, weaving our comprehension of the Middle Ages in England into a broader interpretive framework.

112 Together with architecture in general and the so-called Opus Anglicanum, the richly textured English embroidery which was sought all over Europe; cf. Gardner, J., “Opus Anglicanum and its Medieval Patrons”, in C. Browne, G. Davies and M.A. Michael (eds), English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum (New Haven and London, 2016), 49–59.

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‘BURTON-UPON-TRENT, NOT NOTTINGHAM.’ THE EVOLVING STUDY OF MEDIEVAL ENGLISH ALABASTER SCULPTURE NIGEL RAMSAY

S

ome dragons are hard to slay. The persistence of the attribution to Nottingham sculptors of the English medieval religious carvings sculpted in alabaster is both perverse and puzzling, given the clear historical evidence that points to the contrary. Another misconception is that such alabasters are generally rectangular panels of mediocre artistic quality. In this chapter I hope to demonstrate how this distorted view of the subject has come about – nurtured in a stream of publications from around 1890 onwards – and to suggest further areas of historical research into this important artistic material. The spurious trail of the ‘Nottingham alabaster panel’ was laid by three prolific and – it must be said at once – learned and scholarly writers: Sir William Henry St John Hope (1854–1919), Philip Nelson (1872–1953) and Walter Leo Hildburgh (1876–1955). Hope is the subject of a short and impersonal account in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,1 but neither Nelson nor Hildburgh achieved that form of immortality. I have, however, drawn on an account of Nelson by Pauline Rushton in Apollo in 20012 and

1 Thompson, A.H., revised by B. Nurse, “Hope, Sir William Henry St John,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Bibliography, vol. 28 (Oxford, 2004), 42–3. 2 Rushton, P., “A Liverpool Collector: Dr Philip Nelson (1872–1953),” Apollo 153: 467 (2001), 41–8; see also F[inch], R.A., “Dr Philip Nelson. Obituary,” The Times (27 February 1953), and Idem, “Philip Nelson, M.A., Ph.D., M.D., F.R.S.E., F.S.A., F.R.N.S.,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire 104 (1953, for 1952), 173.

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one of Hildburgh by Catherine Oakes in the Journal of the History of Collections in 2006.3 Hope was far and away the finest scholar of the three, entirely at ease in searching for, and making transcripts from, medieval archival materials. He was a heraldist of great distinction, whose writings in this field show that he had an independence and originality of mind, and he was an architectural historian of exceptional thoroughness. He was awarded his knighthood for his two-volume architectural history of Windsor Castle. He has been less highly lauded as an archaeologist of the below-ground, trench-digging sort, Mortimer Wheeler once commenting that he dug up sites rather as a farmer might dig up a field of potatoes, just to see what came up.4 Hope’s first contribution to the making of the alabaster-publications industry was a paper in Archaeologia in 1890, in which he linked up some of the dozens of extant carvings of the Head of St John the Baptist with documentary references to Heads of St John which he had found in late medieval wills and inventories.5 This publication was important in a general way, as demonstrating beyond all doubt, and in the leading English art-historical journal of the day, that such alabaster carvings were certainly English.6 Alabasters had previously been the subject of a scatter of publications in both national and local archaeological journals, one of the most valuable being J.G. Nichols’s long footnote about St John’s Heads in another scholar’s edition of Bury St Edmunds wills,7 but these never considered the wider questions of the sort that Hope was to tackle, such as where and when alabaster was worked in England. The only tour d’horizon since that by Edward Richardson in 18538 had been an article by the abbé A. Bouillet in the Bulletin Monumental, 1901. Understandably enough, however, given that he was surveying the large number of alabaster panels and figures that he had located in north-western France, Bouillet supposed 3 Oakes, C., “Dr Hildburgh and the English Medieval Alabaster,” Journal of the History of Collections 18:1 (2006), 71–83. Some of Hildburgh’s papers are in the Victoria and Albert Museum Archive, ref. A0454. 4 Cf. Hawkes, J., Adventurer in Archaeology: The Biography of Sir Mortimer Wheeler (New York, 1982), 81. 5 St John Hope, W.H., “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets called St John’s Heads,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to Antiquity LII:2 (1890), 669–708. 6 A major step in this direction had, however, been made by Rev. Cox, J.C., “On an Alabaster Sculpture, the Property of Rev. B.W. Spilsbury,” Derbyshire Archaeological Journal 8 (1886), 79–91. See his comment, at p. 86: ‘These carvings seem to be specially English. Eleven of them are known to be extant. Probably there are several others not yet noted in private collections.’ Cox firmly ruled out the possibility that the Heads of St John the Baptist were such, however: ‘This head, as represented in these sculptures, does not correspond in any particular with any of the known mediaeval delineations of St John Baptist, either by the glass-stainer, painter, or the sculptor’ (at p. 84). 7 Tymms, S. (ed.), Wills and Inventories from the Registers of the Commissary of Bury St Edmunds and the Archdeacon of Sudbury (London, 1850), 255. 8 Richardson, E., “Notices of Mediaeval Sculpture and Workings of Alabaster in England,” The Archaeological Journal X (1853), 116–23.

‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ 

that they had been carved by French or Flemish sculptors and that the stone was from some part of France (and possibly Lagny in the Seine-etMarne department).9 Hope’s paper was significant in terms of his own œuvre, in that it led to further studies by him on English alabaster sculpture. Two of these pieces of work were of paramount importance: an account of the early working of alabaster in England, in the Archaeological Journal in 1904, and his organization of an exhibition of alabaster carvings six years later at the premises of the Society of Antiquaries – the Society of which he was Assistant Secretary and where indeed he lived from 1885 to 1910, in the basement (Fig. 1.1).10 His article on the early working of alabaster was extremely thorough and brought out some of the significance of alabaster sculpture for fourteenth- and fifteenth-century patrons. The exhibition was of even greater long-term significance. It was ambitious in its scope: he aimed to put on display every known alabaster carving from England or abroad, either by borrowing the original or by showing a photograph.11 Both as a temporary exhibition and through the substantial book of essays and catalogue that was published three years later, it put alabasters on the map. As Alexandrina Buchanan has commented, ‘whereas previously they were rarely displayed, subsequent exhibitions of medieval art invariably included a considerable number of alabaster pieces.’12 By this time, Hope had made two important discoveries of documentary material relating to the carving of alabaster. The first was of the commission by the Crown of an alabaster tabula or reredos for the high altar of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, from Peter the Mason of Nottingham, in 1367. The second was of the various references to ‘alabastermen’ in the published records of the town of Nottingham, in the years 1478–9 and later.13 Hope assumed that ‘alabastermen’ were all carvers of the material, rather than perhaps being merchants or purveyors of it. He also made the less justifiable leap of assuming that there must have been a continuous tradition of carving the stone in Nottingham. He was, however, careful not 9 Bouillet, A., “La fabrication industrielle des retables en albâtre (XIV–XV siècles),” Bulletin Monumental LXV (1901), 45–62. An excellent French-language corrective to Bouillet came just a quarter of a century later from Rostand, A., “Les albâtres anglais du XVe siècle en Basse-Normandie,” Bulletin Monumental LXXXVII (1928), 257–309. 10 St John Hope, W.H., “On the Early Working of Alabaster in England,” The Archaeological Journal LXI:1 (1904), 220–40; Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of English Medieval Alabaster Works held in the Rooms of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1913); Hope’s 1904 article was reprinted in this, at pp. 1–15, with omissions and a few additions. 11 Buchanan, A., “Show and Tell: Late Medieval Art and the Cultures of Display,” in R. Marks (ed.), Late Gothic England: Art and Display (Donington and London, 2007), 124–37: 133. The exhibition is also discussed by Anderson, W., “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display of English Medieval Alabasters,” Journal of the History of Collections 16:1 (2004), 47–58: 51–2. The Society of Antiquaries has in its archive a substantial file of correspondence and photographs gathered together in connection with the show. 12 Buchanan, “Show and Tell,” 133. 13 Hope, “On the Early Working of Alabaster,” 224–5, 234–5.

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FIG. 1.1  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ST CATHERINE REFUSING TO SACRIFICE TO THE IDOL, ALABASTER PANEL, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. FROM YARNTON CHURCH (OXON.). EXHIBITED AT THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, 1910 (NO. 60), BY E. HOLMES JEWITT; ACQUIRED IN 1914 BY THE BRITISH MUSEUM. LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM

to overstate his case, suggesting – ‘for consideration as a working theory’ – that monumental sculpture (that is, of tomb effigies and side panels) was the work of carvers ‘first, perhaps, in or near Hanbury or Tutbury, but certainly later at Chellaston’, and that the Nottingham alabastermen ‘as well as those of York, Burton and Lincoln … wrought for the most

‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ 

part imagery and tables for reredoses and the like’.14 Thus was invented the “Nottingham alabaster”. Hope’s audience was impressed: his scholarly reputation was incomparable, and the Castle Museum at Nottingham as well as the London art market together with scores of private collectors were delighted to discover a distinctively as well as localizably English medieval artistic genre. The “Nottingham School” has never lacked for enthusiasts ever since; as recently as 2010, it was argued for by Paul Williamson in his introductory essay to the catalogue of a travelling exhibition of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s alabasters.15 Art-historically, alabaster carvings were brought into the mainstream of writings about English art by the magnum opus of Edward Prior and Arthur Gardner, An Account of Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England (1912), where a good many pages were devoted to alabasters, including a presentation of the dating-scheme that Prior and Gardner also presented in Hope’s catalogue that was the published memorial of his 1910 exhibition at the Society of Antiquaries.16 Two of Hope’s most responsive readers were Philip Nelson and Walter Hildburgh. Each had his own approach to medieval art; each was a collector with sufficient capital that he could fund his activities from his interest, dividends or rent, and each had in mind a certain outcome or agenda, into which alabasters fitted conveniently. Hildburgh was the more adventurous intellectually, although he made much more of a speciality of alabasters than did Nelson; but Nelson has received rather less credit than might be thought his due. He published a number of his articles in the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society and suchlike local journals, as well as a good many in the Archaeological Journal17 whereas Hildburgh preferred to appear in the pages of the Antiquaries Journal. The two men Ibidem, 233. Williamson, P. (ed.), Object of Devotion. Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Exh. Cat., Palm Beach, FL, Society of the Four Arts, and five other institutions, with contributions by F. Cannan, E. Duffy and S. Perkinson (Alexandria, 2010). 12–21: 14, 18; a more balanced view, giving more space to Burtonupon-Trent, is given in the same volume by Fergus Cannan, pp. 22–37, at 30–2. I had set out the case against Nottingham and, to some extent, for Burton, in my “Alabaster”, in J. Blair and N. Ramsay (eds), English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products (London, 1991), 29–40: 34–5, 37–8. The significance of Burton is also brought out by Tringham, N.J., “Alabaster Carving,” in N.J. Tringham (ed.), A History of the County of Stafford. Volume IX. Burton-upon-Trent (London, 2003), 79–80, although with a focus that is more on the sixteenth century and on tomb-carvers. 16 Prior, E.S. and Gardner, A., An Account of Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England (Cambridge, 1912), 460–506; Illustrated Catalogue. 17 Nelson’s more substantial articles include “Some British Medieval Seal-Matrices,” The Archaeological Journal XCIII (1936), 13–44, and “An Ancient Box-Wood Casket,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity LXXXVI (1937), 91–100. The latter is about a casket now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio), and described in the exhibition catalogue, Backhouse, J.M., Turner, D.H. and Webster L. (eds), The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, 966–1066, Exh. Cat., London, Britsh Museum and British Library (London, 1984), 125–6, no. 129) which he acquired at different dates as two separate parts and recognized as Anglo-Saxon. 14 15

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knew each other quite well, and at times made agreements not to bid against each other for particular items. Ultimately, indeed, Nelson sold his own alabaster panels to Hildburgh.18 Nelson was the sort of collector who is always ready to dispose of something if he thinks he can use the proceeds more satisfactorily elsewhere. Nelson’s practice with his better or more significant purchases was to show them to museum curators and other experts and then perhaps to publish a note or article about them. He did not immerse or enmesh himself in the museums world, however – although he was on the Committee of the Liverpool Museum and  for many years lent it part of his collection, for display. When he died (1953), the bulk of his collection was simply left to his widow. She sold it for £15,000 to the Liverpool Museum, but very little of it has ever been put on permanent display there.19 Nelson’s collection was much larger and more eclectic than Hildburgh’s, with much classical sculpture, medieval jewellery – Nelson always wore what he called the Warwick Ring, a fifteenth-century gold ring engraved with the device of a bear and ragged staff, which he believed must have belonged to Warwick the Kingmaker, Richard Neville (d. 1471), earl of Warwick and of Salisbury – and he had medieval ivories, a substantial collection of coins of all periods, and Liverpool Delftware ship-bowls, as well as a great many very miscellaneous items. His collection of medieval stained glass included one of the finest late-twelfth-century windows from the east end of Canterbury Cathedral: his executors gave this back to the Cathedral.20 In so far as Nelson’s general scholarly activities are concerned it is striking that these had their strengths in two completely divergent areas. On the one hand, he was a numismatist of repute, the author of a standard catalogue of The Coinage of the Isle of Man (1899),21 and widely regarded as 18 Unlike Nelson, Hildburgh seems always to have hung on to what he acquired, and so the list of items that are today in the Hildburgh collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum can be taken as indicating the totality of Nelson’s sales to Hildburgh: see Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984), passim. 19 Note the critical comments about the museum’s treatment of Nelson’s collection of stained glass, as well as about the lack of provenance information for items in the collection as a whole, by Hebgin-Barnes, P., The Medieval Stained Glass of Lancashire, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Great Britain, Summary Catalogue, vol. 8 (Oxford, 2009), 147–8. 20 The return of this glass should have alerted people to the fact that glass had been disappearing from the Cathedral as a result of the nefarious ways of its own glazier, although two and two were not put together until Prof. Madeline Harrison Caviness investigated the glass for her PhD thesis (completed in 1970), subsequently published as The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, circa 1175–1220 (Princeton, NJ, 1977), 20; see also her The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi: Great Britain, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1981), 172–4, mentioning that Nelson purchased these Tree of Jesse panels (Corona N III) from the Cathedral glazier in 1908 for £26. 21 Nelson, P., The Coinage of the Isle of Man (London and Liverpool, 1899). Note also his study of The Obsidional Money of the Great Rebellion, 1642–1649 (Liverpool, 1907), although this lacks any references or bibliography.

‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ 

an authority on the coinage of the York moneyers. At the same time he was also extremely knowledgeable about medieval English stained glass, and had written what was once the standard monograph on the subject, Ancient Painted Glass in England, 1170–1500 (1913).22 As a numismatist, he was of course concerned with material that was not expected to be placed in a historical context beyond that of the mint from which it originated. For stained glass, by contrast, the history of its commissioning or patronage and then of its location over the ensuing centuries was of fundamental importance: here, Nelson could bring to the subject his well-informed interest in heraldry. The study of alabasters, for Nelson, fell between these two very different scholarly approaches: he tended to see them in an ahistorical context, seeming to be uninterested in the question of how they had come to be where they were when he lit upon them. His concern was more to enumerate and classify them, like so many coins, and he did so in over twenty articles. He had no historical training, and as a researcher in the humanities was self-taught.23 Hildburgh lived in a small flat – perhaps a basement flat – in South Kensington, not far from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Charles Oman, the Keeper of Metalwork (1945–66), made him feel very welcome and had the clever idea of giving him a permanent desk in the Department of Metalwork. Hildburgh showed his gratitude by bequeathing to the Museum more-or-less the whole of his collection as well as a substantial sum of money to form a fund for acquiring items of Metalwork and Sculpture in the future.24 That legacy – the Hildburgh Bequest fund – is still active today, maintained as a separate endowment. Hildburgh had a certain selflessness, and it might be said that it is much to his credit that in the mid-1920s he encouraged Nelson to redirect his collecting from sculpture to metalwork, for medieval enamels were one of Hildburgh’s own specialities. Hildburgh had a particular theory about the Spanish origin, as he saw it, of the early ‘Limoges’ champlevé enamelled pieces of metalwork. In 1936 Oxford University Press published a monograph by him entitled Medieval Spanish Enamels; but the arguments that he advanced in this book have not won acceptance.25 Where metalwork was concerned, Hildburgh did not disdain works of as high a

22 Nelson, P., Ancient Painted Glass in England, 1170–1500, The Antiquary’s Books (London, 1913). 23 He had been set on a medical career, and presumably read medicine at university, but, in the words of his obituarist R.A. Finch, ‘A brilliant career in consultant practice was cut short by an injury to his right arm.’ 24 Cf. Hildburgh’s declaration of his thanks to Oman for his ‘long-maintained interest in the preparation of my material’, at the start of his article on “Medieval Copper Champlevé Enamelled Images of the Virgin and Child,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity XCVI (1955), 115–58: 115 note 1. 25 Hildburgh, W.L., Medieval Spanish Enamels and their Relation to the Origin and the Development of Copper Champlevé Enamels of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (London, 1936).

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quality as he was able to afford: some are important and even of historical interest as well as being fine works of art.26 His collection of Spanish and Portuguese silver forms the basis of the Victoria and Albert’s collection of such work. Two bronze equestrian groups by Francesco Fanelli, of Cupid on Horseback and St George and the Dragon were exhibited in the Royal Academy’s exhibition of works from the collection of Charles I early in 2018; Hildburgh gave these to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1952 and 1953, respectively.27 Nelson certainly travelled in France, and bought alabasters along with much else when in that country; but I do not have the impression that he travelled at all as widely on the Continent as did Hildburgh. In his professional career, Hildburgh was a scientist or engineer, and had spent much of his earlier life in the United Sates (where he was born), but he evidently enjoyed travelling all around Europe (especially Spain) and even in the Far East, seeking out potential purchases. Nelson relied more on what was offered up in the London auction rooms and by dealers, who often sent him things ‘on approval’, for him to consider at home before committing himself to a purchase. Hildburgh had one unusual string to his bow: he was a champion figure-skater (Fig. 1.2). The London dealer Alfred Spero, whose customer he was, recounted that once, on one of his annual visits to Paris before the last War, he and his wife went to a floor show on ice, with dinner, at the ‘Lido’ in Paris. To Mr Spero’s astonishment, when the last act on the bill, called something like ‘The Red Devil and Partner’, skated out onto the ice, as the high point of the evening’s entertainment, it proved to be none other than Dr Hildburgh, dressed in a Devil’s costume.28 Such events apart, Hildburgh was the most modest and self-effacing of men. The war may also have changed him: apparently his fortune was in some way immobilized or frozen by the U.S. authorities because he was living abroad (i.e., in England). If he was not already very parsimonious, he certainly became that. The dealer Cyril Humphris, who was on Spero’s staff in the mid-1950s, remembers being sent out on Hildburgh’s behalf to buy half a cheese sandwich in a nearby cafe. Like cheese sandwiches, like alabasters, it might be said. Hildburgh’s tendency as a collector was to buy alabasters that can only be categorized as of the ‘penny plain’ variety. To be fair, however, this was probably not done on account of his being either unable or unwilling to splash out on the 26 E.g. a figure of the Trinity from a late-fourteenth-century memorial brass, possibly that of Thomas of Woodstock (d. 1397), duke of Gloucester, described by Blair, C., “Arms and Armour,” in Alexander, J., and Binski, P. (eds), Age of Chivalry. Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400, Exh. Cat., London, Royal Academy of Arts (London, 1987), 479, no. 625. 27 See Rumberg, P. and Shawe-Taylor, D. (eds), Charles I: King and Collector, Exh. Cat. London, Royal Academy of Art (London, 2018), 251, nos. 115–16. 28 I am extremely grateful to Mr Humphris for the recollections in this paragraph and the following.

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‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ 

finest examples that were on the market. For instance, he did once, although only once, buy an entire and intact altarpiece of many panels, and he also acquired the remains of a fine, later-fourteenthcentury altarpiece. His position, instead, was that he wished to buy panels that were of less sophisticated design and less skilled craftsmanship, because part of the general attraction of alabasters for him was what he saw as their ‘popular’ or ‘folk-art’ qualities. He once wrote that ‘the English alabasterman’s art was essentially a folk-art, created and carried on by humble craftsmen whose trade was the manufacture of church-furniture of a particular kind, in quantity and presumably by methods to some extent industrialized, mainly for the contemplation and edification of persons as humble as himself ’.29 The purchase of alabasters of the highest quality would not have fitted with this outlook about their creators, patrons and viewers. In all fairness to Hildburgh, some of his later writings do show a distinct shift in attitude from this pre-War outlook. He became genuinely and valuably knowledgeable about aspects of the alabasters’ iconography. He also broadened out in his scholarly outlook, while focusing more closely on alabasters. In 1950, just five years before his death, he published a stillvaluable paper in the Art Bulletin on some of the earliest panels and figures, those of about the 1350s to 1370s.30 Shortly before this, he had written a well-informed paper about possible influences of religious drama – the so-called mystery plays – on the ways in which certain biblical and

29 Hildburgh, W.L., “Representations of the Saints in Medieval English Alabaster Carvings,” Folk-Lore 61:2 (1950), 68–87: 68; he gave this paper as his presidential address to the Folk-Lore Society. Hildburgh had been interested in ‘folk-art’ from his earliest days as a collector, and he contributed a number of articles – some of them of considerable value, even today – to this journal: see, for instance, on amulets, his “Notes on Spanish Amulets,” Folk-Lore 17 (1906), 454–71, and “Indeterminability and Confusion as Apotropaic Elements in Italy and in Spain,” Folk-Lore 55 (1944), 133–49. One of his later articles combined his interest in alabasters with that in folklore: ‘Folk-Life Recorded in Medieval English Alabaster Carvings’, Folk-Lore 60:2 (1949), 249–65. 30 Hildburgh, W.L., “English Alabaster Tables of about the Third Quarter of the Fourteenth Century,” Art Bulletin 32 (1950), 1–23.

FIG. 1.2  DR WALTER LEO HILDBURGH, INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED SKATER

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non-biblical incidents were represented in alabasters.31 His weakness here, however, was not to look sufficiently at materials other than alabaster: it is surprising that he never drew comparisons with products of the contemporary ivory carvers’ workshops, French or English. Nor was the investigation of links with religious drama a wholly new line of enquiry to advance: St John Hope had drawn one or two parallels of this sort in his pioneering 1890 article, and Philip Nelson had written his M.A. thesis in 1924 on ‘English Mediaeval Alabaster Carvings, Reliefs and Images, and the Influence of the Mystery Plays on their Design.’32 One does not wish to seem ungrateful, but it was perhaps an unfortunate aspect of Hildburgh’s legacy that its sheer size was so great, with a strikingly obvious resultant repetitiveness. One might wish that he had used the opportunities that must have been open to him to buy fewer sculptures and, especially, fewer panels, and, instead, more highrelief or freestanding figures, and, especially, more of the finer, larger figures. Hope in the 1910 exhibition had achieved a more balanced presentation by including fifteen high-relief figures (nos. 74–88). Thanks to the 210 or so separate works – all save about 26 being panels – that Hildburgh gave or bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum (Pl. III), neither that museum nor the British Museum has acquired more than a handful of alabasters in the last half-century and more. The Castle Museum in Nottingham has made a number of purchases, but too many of these are also of rather unexciting pieces. ***** Hildburgh’s intellectual legacy was to reinforce the stereotyping of alabasters as panels and, moreover, panels of the sort and quality that were carved in the last 50 or 75 years of the alabaster image-sculptors’ activity. The corpus of the writings of Hildburgh, Nelson and Hope is substantial and until at least the last few years it has rather dominated the field. Relatively few other medievalists cared to enter the field during their lifetime, although one useful exception was Eric Maclagan’s innovative article in the Burlington Magazine in 1920 on the assembly marks and other marks that are sometimes found on the reverses of the panels.33 Lawrence Stone’s Sculpture in Britain: The Middle Ages, which was published in 1955 (the year of Hildburgh’s death), is a most impressive piece of work for someone who was then only in his mid-thirties and who worked principally on late Tudor social and economic history; where alabasters are concerned, 31 Hildburgh, W.L., “English Alabaster Carvings as Records of the Medieval Religious Drama,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity XCIII (1949), 51–101. 32 There is a copy of Nelson’s thesis in the Nelson archive in the Dept. of Decorative Arts, Walker Art Gallery (part of the National Museums, Liverpool). 33 Maclagan, E., “An English Alabaster Altarpiece in the Victoria and Albert Museum,” The Burlington Magazine for Conoisseurs 36:203 (1920), 53–7, and 60–5.

‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ 

however, it is really just a masterly synthesis rather than something that broke new ground.34 Moreover, Stone puts what now seems, perhaps, excessive stress on the ‘industrialization’ of the carvings’ production, as well as on the role of Nottingham in both their making and their marketing.35 A traditional line was promoted by the late Francis Cheetham, who spent much of his career in the Castle Museum at Nottingham and published a useful catalogue of its collection before going on to write his two major books on the subject: English Medieval Alabasters, With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984) and Alabaster Images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003). In both of these books, Cheetham seemed unaware of the suggestion that the small Staffordshire town of Burton-upon-Trent was perhaps the leading centre of alabaster imagers; he did, however, at least avoid referring to alabasters as ‘Nottingham alabasters’. His earlier book is a valuable catalogue and has a substantial introduction; the second is less satisfactory, being a very summary listing of some 2400 carvings, principally following an iconographic arrangement, together with a detailed ‘Geographical Index’ and an extensive but uneven and distinctly incomplete bibliography. Methodologically, Cheetham perhaps saw himself as writing in the early Hildburgh tradition. From Cheetham’s works it seems reasonable to move forward to setting out a few – just a very few – of the many possible areas for future research. ***** It might be said that there is a whole range of areas that seem most obviously to call out for research today. At one end of this scale is the broad issue of the integration of alabaster studies into the study of other, contemporary art forms and, no less important, of the place of alabasters in contemporary devotional and liturgical practices. If alabasters are seen as expensive and high quality works of art, as they were by the financial standards of their time, then the attraction of characterising them as ‘industrial’ products will fade away. An approach that concentrates on the higher-quality works in alabaster will lead to a greater readiness to look at the specific commissioning of altarpieces by Continental patrons, whether religious institutions, high ecclesiastics or the lay nobility. Even more obviously, too, it would seem a natural line of enquiry in England to examine the links between the duchy of Lancaster and the exploitation of alabaster, since the duchy owned the principal pits and quarries in Staffordshire and Derbyshire from which it Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain. The Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1955). Note, however, that he did find that from the later fifteenth century there was ‘some evidence that the centre of this trade [alabaster carving] was now shifting from Nottingham to Burton-on-Trent. As early as 1462 there are records of alabaster imagemakers at Burton’: Sculpture in Britain, 231. 34 35

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was extracted. The fact that Sir Godfrey Foljambe (d. 1376) late in his life commissioned an alabaster relief showing the murder of Thomas Becket has long been known.36 He was in a position of authority in the heart of the alabaster quarrying region, being steward of the Duchy of Lancaster’s Honor of Tutbury and, a little later, a chief steward of the Duke’s lands, as well as being one of John of Gaunt’s closest associates.37 Equally well known is the fact that John of Gaunt had in 1374 directed the receiver of his Duchy of Lancaster estates in Tutbury to send six ‘charettes’ laden with alabaster to London for the making of the tomb of his late wife Blanche (and himself); this was set up in St Paul’s Cathedral within four years, its design today being attributed to Henry Yevele and Thomas Wrek.38 Given such patronage, it might be thought obvious that there are likely to be other links between the Duchy and the patrons who commissioned alabaster tomb-effigies as well as religious imagery. Over the last hundred years or so, a number of writers, myself included, have mined the English customs records for indications of the scale and centres of activity of the alabaster sculptors’ and merchants’ production and trade. Useful as this in some ways has been, this sort of research nevertheless has the danger of omitting the special commissions that have such extra potential for the art historian. Hildburgh himself once drew attention to a licence that was issued by the Crown in 1382 for the export, free of tax, of three alabaster figures, of the Virgin Mary, St Peter and St Paul by the papal collector Cosmato Gentilis (later a cardinal, his assigned church being that of Sta Croce, and then Pope Innocent VII), and he suggested that the latter two figures might be identifiable as a pair that are today in the Museo della Basilica attached to the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome (Pl. IV).39 Hildburgh’s suggestion merits careful consideration, such as it has hardly yet received.40 36 Ramsay, N., in Alexander and Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry, 210–11, no. 26. This carving is 59.5 cm in height. A valuable article on tomb effigies by Sally Badham, “The Rise of Popularity of Alabaster for Memorialisation in England,” Church Monuments XXXI (2016), 11–67, comes no later than c. 1370 but nevertheless offers useful sidelights on the appeal of alabaster to patrons. 37 Somerville, R., History of the Duchy of Lancaster. Volume I. 1265–1603 (London, 1953), 112, 366. 38 Armitage-Smith, S. (ed.), John of Gaunt’s Register, 2 vols (London, 1911), vol. I, XX– XXI, vol. II, 212–13, no. 1394. Cf. Davidson Cragoe, C., “Fabric, Tombs and Precinct, 1087–1540,” in D. Keene, A. Burns and A. Saint (eds), St Paul’s: The Cathedral Church of London (New Haven and London, 2004), 127–42: 139–41, with reproduction of a drawing of the tomb (destroyed in the fire of London, 1666) from the Hatton Book of Monuments of the early 1640s, British Library, MS Add. 71474, f. 183. 39 Hildburgh, W.L., “Some English Medieval Alabaster Carvings in Italy,” The Antiquaries Journal 35 (1955), 182–6; cf. Ramsay, “Alabaster,” 38. Hope had mentioned the licence in 1904: cf. “On the Early Working of Alabaster,” 227. I owe to Kim Woods the observation that Gentili was cardinal-priest of Santa Croce, which greatly strengthens Hildburgh’s case. 40 Note, however, the valuable discussion by Murat, Z., “Medieval English Alabaster Sculptures: Trade and Diffusion in the Italian Peninsula,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 22 (2016), 399–413: 401–2.

‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ 

When one turns to consideration of the higher quality alabaster sculptures, it is evident that few of these have ever been studied seriously. They also pose a whole range of problems that do not arise with the more humdrum panels. It can be strikingly difficult to place them, in terms of national style characteristics. For instance, in the Kress collection in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., there are two freestanding alabaster figures. Both are published in the Kress Collection catalogue.41 One, a figure of St George and the Dragon, is surely English; and indeed it was borrowed for the exhibition Gothic: Art for England at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 2003. In the catalogue entry, by Paul Williamson, it is cautiously described as ‘apparently unique among existing English alabasters’ in being carved entirely in the round.42 Is that really the case? Williamson dated it to ‘the early years of the fifteenth century’ or ‘c. 1400–20’. Might it not actually be a little earlier?43 Carvings such as the Kress St George and the Dragon that raise so many questions are in fact quite numerous. One problem facing the researcher is that so few of these works have entered public collections; they are either still in the churches to which they have belonged for the last few centuries or are in the hands of dealers or private collectors. One element of guidance that will no doubt come in the next few decades will be a reliable way of localizing the alabaster stone itself: isotopic analysis will make clear which quarry each sculpture has been derived from. Analyses from 66 samples are already offering signs of promise.44 Another question which it is surprising that Hildburgh and Nelson did not really ever address is that of the relationship between alabaster tomb effigies and the alabaster panels that are sometimes set into the sides of tombs with such effigies: this is an issue that needs to be considered in respect of tombs that are in France and Spain as well as those in England. A start was made in articles by Colin Ryde that considered the side-panels of certain tombs,45 but this by no means obviates the need for a much broader approach. 41 See catalogue entries by Charles Avery in Middeldorf, U., Sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools, XIV–XIX Century (London, 1976), 118–19 (St George and the Dragon), 120–1 (Holy Trinity; definitely Continental, and probably Spanish, although purchased in 1944 as English). 42 Williamson, P., in R. Marks and P. Williamson (eds), Gothic: Art for England, 1400– 1547, Exh. Cat, London, Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 2003), 218, no. 84. 43 I am grateful to Philip Lankester for pointing out to me that St George’s bascinet is dated c.1390–1400 by Capwell, T., Armour of the English Knight, 1400–1450 (London, 2015), 66. Williamson may have been following the dating of c. 1400–20 given by Stone, Sculpture in Britain, caption to Pl. 148(a). 44 Kloppmann W., et al., “Tracing Medieval and Renaissance Alabaster Works of Art Back to Quarries: A Multi-Isotope (Sr, S, O) Approach,” Archaeometry 56 (2014), 203–19, and Kloppmann, W., et al., “Competing English, Spanish and French Alabaster Trade,” PNAS – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114:45 (2017), 11856–60. 45 Ryde, C., “An Alabaster Standing Angel with Shield at Lowick – A Chellaston Shop Pattern,” Derbyshire Archaeological Journal XCVII (1977), 36–49; Idem, “Chellaston

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***** At the same time, it must always be borne in mind that alabaster’s fragility has at times in the last couple of centuries led to damaged carvings being very successfully restored by more or less well-intentioned sculptors, in England (or at least, the British Isles) as well as on the Continent. Two examples must suffice. Wells Cathedral furnishes a striking example of such restoration, from a surprisingly early date. A major programme of restoration that was undertaken there in the 1840s included the restoration of the heads of figures on the side panels of the tomb of Thomas Boleyn, precentor of Wells from 1451 until his death in 1472.46 All save one of the panels proved on close inspection to be modern; the cathedral’s exceptionally well-maintained Fabric accounts enabled the date to be pinpointed as 1846 and the sculptor as one William Allen.47 A more recent example of skilful imitative work is provided by the Burrell Collection, in Glasgow. Here there was for some years displayed in a rather high-up location a large (just under 90 cm. high) figure of the Trinity with the Souls gathered to Abraham’s Bosom. It has long been well known, thanks to its size and relatively early date, and it was accordingly selected for display in the exhibition Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400, held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1987–8.48 I was tasked with writing it up for the exhibition catalogue, and was horrified to find that on close inspection it was far from what it had seemed when set high up on the wall. Placed on a low table and lit from behind by a torch, area after area was at once revealed as mere plaster: the souls, the feet, arms and beard of Christ, finials of the crown, the right shoulder and hands of God the Father, and other areas too were clever pastiches, presumably prepared with a view to deceiving the panel’s purchaser, Sir William Burrell (1861–1958). It was Standing Angels with Shields at Aston on Trent: Their Wider Distribution, 1400–1450,” Derbyshire Archaeological Journal CXIII (1993), 69–90; and Idem, “Alabaster Tomb Manufacture, 1400 to 1430 – Towards a Reappraisal,” Derbyshire Miscellany XII:6 (1991), 164–77. The last is marred by its tendentious approach, overtly critical of Lawrence Stone’s discussion of alabaster sculpture. The Chellaston tomb-sculptors are also discussed by Bayliss, J., “An Indenture for Two Alabaster Effigies,” Church Monuments XVI (2001), 22–9. 46 Thomas Boleyn, BCL, was also Master of Gonville Hall, Cambridge, from 1454 until his death, and he held half a dozen prebends or at least canonries; his brother, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, was mayor of London, 1457–8. 47 Ramsay, N., “’Imagine my Surprise…’,” Friends of Wells Cathedral. Report for 1988 (1989), 12–14. One of the side panels and also the Virgin Annunciate (on an end panel), which may also be in part restored, are illustrated by Gardner, A., Alabaster Tombs of the Pre-Reformation Period in England (Cambridge, 1940), 16, 20, Pls 32, 47. The Virgin Annunciate panel is also illustrated by Stone, Sculpture in Britain, Pl. 158(b). 48 Ramsay, N., in Alexander and Binksi (eds), Age of Chivalry, 515, no. 707. Perhaps we should have been more suspicious at an earlier date: Sir William Burrell (1861–1958) was notorious for only buying works of art that were in fine condition; dealers accordingly ‘improved’ what they were offering him.

‘Burton-upon-Trent, not Nottingham.’ 

too late to remove the piece from the show, but the catalogue entry – though diplomatically worded – is at least fairly candid about its defects. A few swans will always turn out to be geese. ***** Where next? The devotional contexts of alabasters have scarcely been looked at yet, in any publication. Which of the extant carvings were for private patrons and which were for churches or religious houses? Careful research on the surviving altarpieces in Continental locations should in at least some cases enable the date and other contexts of their making to be recoverable. The iconography of some altarpieces is so distinctive as to make clear that they were specially commissioned by the institution in question. The emphasis, begun by Hope and Hildburgh, on seeing alabasters as an art-form that was produced in a quasi-industrial way has had its deleterious consequences, too: those carvings that are of the highest quality have received far less than their due level of scholarly interest. Nor should alabasters simply be seen in terms of success in capturing a certain market share. Why, for instance, did the Court veer away from alabaster for royal tomb-effigies after the second quarter of the fourteenth century, when alabaster had seemed to be the material of choice for such commissions? One of the finest English alabaster tombs, that of Edward II at Gloucester Cathedral, perhaps of c. 1330, had had an international critical réclame, evidently being – together with the tomb of Edmund ‘Crouchback’ in Westminster Abbey – influential on the design of no less prestigious a commission than the tomb of Pope John XXII (d. 1334) at Avignon.49 Did the material itself play a part in its fall from favour, perhaps being seen as a cheap substitute for marble?50 In the fourteenth century, especially, it must be asked how far clients wanted alabaster as such: were they simply looking for a stone that was white and capable of taking a high polish? Alabaster and marble were in fact quite often mistaken for each other, on the Continent as well as in England.51 It is noticeable that medieval sources sometimes refer to marble where it seems fairly certain that the material in question was in fact alabaster. And yet it cannot be stressed too much: alabaster, at least once it had been carved, was not cheap. Even the rectangular panels cost at least a mark (13s. 4d) each, and

49 Cf. Gardner, J., The Tomb and the Tiara: Curial Tomb Sculpture in Rome and Avignon in the Late Middle Ages (Oxford, 1992), 138–41. 50 Here, especially, Kim Woods’s Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions, 1330–1530 (London, 2018) was published too late for sight of her discussion there; but she has already discussed panels and tombs in her “The Fortunes of Art in Alabaster: a Historiographical Analysis,” in C. Hourihane (ed.), From Minor to Major. The Minor Arts in Medieval Art History (Princeton, 2012), 82–102. 51 Cf. Gardner, The Tomb and the Tiara, 144.

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the finer altarpieces and standing figures will have been commensurately more expensive. For instance, Buckenham priory (Norfolk) spent £10 10s. in the year 1491–2 on an alabaster ‘tabula’ for its chapel of the Virgin Mary.52 Such sums were the equivalent of tens of thousands of pounds in today’s money. Alabasters were in many ways luxury products, and merit consideration as such: they should be set beside carvings in other materials (marble, ivory, limewood and so forth) and, since they were sold internationally, they should be compared with works of art from other countries.

52 Norwich, Norfolk Record Office, MS Rye 74, f. 72v; ‘tabula’ must here be understood to mean a whole reredos, comprising at least five panels. Similar sums are quoted by Hope, “On the Early Working of Alabaster,” 239.

STONE TO ENSURE VICTORY AND TO GENERATE FRIENDSHIPS. ON THE MEANING OF ALABASTER* ALEKSANDRA LIPIŃSKA

B

ecause of its extensive usage from the fourteenth century onwards, alabaster plays a considerable role not only in English art but also more broadly, in culture. While the cross-epochal tradition of quarrying and carving the material has been the subject of many studies,1 the meaning of alabaster and the issue of its place in the overall hierarchy of artistic materials has rarely been addressed in any depth in the past.2 This corresponds with a general negligence on the part of art history scholars to study the material aspects of an artwork, an approach that only began to be called into question in the 1990s.3 * This paper is a modified version of my other publications on the meaning of alabaster, see e.g. Aleksandra Lipińska, “‘Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis.’ Alabaster in the Low Countries Sculpture: A Cultural History,” in A.-S. Lehmann, F. Scholten and H.P. Chapman (eds), Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 62: Meaning in Materials (Leiden, 2013): 84–115; Lipińska, A., Moving Sculptures: Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th Centuries in Central and Northern Europe (Leiden, 2015), 44–95. 1 To mention here just the most important: Cannan, F., “Alabaster,” in M. Trusted (ed.), The Making of Sculpture: The Materials and Techniques of European Sculpture (London, 2007), 105–14; Cheetham, F., Alabaster images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003); Penny, N., The Materials of Sculpture (New Haven and London, 1993), 35–68; Blair, J. and Ramsay, N. (eds), English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products (London, 1991), 29–40. 2 Llewellyn, N., Funeral monuments in post-Reformation England (Cambridge, 2000), 196–200 addresses some important issues and sources. An important contribution is the study by Woods, K., Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions, 1330–1530 (Turnhout, 2018), Chapter 4. 3 E.g. Raff, T., Die Sprache der Materialien. Anleitung zu einer Ikonologie der Werkstoffe

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Thus, with the self-imposed aim of filling in this gap in the research, this chapter outlines the meanings ascribed to alabaster through the ages as a result of its employment in various human activities, not solely art. To this end a variety of sources will be consulted in order to reconstruct what might be called the cultural image of alabaster, with all its continuities and discontinuities. Furthermore, these notions surrounding alabaster will be confronted with an analysis of selected art works in order to demonstrate how a knowledge of the broad cultural context in which one material functions relates to a particular art work. Third, in the final section of the paper, the meanings attached to alabaster from antiquity to Early Modern times will be compared to its perception and semanticization in the early twentieth century, after the ‘material revolution’, which brought a total reorganization of the hierarchies of artistic materials and meanings ascribed to them.

…BUT ONE DEGREE BENEATH MARBLE One rudimentary issue encountered when examining historical sources relating to artworks is that of interpretation of the names for the materials that are used in them. In order to draw any reliable conclusions, the historical and local variability of the nomenclature, as well as the varying competencies and aims of the authors of the relevant texts, have to be taken into consideration. Owing to its physical properties the most common issue in the case of alabaster is references to it as marble, and vice versa.4 As is well known, in Western culture marble was at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of materials, and for centuries it was held up as an ideal, both in view of its sculptural properties and as a nobilitating reference to antiquity. Therefore, the position of alabaster was determined by the fact that it was the primary, and usually cheaper substitute for marmo bianco statuario in the transalpine countries, which lacked high quality white marble. This was also the case in England, where both alabaster and crystalline limestones (such as that from Purbeck) were commonly called marbles, and craftsmen working in them were known as ‘marbellers’, although in fact there is no ‘true’ native English marble.5 (München, 1994); Wagner, M. and Rübel, D., Material in Kunst und Alltag (Berlin, 2002); Rübel, D., Wagner, M. and Wolff, V. (eds), Materialästhetik. Quellentexte zu Kunst, Design und Architektur (Berlin, 2005); Lehmann, A.-S., “The matter of the medium: some tools for an art-theoretical interpretation of materials,” in C. Anderson, A. Dunlop and P.H. Smith (eds), The matter of art. Materials, practices, cultural logics, c. 1250–1750 (Manchester, 2015); Klein, U. and Spary, E.C. (eds), Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe. Between Market and Laboratory (Chicago and London, 2010). For an exemplary study devoted to one selected material (porphyry) see e.g.: Butters, S.B., The Triumph of Vulcan: sculptor’s tools, porphyry, and the prince in ducal Florence (Florence, 1996). 4 Cf. e.g. Llewellyn, Funeral monuments, 197–200. 5 Llewellyn, Funeral monuments, 197.

On the meaning of alabaster

In this context, calling an alabaster artwork marble may easily (perhaps too easily) be interpreted as legitimization of the less durable and prestigious material. Yet how to explain the reverse, i.e. reference to a marble work as alabaster? Let me offer a few eloquent examples. In the poem written to mark the dedication in 1591 of the tomb of Julius Echter von Mespelbrun, Bishop of Würzburg, this sandstone and alabaster monument is termed ‘marble’, and its creator, the Netherlander Jan II Robyn (c.  1525–1600), likened to Myron and Praxiteles. In a panegyric on another work by Robyn – an altarpiece for the university church in Würzburg (1603), also commissioned by Bishop Julius – Christophorus Marianus wrote of the alabaster from which it was made that it could ‘almost parallel Parian marble.’6 However, similar instances of references to alabaster as marble are also found in contracts for the execution of specific works, i.e. legal documents not intended as propaganda but serving to provide unequivocal definition of mutual obligations. This was the case in the contract concluded in 1512 with Lodewijk van Boghem for the execution of the Altar of the Seven Joys of Mary for the church in Brou. Research has confirmed that the retable is made of alabaster, but in the contract the reference is to marble.7 An argument against interpreting such descriptions as exclusively mistakes or ‘compensatory techniques’ is also provided by the equally numerous examples of definition of marble works as alabaster. Albrecht Dürer, for instance, in his Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries, referred to Michelangelo’s marble statue of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges as alabaster.8 Some records may even seem paradoxical, such as the description of Johan de Witt’s marble bust by Artus Quellinus (1665) in an inventory: ‘1 alabaster statue carved after my husband. In marble […].’9 In order to comprehend the reasons for these seeming ‘mistakes’, historical writings on alabaster, especially those by early natural historians and encyclopaedists, need to be consulted.10 Alabaster (precisely its calcite 6 ‘[...] qui nitore et laeuore paene cum Pario marmore certare posset’, [who, with respect to the shine and carving ability, is able to compete with Parian marble] after: Bruhns, L., Die Würzburger Bildhauer der Renaissance und des werdenden Barock 1540–1650 (Munich, 1923), 109. 7 Guillot de Suduiraut, S., “Le retable des Sept Joies de la Vierge dans la chapelle de Marguerite d’Autriche à Brou: les sculptures gothiques de style bruxellois réalisées vers 1513/1515,” in Brou, un monument européen à l’aube de la Renaissance = Brou, a European Monument in the Early Renaissance (Paris, 2006), 57–80 [electronic edition: http://www. monuments- nationaux.fr/fichier/edi_ebook/13/ebook_complet_fr_ebook_id_Brou_ complet.pdf], 60, note 2; cf. also Lipińska, Moving sculpture, 34–43. 8 ‘I saw the alabaster Madonna in Our Ladys Church that Michelangelo of Rome made’, see Dürer, A., Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries, ed. and transl. R. Tombo (Boston, 1913). 9 ‘1 albasttert beelt gehoude near mijn Man. van marmersteen”, after Scholten, F., “Quellinus’s Burgomasters. A portrait gallery of Amsterdam republicanism,” Simiolus 32:2/3 (2006), 87–125: 111. 10 Here I offer only a summary of main opinions of natural historians on alabaster. For

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variety called alabastrites) appears as early as in the first known systematic treatise on stones by Theophrastus, next to marbles but (significantly) not as one of them.11 The most influential opinion of an ancient author was naturally that of Pliny the Elder. In his Natural history both stones are discussed in the 36th book, but alabaster in a separate chapter (NH XXXVI. 12), and nowhere is the opinion to be found that it is a kind of marble. Pliny leaves no doubt that the stone featuring under that name in his times (calcite alabaster of modern times) was appreciated precisely for its distinctive features.12 Strangely enough, although Pliny was quoted by countless authors in the ensuing ages, his opinion on calcite alabaster was projected onto its gypsum variety (widespread in Europe and the only one occurring in England) and became fused with the view that alabaster is one of the white varieties of marble. Examples of such selective usage of Pliny’s authority, subordinated to the new, Christian interpretation of the meaning of stones, are to be found in the writings of St Isidore of Seville or Albertus Magnus, for example.13 The opinion that alabaster is a kind of marble was common until the eighteenth century,14 and the definition that is actually in accordance with modern petrologic knowledge was first

extended version see Lipińska, “‘Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis’”. 11 ‘And among such stones there are the Parian, the Pentelic, the Chian, and the Theban, and these stone quarries have become widely known. There is also the alabastrites, found at Thebes in Egypt – this, too, can be worked in large blocks – and the stone resembling ivory which is called chernites’; see Caley, E.R. and Richards J.F.C. (eds), Theophrastus on Stones (Columbus, 1956), 46. 12 NH XXXVI. 12 ‘The specimens most warmly recommended are the honey-coloured, marked with spirals, and opaque. A colour resembling that of horn, or else gleaming white, and any suggestion of a glassy look are serious faults in onyx marble [alabastrites]’, Pliny, Natural History, ed. H. Rackha, vol. 10 (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1938–1963). 13 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae XVI, V. 7: ‘Alabastrites is a white stone, tinted here and there with various colors. The ointment box spoken of by the Evangelist himself was made out of alabastrites (Luke 7:37), for people hollow out this stone for ointment vessels because it is said to be the best material for preserving ointments unspoiled. Particularily white alabaster originates around Thebes in Egypt and Damascus in Syria, but the highest quality comes from India.’ The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, transl. S.A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach and O. Berghof (Cambridge, 2006), 321; Albertus Magnus, De Mineralibus et Rebus Metallicis libri cinque (Five books on minerals and metals): ‘Nicomar is the same as alabaster, which is a kind of marble; but because of its marvellous power it is placed among precious stones. And experience shows that by its coldness it preserves aromatic unguents; and therefore the ancients made ointment boxes of it. And by its coldness it also preserves the corps of the dead from smelling extremely offensive; and therefore ancient monuments and tombs are found [made] of this stone. It is shining white. And they say that it gives victory and preserves friendship.’ Albertus Magnus, Book of minerals, transl. D. Wyckoff (Oxford, 1967), 107. 14 ‘Albatre, albastre, Sorte de marbre tendre, L’albatre le plus-commun est blanc & luisant.’ [Alabaster, a sort of marble, the most common is white and shiny.]Richelet, P., Dictionnaire françois contenant les mots et les choses […] (Genève, 1680), 22; ‘Alabaster, ist ein überaus weiss und zarter Stein, der in der Marmorbrüchen gefunden wird. Oder vielmehr: es ist ein Marmer, der seine Vollkommenheit noch nicht erhalten hat.’ [Alabaster, is an extremely white and delicate stone found in marble quarries. Or rather: it is a marble that has not yet reached its perfection]; Lemery, N., Vollständiges MaterialienLexicon (Leipzig, 1721), p. 27.

On the meaning of alabaster

published in Georges Luis Leclerc de Buffon’s Histoire naturelle des Minéraux (1783).15 One notable exception to this rule is to be found in the writings of natural historian Anselm de Boodt, who in his work Gemmarum et lapidum historia (1609) correctly noticed the difference between the alabaster of the ancients and its variety commonly used in Europe in his times, gypsum alabaster, and decisively distinguished it from marble.16 Interestingly, Boetius explained the difference between the three materials according to the Aristotelian theory of the elements: It seems that alabastrum is so soft because it is an undercooked [unfinished] alabastrites, while the latter is an undercooked and digested marble. For there is no doubt that when marble begins to originate it is at first a muddy matter, and slowly, step by step, day by day, it hardens more and more, until it becomes the hardest marble.17

This theory, paradoxically, might have provided artists and patrons with an additional argument for using alabaster. Since alabaster was thought to be marble that had not yet reached its perfect form, working it in such a way as to make it similar to marble was following up the process that Nature had not been able to complete because of the pre-mature extraction.18 Thus, by polishing it, the artist was giving alabaster the final form that Nature had intended, or even attempting to outdo her.19 It is important to stress however, that independently of this theoretical knowledge, which was common ground across the Republic of Letters all over Europe, in England a unique attitude developed towards alabaster

15 ‘Cet albâtre, […] ce n’est qu’une substance gypseuse, une espèce de plâtre très-blanc; au lieu que le véritable albâtre est une matière purement calcaire, plus souvent colorée que blanche, et qui est plus dure que le plâtre, mais en même temps plus tendre que le marbre’ [This alabaster […]it is a gypsum-like substance, a type of very white gypsum; while true alabaster is a purely calciferous material, more often colourful than white, and harder than gypsum, but at the same time softer than marble]; Leclerc de Buffon, G.L., Histoire naturelle des Minéraux (Paris, 1783), 398. 16 ‘Alabastrites seu alabastrum veterum olim inter marmoris species referebatur, meo tamen iudicio ab illis fi non colore, duritie distingui potest. [...] tamen gypsi potius species est. [...].’ [Alabaster, or the alabaster of the ancients, was once counted among the variants of marble, but in my opinion it may be distinguished from them if not on the grounds of its colour, then on the grounds of its hardness. [...] it is more a variant of gypsum.], De Boodt, A., Gemmarum et lapidum historia (Hanoviae, 1609), 242–3. 17 ‘Videtur dum ita molle est alabastrum, incoctus esse alabastrites, & ille incoctum & imperfectum marmor. Omni enim dubio procul dum incipit marmoris generatio; primo ipsius substantia lutosa est ac paulatim per gradus magis magisque indies indurescit, donec in solidissimum marmor euadat’; De Boodt, Gemmarum, 242–3. 18 Cf. e.g. Agricola’s description of the transformation of selenite (like alabaster, one of the varieties of gypsum) into gypsum and vice versa: ‘While man, through his ingenuity, makes gypsum from lapis specularis, nature on the other hand sometimes makes lapis specularis from gypsum’; Georgius Agricola, De Natura Fossilium (Textbook of mineralogy), transl. M. Chance Bandy and J.A. Bandy (New York, 1955), 21. 19 Cf. Agricola De Natura Fossilium, 184.

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because of its unlimited availability and the consequent time-honoured practice of use of the stone. As demonstrated by Llewellyn using the example of post-reformation funeral monuments, alabaster enjoyed the unquestioned supreme position in the material hierarchy. The instances of marital tombstones with the male figure in alabaster and the female in limestone provide eloquent proof of this.20 Moreover, a ‘patriotic’ pride in indigenous materials might have played a role. For instance, in his Description of England (1577) William Harrison pilloried the vain desire to use foreign materials instead of local ones: Our elders from time to time, following our natural vice in misliking of our commodities at home and desiring those of other countries abroad […] Howbeit, […] in the north and south parts of England […] there are some quarries which for hardness and beauty are equal to the outlandish grit. […] Of white marble also we have store, and so fair as the Marpesian of Paros Isle. […] If marble will not serve, then have we the finest alabaster […].21

Marble did not become the ultimate symbol of prestige until 1680, especially in the circles of connoisseurs, who acquired the gentleman’s skill of differentiating between various materials and knowledge of their origins on their travels and in the course of their practice as collectors.22 Even then, Thomas Fuller wrote in the Worthies of England (1662): ‘It [Alabaster] is but one degree beneath marble […].’23 One argument that continued to favour alabaster was the high cost of imported Italian marble. Even after it became more available, thanks to regular trade from Livorno via Amsterdam established by Dutch merchants in the first half of the seventeenth century, the cost of a tomb figure executed in Italian marble in the first quarter of the seventeenth century was four times higher than that of an alabaster one.24

THE OINTMENT BOX MADE OUT OF ALABASTER The meaning attached to the name alabaster (and I stress the name, and not necessarily the physical phenomenon of the stone) originated not only in its relation to the classical ideal of marble but also in other domains, such Llewelyn, Funeral monuments, 237. Harrison, W., The Description of England. The Classic Contemporary Account of Tudor Social Life (1577), ed. G. Edelen (Washington and New York, 1994), 357–8. 22 Llewelyn, Funeral monuments, 200, 238–9. 23 Fuller, T., The History of the Worthies of England, ed. A. Nuttal (1st edn 1662), vol. 3 (London 1840), 124. 24 On the Dutch export of Italian marble see Scholten, F., “De Nederlandse handel in Italiaans marmer in de 17de eeuw,” Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 44 (1993), 197–214; on the prices of marble tombs see Llewelyn, Funeral monuments, 167. 20 21

On the meaning of alabaster

as theology.25 The reason for this was the fact that alabastra – perfume jars – appear in the Gospels as vessels containing the precious oil with which Christ’s head and feet were anointed. The Gospel of Mark (14:3) reads: ‘And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head’ (cf. Mt 26:6, Lk 7:36).26 These verses were the subject of biblical exegeses, which served the correct interpretation of the Scripture. St Jerome explained the word in his Commentaria in Matthaeum as ‘genus marmoris.’27 St Isidore of Seville in his Etymologiae offered the following explanation: ‘Alabaster is a white stone, spotted, shot through with various colours, of which unguent vessels in the Gospels were made.’28 Nevertheless, it is important to stress that it was not a desire for correctness that urged these authors to explain the nature of the material of which the evangelical perfume jar was made but the true allegorical significance of that receptacle. This allegory is explicated in the writings of Church Fathers and Doctors including St Jerome and St Augustine, as well as numerous other authors. The essence of their views may be summarized as follows: the woman bringing the jar signifies the Church, the alabastron filled with perfume oil symbolizes the body of Christ filled up with the faith, the breaking of the vessel stands for the death of Christ on the Cross, indispensable for spreading the true faith, and this in turn is represented by the act of anointment of Christ’s body.29 The biblical alabaster vessel was also interpreted as the uncorrupted body of a saint, or the body of a virtuous worshipper filled with the precious, healing oil of faith, as in the case of St Dominic.30 From the pages For more on this subject, see Lipińska, “’Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis,’” 98–100. All Bible quotations in English are from the King James Version. 27 Hieronymus Stridonensis, Commentariorum in Evangelium Matthaei ad Eusebium libri quatuor, in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina, vol. 26 (Paris, 1845), 191C. 28 Cf. note 13. 29 ‘Mulier, id est, futura Ecclesia: alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis: per unguentum, ostendit fidem confessionis: […] Fregit alabastrum, significat corpus Christi vulneratum in cruce:’ [The woman is the future Church: the alabaster vessel is a human body: the unguent demonstrates the confession of faith: […] The broken alabaster vessel signifies the body of Christ wounded on the cross: […]; Auctor incertus (Hieronymus Stridonensis?), Commentari in Novum Testamentum, in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina, vol. 30 (Paris, 1846), 559C, 565C, 571C. Cf. Lipińska, “’Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis,’” 99. 30 See e.g.: ‘Alabastrum unguenti, id est, corpus cum fide’ [the alabastron of the oil is the body with faith], see Walafridus Strabo, Evangelium secundum Lucam, in J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia Latina, vol. 114 (Paris, 1852), 271D; ‘Nam ipsa sanctorum corpora fuerunt promptuaria Dei, templum Christi, alabastrum spiritualis unguenti, fontes diuini’ [For the bodies of the saints were the granaries of God, the temples of Christ, the alabaster vessel for spiritual oil, divine springs], Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis [further as CCCM], vol. 140B, lib. 7, cap. 1, par. 3, linea: 51; cf. also a canonisation bulla of St Dominic: ‘Revera etenim corpus ejus virgineum, quod illibata integritate manserat incorruptum, unde tam mirifica manabat odoris fragrantia, sancti Spiritus organum, salutarisque unguenti exstiterat alabastrum, virtutum cella, charismatum apotheca […].’ 25

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of theological treatises and Vitae Sanctorum this motive was transmitted into religious practices through the medium of sermons and prayers. For instance, St Aelred of Rievaulx’s Spirituali Amicitia (1164–1167) encouraged recluses to imagine themselves as Mary Magdalene anointing the Christ. He wrote: ‘Break then the alabaster of your heart and whatever devotion you have, […], pour it all out upon your Bridegroom’s head, while you adore the man in God and God in the man.’31 The crucifix in the chapel served as support for this visualization. A key issue in the above theological writings seems to be the identification of alabaster with the human body sanctified through faith. Undoubtedly, this topos has its roots in the properties of the stone, which – white or creamy in its most popular variety – resembled the human complexion. Its characteristics such as softness, fragility and relative impermanence could be used as descriptors for the transitory condition of the human body. As such, I believe that the theological context discussed here should not be ignored in interpretations of the sudden growth in popularity of alabaster as material for cult figures in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the time of Devotio Moderna. We know that images and figurines were an important support for meditation in these prayer practices. In particular, small-scale objects designed for close contemplation within domestic religious practice helped to reduce the distance between the believer, the image, and the holy person being addressed in a prayer. The popular fifteenth-century genre of Heads of John the Baptist provides a perfect illustration of this development.32 It is striking that in contrast to other richly painted and gilded English alabasters, these pieces operate with a very limited palette (Fig. 2.1). Gilded hair and accents of red on the mouth and eyes bring out the waxy, slightly translucent whiteness of alabaster,

[For in truth his virginal body, which remained completely untouched and whole, and {from which} such a wondrous fragrant odour rose up, proved to be the tool of the Holy Ghost, the alabaster vessel for the oil of salvation, a chamber of virtues, a treasury of gifts of grace (…)]., see De S. Dominico confessore […] Acta Amplora, in Acta Sanctorum, electronic edition based on the edition published by the Société des Bollandistes in Antwerp and Bussels 1643–1940, 78 vols [electronic edition: http://acta.chadwyck.co.uk/], IV Augusti; or the life of the martyr St Trudpert: ‘Denique miles Christi Trudpertus, fracto sui corporis alabastro, effudit unguentum pretiosi cruoris; ut Martyr colitur in Ecclesia.’ [In the end Trudpert the knight of Christ, having broken the alabastron of his body, spilt the precious oil of his blood and is venerated in the Church as a martyr], see De S. Trudperto Martyre, Eremita […] Vita, in Acta Sanctorum, 432A. For an example of a tropological reading see ‘Alabastrum unguenti, corpus est fidelis animae; fractum vero alabastrum, carnale est desiderium quod frangitur ad caput, ex quo omne corpus Ecclesiae compaginatum est.’ [The alabastron of the oil is the body faithful to the soul; the broken alabastron is carnal desire, which is overcome in the head, on which the whole body of the Church is built.], see Armand Benjamin Caillau, Benjamin Saint-Yves, Supplementum ad opera S. Aur. Augustini, in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 47 (Paris, 1877), 1213A. 31 Elkins, S.K., Holy Women of Twelfth-century England (Chapel Hill, 1988), 145. 32 Belyea, T., “Johannes ex disco: Remarks on a late Gothic alabaster head of St. John the Baptist,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47:2–3 (1999), 100–17.

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On the meaning of alabaster

FIG. 2.1  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, HEAD OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

to resemble the skin of a corpse.33 Thus, the particular properties of the material supplied strong visual stimuli that interacted with the text of the prayer to produce a sense of closeness and identification with the object of cult.34 The desire to come closer to the material world described in the Gospels was also reflected in treasury collections such as that in San Marco in Venice, for instance, which contains numerous alabaster vessels of various 33 Cannan, F., “Alabaster,” in M. Trusted (ed.), The Making of Sculpture: The Materials and Techniques of European Sculpture (London, 2007), 105–14: 109. 34 Baert, B., Caput Johannis in Disco: Essay on a Man’s Head (Leiden 2012), 82–104.

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kinds.35 In this context one English object should be mentioned, even if its interpretation is hypothetic. The Dyneley Casket (Victoria and Albert Museum) (Figs 2.2–2.3), is made of a domed cylinder of calcite alabaster, mounted in silver in England c. 1600–1610.36 According to family tradition it was a gift from Henry VIII to one of the Dyneleys of Bramhope, Yorkshire. The later dating of its silver mounting does not render this version of its provenance any less likely, since it is absolutely possible that the royal present was the vessel itself, which may even be antique in origin; the Dyneleys may have had the mount for this precious gift made at a later date. It was a family relic, in view of its royal background above all, undoubtedly also as an exotic attraction,37 and perhaps likewise in view of its associations with the alabaster vessel mentioned in the gospels. Furthermore, its recipients may also have been in mind of Pliny’s opinion on the properties of alabaster as a storage material, which were cited repeatedly by many other authors: ‘This stone is sometimes called ‘alabastrites’, for it is hollowed out to be used also as unguent jars because it is said to be the best means of keeping unguents fresh.’38 Indeed, the Dynley Casket was originally used to store glass ampoules containing perfumes or medications. In fact, alabaster was considered to have not only conserving properties but also magical ones. Bartholomaeus Anglicus (c.  1190–1250), discusses alabaster in his work De rerum proprietatibus (On the Properties of Things, 1242–1247) in the book De lapidibus preciosis (On precious stones); this is significant inasmuch as previous authors had placed it lower down in the hierarchy than marbles. In the fourteenth-century English translation of this work by Johan Trevisa, the chapter on alabaster reads as follows: De alabastro. As Isider seith libro v. capitulo vto., albastre is white stone with straks of diuers colours. Of suche stone the oynement boxe that the gospel speoleth of was ymade. And of this stone oynement vessel[s beth made, and he kepeth oynement] at the beeste withouth corrupcioun. And that stone that breadth aboute Thebe and Damascus is more white than othere, but the beste cometh oute Ynde. And Diascorides clepith this stonne nichomar. And it is yseyde that this stone helpeth 35 Vrieze, J. (ed.), De Schatkamer van San Marco, Exh. Cat., Venice, Procuratoria di San Marco, and Amsterdam, Nieuwe Kerk (The Hague, 1991), nos. 18, 25, 37 j. 36 Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. 24–1865, see Glanville, P., Silver in Tudor and Early Stuart England. A social history and catalogue of the national collection 1480–1660 (London, 1997), no. 110. My thanks go to Kirstin Kennedy, curator in the Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass Department of Victoria and Albert Museum, who made my examination of the casket possible. 37 On the popularity of mounting other exotic vessels in England c. 1570–1630, cf. Hayward, J.F., Virtuoso Goldsmiths and the Triumph of Mannerism 1540–1620 (London, 1977), 300. 38 NH XXXVI. 12: ‘[…] hunc aliqui lapidem alabastriten vocant, quem cavant et ad vasa unguentaria, quoniam optume servare incorrupta dicatur. idem et ustus emplastris convenit’, translation after Pliny, Natural History, vol. 10.

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FIG. 2.2  THE DYNELEY CASKET (CLOSED), LONDON, 1600–10. LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

FIG. 2.3  THE DYNELEY CASKET (OPEN), LONDON, 1600–10. LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

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to wynne victorie and maystrye. Also he seith dat this gendreth and kepeth frenshepe.39

Bartholomew the Englishman discusses alabaster with reference to two great authorities: Isidore and Dioscorides. Through the former he repeats verbatim Pliny’s words on the origins of alabaster, its conserving properties, and the information about the mention of alabaster in the Gospel.40 On Dioscorides’ authority on the other hand, Bartholomaeus attributed to alabaster the power to ensure victory and to generate and retain friendships. It is likely this, from the Greek word nike (victory), that is the root of the alternative name for the material, nichomar (nicomar). In fact, alabaster was long believed to have not only magical but also therapeutic properties; indeed, in the Middle Ages and the early modern age there was no unequivocal demarcation between the two. Until the eighteenth century generations of natural historians and medics repeated after the ancient authorities Pliny, Pedanius Dioscorides, and Galen that alabaster could alleviate bad breath caused by the mouth and teeth, dissolve indurations, and assuage stomach pains.41 And while the two fields seem far removed from each other today, it transpires that this belief in the curative properties of alabaster might indeed have contributed in some cases to the state of preservation of monuments crafted from this material: in the nineteenth century English ethnographers reported that in rural parts of the country the people were chipping tombstones to steal the gypsum from the alabaster for remedies for insomnia and aching legs. With the addition of saffron and opium, it was also said to be efficacious for ovine foot rot.42 The rationale behind this was not based solely on the contemporary state of medical knowledge, but also on the belief that material sourced from church statues would be more effective.43

39 ‘Alabastrites.vt dicit Isidor. lib. xvi. cap.5. est lapis candicus interstinctus variis coloribus, ex quo Euangelici illius vnguenti vasculum factum fuit, ex hoc enim cauantur vasa unguentaria, quia vnguenta custodit peroptime incorrupta. Nascitur autem circa Thebas Aegyptias & Damascum caeteris candidor, sed probatissimus de India transportatur. Hic lapis a Dioscoride Nicomar dicitur, & dicit valere hunc lapidem ad victoriam obtinendam, & est etiam quod generat & conservat amicitiam’, after edition Bartholomeus 1601, 717. English translation, see On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa‘s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietibus Rerum, ed. J. Seymour et al., 2 vols. (Oxford, UK, 1975)(Oxford, 1975), vol. 2, 827–88. 40 Cf. notes 12 and 13. 41 NH XXXVII. 54: ‘Alabastritis […] haec cremata cum fossili sale et trita gravitates oris et dentium extenuare dicitur.’ [When burnt with rock salt and pounded, it is said to alleviate bad breath caused by the mouth and teeth], translation after Pliny, Natural History. 42 Llewellyn, Funeral monuments, 269; Dechambre, A. (ed.), Dictonnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales, vol. 2 (Paris, 1865), 393–394. 43 Simpson, J., and Roud, S., Dictionary of English Folklore (Oxford and New York, 2000), 3.

On the meaning of alabaster

…SMOOTH AS MONUMENTAL ALABASTER The theological dimension of alabaster did not entirely lose its significance in the sixteenth century, but it certainly ceded centre stage as a new group of references came on the scene. In this period the beginnings of a fascinating evolution become perceptible: alabaster as a symbol of the spiritual body evolving into (or existing in parallel to) a symbol of flesh, usually in the context of the feminine body. The carnality of this material, which makes it similar to ivory and wax, was exploited in Early Modern cabinet sculpture, of which a key example is a Conrat Meit statuette of Judith with the head of Holofernes (Bayerisches Nationalmuseum Munich).44 The resonance between the sensual qualities of the material and the erotic subject were explored also by another master of the alabaster statuette genre – Willem van den Broecke, as seen in his group of Venus and Amor (private collection) (Fig. 2.4).45 Looking at a piece like this it becomes obvious that it was not science and theology but literature that played a major role in the development of the cultural image of alabaster in the Early Modern times. ‘Alabaster bodies’ as a metaphor for ideal feminine beauty (white, fragile) and chastity (immaculate) became a standard literary motif in this period. While some authors did refer to the actual properties of the stone, others used them as a cliché only loosely connected to the archetype: e.g. emphasizing the hardness of alabaster, despite its relative softness. Browsing through volumes of Early Modern verses we find countless examples of comparison of various parts of the female body with alabaster. To cite here just one telling example, in the case of Shakespeare’s Lucrece it is her skin (‘Her azure veins, her alabaster skin’).46 It is obvious that most of these phrases are of a standardized character and there is no doubt that in using them their authors were referring to the poetic tradition rather than to the actual properties of the stone. This is why literary texts that do relate to a specific work of art or reveal their author’s acquaintance with real alabaster sculpture rather than a distant ideal imparted by literary tradition are of particular interest. This is often the case in Elizabethan and Jacobean poetry and drama. Cf. Lipińska, “’Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis,’” 54, Fig. 9. E.g. Lipińska, “’Alabastrum, id est, corpus hominis,’” 84, Fig. 82. 46 William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, line 419, Burrow, C. (ed.), The Oxford Shakespeare. The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford, 2002), 266. In order to show the omnipresence of this motif I quote here a few examples from different times and circles: ‘Ha d’alabastro fino / la man [...]’, [The hand as a fine alabaster] see Giovan Battista Marino, Beltà Crudele (XIV), in Idem, Amori, ed A. Martini (Milan 1982), 23; ‘Col albastrin emperlé de bonheur’ [Alabaster neck beaded with happiness], see Pierre de Ronsard, Amours (CXXXIV), in De Ronsard, P., Œuvres complètes, ed. P. Jannet (Paris, 1857), 76; ‘[…] bien se que eres de carne, au[n]que pereces de alabastro’ [I know you are flesh, even if you look like alabaster], see Miguel de Cervantes, Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, ed. E. Suárez Figaredo [electronic edition: http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/ CERVANTE/othertxts/Suarez_Figaredo_Persiles.pdf], 136. 44 45

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FIG. 2.4  WILLEM VAN DEN BROECKE, VENUS AND AMOR, 1559. PRIVATE COLLECTION, BELGIUM

Numerous figural alabaster tombs in English churches were part of the visual ambient of William Shakespeare or John Webster for instance, and thus it is hardly surprising that to Othello Desdemona’s white skin appears as a ‘monumental alabaster’, anticipating her death.47 When Gratiano compares the melancholic Antonio to ‘a grandsire cut in alabaster,’ being an antithesis of ‘a man whose blood is warm,’ he calls to mind a funerary 47 ‘Yet I’ll not shed her blood; Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow. And smooth as monumental alabaster’, see William Shakespeare, Othello, V.2.3–5, cf. Sabatier, A., Shakespeare and Visual Culture. A Dictionary (Bloomsbury, 2017), p. 17.

On the meaning of alabaster

effigy.48 This latter fragment, from The Merchant of Venice, resonates with a passage in Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, in which the heroine ‘renounces her sepulchral likeness’ by saying: ‘This is flesh, and blood, sir, / Tis not the figure cut in alabaster / Kneels at my husband’s tomb.’49 Hence these verses underline the tension between the observed ability of alabaster to recall the human body and its true “stony” nature. Other features of alabaster, such as its translucency and whiteness, also provided a basis for its allegorization and inspired moral interpretations, as in the poem accompanying the illustration alongside the description of the profession of alabasterer in the Ständebuch by Christoph Weigel (1698).50 Here the author exhorts the reader to be like white alabaster, which is the same on the outside as on the inside. Alabaster also featured in the literature as a symbol of the vain desire to preserve the memory of a man in a grand monument. The playwright Thomas Dekker, in his comedy Old Fortunatus, proffered a moralizing contrast between the vain gleam of alabaster and the light of virtue: ‘It were better to let the memory of him shine in his owne virtues than in alabaster.’51

INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION: CONTINUATION, OR REDISCOVERY? In the above passages I have given a brief overview of the main currents of opinion concerning alabaster that circulated in Western culture from late antiquity to the Early Modern period. My aim was to demonstrate that the artists’ or patrons’ choice of material, and viewers’ reception of it, though definitely dependent on aesthetical, technical and economic factors, were also determined by a whole sphere of broader notions. These embraced the knowledge of alabaster’s physical, magical and healing properties, and references to antiquity and the Bible as well as to the mythologies of other precious materials such as marble. By demonstrating the variety of fields contextualizing the material, I aimed to point out how the beholders’

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, I.1, cf. Sabatier Shakespeare, 17. Webster, J., The Duchess of Malfi (Mineola, NY, 1999; ed. orig. 1612–1614), 14. Cf. Daileader, C.R., Eroticism on the Renaissance Stage. Transcendence, Desire, and the Limits of the Visible (Cambridge, 1998), 82. 50 ‘Die Wahrheit läst sich sehen, / wan man sie will verdrehen. / Die Lügen ist ein schwartzes Laster, / Beflect euch nicht mit ihrem Mist. / Seyd wie der weisse Alabaster, / Der aussen wie von innen ist. [underlining: A.L.] / Legt nie den Schmuck der Warheit ab, / So ligt ihr Lob auff eurem Grab’ [The truth can be seen even if one wants to twist it. / The lies are a black vice / Do not be concerned with it dirt / Be as the white alabaster / That is outside alike inside. / Never lay aside the ornament of truth / So will your grave praise you], see Weigel, C., Abbildung und Beschreibung der Gemein-Nützlichen Hauptstände (Regensburg, 1698), Fig. between pp. 216 and 217, cf. also Lipińska, Moving sculpture. 51 Thomas Dekker, The Pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus, London 1600 [electronic edition: http://www.luminarium.org/editions/fortunatus.htm]. 48 49

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visual or tactile perception of alabaster, whether in raw or artistic form, was reframed by “learned cultural perception”. In the final part of this chapter I would like to offer a brief look at how the meanings ascribed to alabaster in the past evolved in the twentieth century, when the unlimited expansion of the repertoire of artistic materials used cast old meanings and hierarchies into question. By then the broad spectrum of artistic attitudes to the material encompassed total rejection of traditional materials, attempts to reinterpret them through formal innovation, and conscious usage of traditional materials in order to enter into a dialogue with firmly coded meanings. At the time when the avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century were rediscovering the properties of materials, alabaster, as a popular raw material in the serial production of trinkets (e.g. in Volterra, Italy), might have seemed to them to be particularly burdened with a “compromising past”. Probably for this reason it has rarely been used by “serious” artists since the beginning of the twentieth century. One exception to this rule has been England (another is Spain, on which I will not focus here, however), where alabaster has continued to enjoy the interest of artists, undoubtedly due to the long local tradition of alabaster working. But there is another tendency to observe. Alabaster found appreciation in particular among sculptors who postulated a return to natural materials, in the first place the followers of the “direct carving” movement, which gained in importance above all in England and the United States in the years 1910– 1940.52 Aside from the truth of the material, and sensitivity to it in the working process, the advocates of direct carving argued for a return to local materials, one of which, in England, was alabaster. One of the first protagonists of this current in England, the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891– 1915), in view of his lack of experience in stone carving initially opted for alabaster because of its softness, and thus ease of working. At first sight the way in which Gaudier-Brzeska used alabaster may seem to be in accordance with tradition: he favoured small formats and gilding, which turned the relief into a precious object intended for intimate reception (e.g. the relief Amour, 1913, Tate Gallery, London).53 His goal, however, was to create not a work serving aesthetic satisfaction but an object designed to embody a pure expression of vital forces, somewhat like prehistoric idols. Alabaster in Gaudier-Brzeska’s works, such as the phallic Imp (1914, Tate Gallery, London) (Fig. 2.5), is therefore not an allusion to the body 52 Zilczer, J., “The Theory of Direct Carving in Modern Sculpture,” Oxford Art Journal 4:2 (1981), 44–9; Curtis, P., “How Direct Carving Stole the Idea of Modern British Sculpture,” in D.J. Getsy (ed.), Sculpture and the Pursuit of a Modern Ideal in Britain, c.1880–1930 (Aldershot, 2004), 291–306; Antliff, M., “Sculptural Nominalism / Anarchist Vortex: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Dora Masden, and Ezra Pound,” in M. Antliff and V. Greene (eds), The Vorticists. Manifesto for a Modern World (London, 2010), 47–57: 52. 53 Silber E., Gaudier-Brzeska. Life and art (London, 1996), no. 35.

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On the meaning of alabaster

as it was in the case of the thousands of tomb effigies of previous times, but an almost literal invocation of the flesh, supported by the pinkish, veined material.54 Jacob Epstein (1880–1959) shared GaudierBrzeska’s fascination with both the primal expression of sculpture and alabaster. His preferred variety, Cumberland alabaster – pink or honey-coloured, highly transparent, stained, and veined – was used in his most controversial sculptures: Adam (1938–1939, Harewood) and Jacob and the Angel (1940– 1941, Tate Gallery), both carved from the same two-meter-high alabaster block.55 Epstein depicted Adam not as an exile from paradise covering his nudity, but as a vital colossus (inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem Adam’s Children).56 At the same time, he succeeded, in spite of his sculptural intervention, in retaining in the statue the power of the huge, primal block of rock, which has always impressed man with the authority of its age and force. He was the first artist to use alabaster with the intention of bringing out the aspect of power in this particular material. In all certainty one source of his inspiration was the extreme rarity of a block of alabaster of such size. In the past, when sculptors had large blocks at their disposal, they tended to succumb to the temptation of richly and decoratively processing the surface of this material which yielded so readily to the chisel. This led to the virtuosity of form robbing the block of its primal, natural power. The monumentalism of this Adam brings out strongly the translucency, colours, and veining of the alabaster, all of which reinforce the impression of corporeality and “muscularity” of the giant. In the years 1940–1941, from the other half of the same block, Epstein sculpted the group Jacob and the Angel (Fig. 2.6), which is testimony to his difficult dialogue with the material. In a manner untypical of his work Epstein left certain parts of the block almost untouched, abstract. Deep cuts create areas hidden in shadow, which contrast with the translucent surfaces of the alabaster that seem to lay bare the veins and blood pulsating in the bodies of the figures. Thus, Epstein achieved what Henry Moore called ‘the removal of the Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska, no. 78, Figs 110–12. Respectively Silber, E., The Sculpture of Jacob Epstein with a Complete Catalogue (Oxford, 1986), nos. 288, 312. 56 Silber, Gaudier-Brzeska, 52–4. 54 55

FIG. 2.5  HENRI GAUDIERBRZESKA, IMP, 1914. LONDON, TATE GALLERY

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FIG. 2.6  SIR JACOB EPSTEIN, JACOB AND THE ANGEL, 1940–41. LONDON, TATE GALLERY

Greek spectacles from the eyes of the modern sculptor’.57 He deliberately used a type of alabaster which had hitherto rarely been used in figural sculpture. Not only did he not draw back from the fleshy colour and intensive veining of the Cumberland alabaster, but he actually made a feature of it. In contrasting the pure transparency of the figure of the Angel, the ‘home of light/the spirit’, with the unfathomable darkness in which the earthly and the sensual resides, he was drawing on traditional, even archetypical notions. These, however, were spheres not inscribed in the traditional dualistic system based on Aristotelian hylomorphism in which light = the spirit = good are the opposites of dark = matter = evil. Epstein attached value to this latter sphere, in which he saw the sources of humanity. This did not remain unnoticed by the public. Jan Gordon from the Observer commented on the work: ‘Epstein has used his huge block of alabaster with great insight. The light literally glows from the Angel’s semitranslucent head, while the more opaque body of Jacob sags, limparmed and fainting in the grip of superior force.’58 57 Carving Mountains. Modern stone sculpture in England 1907–37, Exh. Cat., Cambridge, Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, De la Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (Cambridge, 1998), 7. 58 Gordon, J., “Art and Artist,” Observer (15 February 1942).

On the meaning of alabaster

In the œuvre of Henry Moore (1898–1986) alabaster took on a different interpretation. Moore was interested above all in what he could take from alabaster to solve specific formal problems, and he was unwilling to aestheticize the material. He was not interested in its translucency, and as well as white alabaster he often also used a veined, grey-green variety.59 Nonetheless, it is significant that for his mother and child sculptures of the 1930s (Mother and Child, 1932, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds) he selected a creamy, more “corporeal” type.60 The immensely sensual piece Suckling Child (Pallant House Gallery, Chichester), in which the infant and the mother’s breast form a single, hybrid entity reduced to almost an abstract block, gives the marked impression that the material was very deliberately chosen here so as to reflect the colour, softness and warmth of the body.61 Melville went further still in his interpretation, claiming that in Moore’s work the breast is an inexhaustible drinking cup, a magic food-providing vessel, the Grail.62 It might be tempting to latch onto this metaphor and become carried away by the attractive chain of cultural tropes discussed above in this article: breast – vessel – Grail – alabastron – the body of Christ… If we look at Moore’s alabaster works in the context of his œuvre as a whole, and his many comments, however, we have to resist this temptation. Without denying his use of alabaster its clear contentbased potential, it is important to stress that it was above all the sculptural properties of the material that mattered to him. In the hierarchy of Moore’s sculptural process it was the particular experience of working in a specific material and an ‘unmediated, emotive response to the particular quality of the chosen medium,’63 that constituted the point of departure for the form and content of a piece. For an artist who set such store by the very act of sculpting, to the point of listening to and “feeling” the material he was using, working in a soft, yielding material like alabaster, which warmed to the touch of the hand, may itself have produced associations with motherhood, and hence the inspiration for the theme of the work. Thus, by deliberately rejecting the connotations traditionally imposed on alabaster, he returned to their sources, which issued from its natural material properties. Thus, the selected instances of the re-discovery of alabaster in the early twentieth century demonstrate that the notions of the material established in the past and meanings traditionally attributed to it might be, but were not necessarily, activated in every case and every time. Instead, new semantic dimensions of the material could have been uncovered. For,

59 Stephens, C. (ed.), Henry Moore, Exh. Cat., London, Tate Britain (London, 2010), 53–6, no. 39. 60 Stephens, Henry Moore, no. 38. 61 Stephens, Henry Moore, no. 40. 62 Melville, R., Henry Moore. Sculpture and Drawings 1921–1969 (London, 1970), 12. 63 Antliff, “Sculptural Nominalism,” 52.

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what remained unchangeable are the physical properties of the stone, that are starting point of every artistic process. At the same time we could have observed the historicity of material, as formulated by Adorno: ‘[…] material is not natural material even if it appears so to artists, rather, it is thoroughly historical.’64 Thus, what features of “natural alabaster” are brought to light and semanticized depends on the skills and intentions of the artist, or the specific needs of their patrons, which in turn reflect current tastes and aesthetic hierarchies. While its translucency and ability to produce extraordinary light effects was highly appreciated by the architects of early medieval churches (where alabaster was used for panes), by painters on alabaster, and by modern sculptors such as Jacob Epstein, this characteristic seems to have been ignored by authors of Early Modern church furnishings. They tended rather to underline those qualities of alabaster that made it look like marble. The same features that in the biblical context produced spiritual metaphors relating to Christ’s sacrifice and to the chastity of his followers produced erotic associations in the climate of popular culture, sophisticated intellectual poetry and under the chisels of “savage messiahs” such as Gaudier-Brzeska and Epstein.65 Thus, we are brought to the conclusion that a material is not only historical in terms of its accumulated cultural baggage, which (consciously or not) surfaces in artists’ or patrons’ choices, but it also varies in terms of the meanings projected onto it in particular periods and regions, or even by particular artistic genres. The cultural image of a material demonstrates its durability and a certain independence from the phenomenon which gave rise to it.

Adorno, T., Aesthetic theory, transl. R. Hullot-Kentor (London, 1997), 148. “Savage messiah” refers here to the title of the first biography of Gaudier-Brzeska by Harold Stanley Ede, see Ede, H.S., Savage Messiah. A Biography of the Sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (London, 1931). 64 65

CONTEXTUALISING ENGLISH ALABASTERS IN THE MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN LUCA PALOZZI

L

ondon, 4 May 1382. King Richard II orders that the papal collector Cosmato Gentilis be granted permission to export clothes, garments, and a pewter plate, as well as large alabaster figures of the Virgin Mary, saints Peter and Paul, and the Trinity, to Rome.1 Two superb alabaster images of the Princes of the Apostles (Pl. IV) preserved in the Roman

1 The documents in Duffus Hardy, T. (ed.), Syllabus of the Documents relating to England and Other Kingdoms contained in the collection known as Rymer’s Foedera, vol. 2 (London, 1873), 501. A similar safe-conduct (Syllabus, 559) was issued on 24 February 1408 to the merchant John Guychard ‘to convey a tomb of alabaster for the late duke of Brittany to Nantes, with the three Englishmen who made the same (tomb)’. On medieval English alabasters, see the canonical Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984); Idem, Alabaster images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003). For an overview of English alabaster carvings in Italy, see Murat, Z., “Medieval English Alabaster Sculptures: Trade and Diffusion in the Italian Peninsula,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 22 (2016), 399–413. Among other contributions, see also Cervini, F., “Alabastri inglesi tra Genova e Savona,” in P. Coccardo and C. Di Fabio (eds), Genova e l’Europa atlantica. Opere, artisti, committenti, collezionisti. Inghilterra, Fiandre, Portogallo (Cinisello Balsamo, 2006), 46–57; Palozzi, L., entry on “Manifattura inglese (fine del XIV-primo quarto del XV secolo), Testa virile,” in Fiorio M.T. and Vergani G.A. (eds), Museo d’Arte Antica del Castello Sforzesco. Scultura lapidea, vol. 2 (Milan, 2013), 130–2; and Idem, entry on “Manifattura inglese (XV secolo), Il Bacio di Giuda” Ibidem, 130. An interest in this artistic production was pioneered in Italy by Papini, R., “Polittici d’alabastro,” L’Arte 13 (1910), 202–13; Idem, “Tre sculture inglesi del Quattrocento a Milano,” Rassegna d’Arte 10 (1912), 160–1.

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church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme have been identified as the only items to survive from this cargo of luxury English goods shipped to Italy.2 People throughout the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern era were fascinated by high-end objects produced in England because of their design, style and skilful craftmanship, as well as their precious and colourful materials. Popes, high prelates, and wealthy rulers on the continent sought them perhaps too avidly, as implied by a malevolent Matthew Paris when he credited the Genoese pope Innocent IV (reigned 1243–54) with the famous utterance: ‘Truly, England is our garden of delights, an inexhaustible well from whose plenty many things may be extorted’.3 Sinibaldo Fieschi was referring to the richly textured and vividly coloured and illustrated copes and chasubles worn by English cardinals and bishops; objects in which he himself is known to have delighted. English embroidery had already long been met with appreciation across the continent where it came to be known as opus anglicanum to identify it with its place of manufacture. Soon after their emergence in the fourteenth century English alabaster carvings became prized by wealthy patrons, quickly surpassing other alabaster products from across Europe.4 This essay contextualises the diffusion of medieval English alabasters as part of a broader contemporary fascination with highly polished objects carved in white, light-reflecting and light-diffusing media in Europe and the Medieval Mediterranean. I will begin by exploring what materials were identified as alabaster by medieval viewers and the physical properties with which it was credited. I will then investigate how these same observers approached objects crafted in marble, ivory and bone. In so doing, I aim to recover both the workshop jargon and the literary vocabulary used by people in the Middle Ages to talk and write about the materiality and aesthetics of sculptural surfaces. I also explore material and perceptual overlaps, such as instances when marble was mistaken for alabaster and vice versa. The second part of my study focusses on both sculptural surfaces and the Italian Peninsula where not only was white marble quarried in Carrara, but local alabaster and white onyx also appear to have been used as carving materials in the fourteenth century, albeit sporadically. In the third and final section of this chapter I briefly tackle what is still largely 2 See Middeldorf, U., “Two English Alabaster Statuettes in Rome,” Art in America 16 (1927–1928), 199–203: 201; Radeglia, D., “Le statue di alabastro di San Pietro e Paolo,” in A.M. Affanni (ed.), La basilica di S. Croce in Gerusalemme a Roma (Viterbo, 1997), 137–40. The reigning pope at the time was Urban VI. Cosmato was elected Cardinal of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme on 18 December 1389 by Pope Boniface IX. On 17 October 1404, he was elected Pope with the name Innocent VII. See De Vincentiis, A., “Innocenzo VII,” in Enciclopedia dei Papi, vol. 2 (Rome, 2000), 582–4. 3 Paris, M., Chronica Majora, ed. H.R. Luard, vol. 4 (London, 1877), pt. 3, 546, as quoted in Gardner, J., “Opus Anglicanum and its Medieval Patrons,” in C. Browne, G. Davies and M.A. Michael (eds), English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum (New Haven and London, 2016), 49–59: 51. 4 While alabaster was already being quarried in the English Midlands in the twelfth century, a significant alabaster manufacture did not develop until two centuries later.

English Alabasters in the Medieval Mediterranean

a blind spot in our consideration of medieval sculpture in marble and alabaster: the decisive relationship between surface treatment and colour.

ENGLISH ALABASTERS IN A MEDITERRANEAN CONTEXT: MATERIALITY AND AESTHETICS Initially adopted for use in monumental funerary sculpture, alabaster quarried in the Dove and Trent valleys west of Nottingham was soon also used for mass-produced altarpieces and sculptures destined for both domestic and foreign markets. As mentioned above, English alabasters had reached Italy by the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, quickly superseding French alabasters in popularity.5 Besides the St Peter and the St Paul in Rome, other early examples include two erratic relief panels showing the Betrayal of Christ and the Deposition, possibly pertaining to a polyptych for the chapel attached to the Rocchetta of Porta Romana in Milan, which might have been acquired or commissioned by either the Visconti or the Sforza family. We know that, probably due to its distinctive material, the Betrayal panel had become an object of wonder by the seventeenth century when it entered the cabinet of curiosities of local scholar Manfredo Settala (1600–1680).6 A mid-fifteenth-century alabaster polyptych now preserved in the Museum of Palazzo Schifanoia likely served as the main altarpiece of the Estensi family chapel in the Castle of Ferrara.7 The alabaster triptych with scenes from the life of Christ now in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples might have been acquired by the royal Angio-Durazzo family for a similar purpose.8 By the late fourteenth century these towns and their rulers had developed significant relationships with England that they would maintain over time. It seems that maritime cities and major commercial hubs such as Venice, Genoa, and Amalfi, as well as their neighbouring territories, were also exposed to this artistic production to a significant extent.9 Diplomatic and commercial routes, especially those on water, played equally 5 French alabasters seem to have been popular in early-fourteenth-century Venice. For a summary of the surviving or documented examples, see Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 400–2. 6 The Betrayal panel is preserved in the Musei d’Arte Antica del Castello Sforzesco, Milan. The Deposition is in the deposits of the Pinacoteca di Brera. See Basso, L., “I doni di Luca Beltrami ai Musei Civici,” in C. Salsi (ed.), Centenario di fondazione dei Musei Civici del Castello Sforzesco (1900–2000), special issue of Rassegna di studi e di notizie 24 (2000), 13–34: 19; and Palozzi, “Manifattura inglese (XV secolo), Il Bacio di Giuda,” 130–2. Two labels on the rear of the Betrayal of Christ, now lost, recorded its provenance as the Rocchetta di Porta Romana, and the subsequent acquisition of this panel by Settala, respectively. Transcriptions in Papini, “Tre sculture inglesi,” 160–1. 7 According to Scalabrini, G.A., Memorie istoriche delle Chiese di Ferrara e de’ suoi borghi (Ferrara, 1773), 306; and Frizzi, A., Guida del Forastiere per la città di Ferrara (Ferrara, 1787), 129, as quoted in Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 410. 8 Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 409–10. 9 Ibidem, 403–10.

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important roles in the diffusion of both raw English alabaster and finished pieces across Europe and the Western Mediterranean, to cities including Cartagena and Seville. In 1390, a merchant ship sailed from Dartmouth to the latter city with several ‘ymagez d’alabastre’ on board.10 These might have been serially produced alabaster reliefs and figures destined for the local market. We know that commercial routes worked both ways, and that Andalusian lustreware from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were exported to England at the same time and possibly on the very same ships as our English alabasters.11 In a Mediterranean context, the style and composition of medieval English alabasters might have looked exotic, but their material and aesthetics were certainly not. The Latin word alabaster comes from the ancient Greek alabastrite, referring to the material used to produce small vessels for keeping oil and perfumes of the kind one would easily have found in the markets of Genoa, Venice, Seville or Cartagena.12 The term alabaster and its regional variants had been used since antiquity to denote both gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) and calcite (CaCO3) alabaster, materials universally praised for their colour and translucency.13 The anonymous Italian author of Lapidario estense (fourteenth century) describes alabastro as: a whitish, turbulent stone veined with many other colours. And it is turbid and soft; and one can polish it and make wonderful vases with it.14 The document in Paley Baildon, W., Select Cases in Chancery AD 1364 to 1471 (London, 1896), 45, as quoted in Wells, E.J., Gerrard, C. and Gutiérrez, A. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology in Britain (Oxford, 2018), 972. On medieval English alabasters in Spain, see the seminal Alcolea, S., “Relieves Ingleses de Alabastro en España: Ensayo de Catalogación,” Archivio Español de Arte 44 (1971), 137–53. 11 See The Oxford Handbook of Later Medieval Archaeology, 972. 12 The first known mention in Theophrastus’ treatise On Stones (fourth century BC). See Radcliffe Caley, E. and Richards, J.F. (eds), Theophrastus on Stones. Introduction, Greek Text, English Translation, and Commentary (Columbus, OH, 1956), 46: ‘There is also the alabastristes, found at Thebes in Egypt’. Pliny the Elder discusses alabaster in Natural history, 36, 12: ‘Onychem [onyx] aliqui lapidem alabastriten [alabaster] vocant, quem cavant et ad vasa unguentaria, quoniam optime servare incorrupta dicitur. Idem et ustus emplastris convenit. Nascitur circa Thebas Aegyptias et Damascum Syriae. Hic ceteris candidior…’; 36, 43 (on stones for making mortars and vases): ‘ex alabastrite Aegyptio… vasa et cados etiam faciunt’; 37, 18: ‘lapis quem alabastriten Aegyptii vocant.’ For a discussion of gypsum and calcite alabaster by Pliny and medieval authors, see the seminal work by Nowill Bromehead, C.E., “The forgotten uses of selenite,” The Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society 46:182 (1943), 325–33. For a more recent discussion, see Lipińska, A., “Polished alabaster of Carrara. Written sources and the meaning of sculpture material,” in A. Lipińska (ed.), Materiał rzeźby. Miedzy techniką a semantyką. Material of Sculpture. Between Technique and Semantics (Warsaw, 2009), 295–312. 13 Lipińska, ‘Polished alabaster,’ 296–7. 14 English translation mine. Original vernacular in Tomasoni, P. (ed.), Il Lapidario estense (Milan, 1990), 145: ‘Alabastro è una pietra blanchiegna e turbulente et entramesclata de plusior coluri. Et è petra torbèta e tenera. E tornisse e fassene de begli vasegli e de begli bosoli per tegnire unguenti et altre confectione.’

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English Alabasters in the Medieval Mediterranean

Besides the English Midlands, soft gypsum and anhydrite (CaSO4) alabaster suited for figural sculpture was also quarried at Beuda (Besalú), Sarral (Terragona) and the Ebro Valley in Cataluña.15 Some of the greatest stone carvers active in the territories of the Crown of Aragon during the fourteenth century, such as the Flemish Joan de Tournai and the local sculptor Jaume Cascalls, used alabaster from Beuda extensively in their work. Joan de Tournai’s tomb of St Narcissus, in the collegiate church of St Felieu in Girona, consists of an alabaster gisant resting on a sarcophagus decorated with finely-carved alabaster relief scenes from the saint’s life, complemented with coloured glass, selective polychromy and gilding (Pl. V).16 Recent studies have identified the quarries at Notre-Dame-deMésage (Grenoble) in the French Alps and Malaucène in Provence as the provenance of the alabaster used for much surviving or documented fourteenth- and fifteenth-century French sculpture, including important papal monuments such as the tomb of Pope Urban V (d. 1370) in Avignon. Smaller, less documented and irregularly used medieval alabaster quarries were also found elsewhere in France and throughout Central Europe at the time.17 During the Middle Ages the word alabaster was also used to identify harder, crystalline materials such as muscovite mica, selenite – literally ‘moon-stone’ – and onyx which were readily available and used across the Mediterranean from Spain to Sicily, to Cyprus, to Cappadocia and beyond. Cut into flat sheets, both materials could be used as window panes; the practice was known in antiquity and described by Pliny the Elder in Naturalis historia.18 Their translucent quality – Pliny used the term lapis specularis (mirror stone) – was praised in both the East and the West.19 Written sources and epigraphic and material evidence testify to the use of both selenite and gypsum alabaster as light-diffusing media in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Yemen.20 In Paradise Canto XV, Dante implies that whenever artificial light passes through a window pane it causes alabastro 15 Kloppmann, W., et al., “Competing English, Spanish and French Alabaster Trade,” PNAS 114:45 (2017), 11856–60. See also Ortí Iglesias, M., “El alabastro en la edad media y la edad moderna. El caso de Serral (Terragona),” De Re Metallica 5 (2005), 45–61. I would like to thank Caterina Fioravanti for pointing out this reference. 16 On this and other works by Joan de Tournai, see Español Bertran, F., “L’escultor Joan de Tournai a Catalunya,” Annals de l’Institut d’Estudis Gironins 33 (1994), 379–432; Eadem, “Joan de Tournai, an artista empresari del primer gòtic català,” in Girona a l’abast, IV. V. VI. (Girona, 1996), 175–88; Eadem, El gòtic català (Barcelona, 2002), 95–9. 17 See Kloppmann, “Competing English.” 18 Pliny the Elder, Natural history, 36, 45 (on stones that can be cut with a saw): ‘Et hi quidem sectiles sunt, specularis vero, quoniam et hic lapidis nomen optinet, faciliore multo natura finditur in quamlibeat tenues crustas.’ 19 Stern, E.M., “Glass Coffins and Other Transparent Riddles,” in Janssens, K., et al. (eds), Annales du 17e Congrès de l’Association Internationale pour l’Histoire du Verre (Antwerp, 2009), 55–9. 20 Potts, D.T., “The diffusion of light by translucent media in antiquity: a propos two alabaster window-pane fragments from ed-Dur (United Arab Emirates),” Antiquity 70:276 (1996), 182–8.

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FIG. 3.1  FLORENTINE WORKSHOP, WINDOW PANE, C. 1150. SELENITE. FLORENCE, CHURCH OF SAN MINIATO AL MONTE

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to glow, similar to the radiant fillet of a comet (Fig. 3.1).21 One of Dante’s early commentators goes even further, explaining that alabastro is a ‘greasy stone that [if penetrated by light] looks as if fire had taken to it, burning on its surface as it does on grease.’22 While Dante might have seen the twelfthcentury selenite window panes in the church of San Miniato al Monte in his native Florence, neither he nor his unnamed commentator would have known the difference between mica, selenite, calcite, and the softer gypsum alabaster used for producing unguent vessels and for carving reliefs and threedimensional figures.23 To medieval minds and eyes, its whiteness and lustre would have likened alabaster to other art materials, especially ivory and bone.24 In Western literary texts from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, ivory is often used as a metaphor for a type of beauty that is both ‘white’ and ‘polished’, alluding to both physical and moral purity. In these texts, the hands, neck and face of the beloved are often compared to highly polished, immaculate ivory.25 Sometimes, when they are smiling and one is close enough to kiss 21 Dante, Paradiso, Canto XV, 19–24: ‘Tale dal corno che ‘n destro si stende / a piè di quella croce corse un astro / de la costellazion che lì resplende; / né si partì la gemma dal suo nastro, / ma per la lista radïal trascorse, / che parve foco dietro ad alabastro.’ For an English translation, see Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, transl. H. Wadsworth Longfellow (London, 1867; repr. 2017), 51: ‘So from the horn that to the right extends / Unto that cross’s foot there ran a star / Out of the constellation shining there; / Nor was the gem dissevered from its ribbon, / But down the radiant fillet ran along, / So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.’ 22 Torri, A. (ed.), L’ottimo commento della Divina Commedia, vol. 1 (Florence, 1827), 348: ‘pietra molto grassa, alla quale pare che s’appicchi il fuoco, e che sopra essa arda quasi come sopra uno untume… La quale pietra anche si mette in confezione d’unguento, che dalla piera si chiama alabastro.’ English translation mine. 23 See previous note. On the selenite windows of San Miniato in Florence, see Nowill Bromehead, “The forgotten uses,” 331–2. 24 On the ‘kinship’ between alabaster, ivory and marble, see Lipińska, ”Polished alabaster” 295–312. 25 Among many fourteenth-century Italian examples, see Brugnolo, F. (ed.), Il canzoniere

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them, a beloved’s ivory-white teeth can be so stupefying as to petrify or, as the Italian poet Petrarch put it, turn one into marble (‘discovrire l’avorio / che fa di marmo chi da presso ‘l guarda’).26 The German monk Theophilus, possibly one and the same person as Roger of Helmarshausen, describes how to smooth down and polish bone and ivory objects, including everyday objects, in his treatise On the diverse arts (XII century). He recommends using shavegrass (equisetum) for smoothing. Collect shavegrass on a linen cloth and, still turning the lathe, rub them vigorously on the knops which will then become completely shiny.27

An alternative method involves using sifted ashes and a woollen cloth; the object’s polished surface is then smeared all over with walnut oil.28 These and other techniques were used in Europe and across the Medieval Mediterranean to polish the surfaces of ivory objects as diverse as delicate Gothic Madonnas, portable diptychs, and intricately-carved Islamic caskets and oliphants.29 It is to white marble, however, that alabaster was often compared. Like marble, but unlike bone and ivory, a single block of alabaster can be used to produce medium-to-large sized relief panels and figures in the round. People in medieval and Early-Modern Europe would often intentionally use the term marble for alabaster, thereby both acknowledging the close aesthetic similarities between these two stones and indirectly testifying to the latter’s reputation as a carving material, as most notably happened in France and Cataluña. Alabaster from Beuda, for example, is alternately referred to in fourteenth- and- fiftenth-century Catalan documents as ‘pedrera (stone)’, ‘lapis marmoreus et alabaustrus (sic)’, or ‘alebastra’. 30 Occasionally, however, these same close aesthetic similarities also caused viewers to mistake marble for alabaster. With reference to the scattering of di Nicolò de’ Rossi, vol. 1 (Padua, 1974), 111: ‘carne d’avolio, rosa colorita, / spyeco lucente, d’amor calamita’; Altamura, A. (ed.), Il Canzoniere di Sennuccio del Bene (Naples, 1950), 51: ‘nel suo bel viso di color d’avoro / viddi sì fatta ch’a ogni altro lavoro / della natura o d’arte non fur conte’; Petrarch, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 181, v. 9–11: ‘E ‘l chiaro lume che sparir fa ‘l sole / folgorava d’intorno; e ‘l fune avolto / era a la man ch’avorio et neve avanza.’ 26 Petrarch, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 131, v. 10–11. 27 Original Latin and English translation in Theophilus, On Divers Arts, ed. J.G. Hawthorne and C. Stanley Smith (New York, 1963), 189. 28 Different techniques were used in ancient Greece and Rome. Pliny recommends polishing ivory with shark skin, pumice and emery. See St. Clair, A., Carving as Craft: Palatine East and the Greco-Roman Bone and Ivory Carving Tradition (Baltimore, 2003), 13. 29 See Shalem, A., The Oliphant: Islamic Objects in Historical Context (Leiden-Boston, 2004), 47 ff. (on the technical aspects of ivory carving and polishing); Beckwith, J., Caskets From Cordova (London, 1960). 30 Both quotes are from Español Bertran F.,, “El alabastro como material escultórico en ámbito hispano en época gótica: las canteras de Girona,” in Alcoy, R., et al. (eds), Le plaisir de l’art du Moyen Âge. Commande, production et réception de l’oeuvre d’art. Mélanges offerts à Xavier Barral i Altet (Paris, 2012), 577-89 at p. 580.

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artworks commissioned by the French papal legate in Romagna, Bertrand du Puget (d. 1352), for his chapel in the fortress of Porta Galliera in Bologna following the latter’s destruction by the local population, an unnamed Roman chronicler (known as the Anonimo Romano) specified that: the most noble cona of the main altar went to the Preachers of Saint Dominic; it is a Pisan work of alabaster and worth ten thousand florins.31

The ‘most noble’ cona allegedly carved in alabaster by a Pisan master has been associated with a marble altarpiece by Pisa-born sculptor Giovanni di Balduccio. Several of its original elements survive, including an Annunciation in private hands and a small Bishop Saint, alternatively identified as St Petronius or San Nicolas, now preserved in the Church of Santo Stefano in Bologna (Fig. 3.2).32 Although the chronicler was well enough informed to know the geographical provenance of the sculptor and the rough overall costs of the work, he mistook its fine statuary marble for alabaster. Just by looking at the Bishop Saint we can understand why the Anonimo Romano would have thought the Bologna altarpiece was made of alabaster. Giovanni di Balduccio and his workshop went to great lengths to give his sculptures the glittering, almost reflective quality that they preserve to this day and that the artist further enhanced by using selective polychromy and gilding. Also, while the Anonimo was not a connoisseur, he might have been familiar with alabaster and even alabaster carvings. French alabasters enjoyed some degree of renown in mid-fourteenth-century Venice, so it is feasible that a taste for these objects spread from Venice to Bologna around the same time, especially given the strong artistic ties between these two cities. Even so, mistaking marble for alabaster would have been trivial in Bologna, considering that wealthy local patrons stretched their finances as far as possible to obtain marble, a material not found in loco and hence to be shipped all the way from Tuscany, circumnavigating the Italian Peninsula.

31 Anonimo Romano, Cronica, ed. G. Porta (Milan, 1981), 24: ‘la nobilissima cona dello altare maggiore (ebbero) li frati predicatori di San Domenico, la quale ène de alabastro, opera pisana, valore de X mila fiorini.’ English translation and emphasis mine. The Cronica dates from c. 1357–1358. For a discussion of this passage, see Medica, M., “Un San Domenico per l’altare bolognese di Giovanni di Balduccio,” Arte a Bologna 1 (1990), 11–20. 32 See Medica, “Un San Domenico.” For a focus on the Annunciation, see Caglioti, F., “Giovanni di Balduccio a Bologna: l’Annunciazione per la rocca papale di Porta Galliera (con una digressione sulla cronologia napoletana e bolognese di Giotto),” Prospettiva 117/118 (2005), 21–62. On the Bishop Saint, see Cova, P., “Giovanni di Balduccio,” in V. Sgarbi (ed.), Da Cimabue a Morandi. Felsina pittrice, Exh. Cat., Bologna, Palazzo Fava (Bologna, 2015), 54–5, no. 5, with bibliography. The marble polyptych of Porta Galliera was initially destined for the Franciscans of Bologna. However, a document of 8 July 1335 confirms that it was eventually given to the Dominicans. For a discussion of this document, see Hubert, H.W., Der Palazzo Comunale von Bologna. Vom Palazzo della Biada zum Palatium Apostolicum (Cologne, 1993), 33, note 12.

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FIG. 3.2  GIOVANNI DI BALDUCCIO, BISHOP SAINT (ALTERNATIVELY IDENTIFIED AS ST PETRONIUS OR ST NICOLAS), BEFORE 1334. MARBLE. BOLOGNA, CHURCH OF SANTO STEFANO

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Tuscan sculptors were usually entrusted with both this task and creating the final work, starting with Nicola Pisano’s commission to fashion the monumental tomb of St Dominic (1265–67) in the eponymous church in Bologna.33 The reopening and gradual enlargement of the marble quarries of ancient Luni (Carrara) starting in the late twelfth century meant that sculptors could now work with high-quality marble.34 In technical terms, this meant they often carved freshly-quarried material, which in today’s technical jargon is still called ‘green marble’ (marmo verde, in Italian) since it is softer and easier on tools than the ancient marble reused by necessity in earlier centuries. Using ‘green marble’ not only allowed for greater creativity and technical audacity but it also enhanced the reputation of the Italian quarries and their stone across the Mediterranean artistic territory. In one of his cantigas, King of Castile, Alfonso the Wise, praises the exquisite white Carrara marble (‘marmor mui branco’) of Nicola Pisano’s pulpit for Siena Cathedral (1265–68) while polemically dismissing the sculptor’s skills as an iconographer.35 King Alfonso should have known better, since Nicola Pisano had been building a reputation on his skills as a marble carver. ‘His hand is more skilled than that of Polykleitos’ brags the Chronica antiqua of the Dominican Convent of St Catherine in Pisa.36 In the obituary of his co-worker, the friar-sculptor Guglielmo, Nicola’s tomb of St Dominic in Bologna is referred to as a ‘marmoreus vel potius alabastrinus sepulcher’.37 While this phrase literally translates as ‘a tomb made of marble, or rather of alabaster’ it arguably means ‘a sepulchre of marble so pure and polished that it looks like alabaster.’ Unlike the Anonimo Romano, our anonymous Pisan chronicler was not actually mistaking marble for alabaster but rather crafting a hyperbole to suggest to his readers that the marble surfaces of the Bologna monument are lustrous.38 33 For an overview, see Moskowitz, A., Nicola Pisano’s Arca di San Domenico and Its Legacy (University Park, 1994). 34 For an overview, see Klapisch-Zuber, C., Carrara e i maestri del marmo, 1300–1600 (Massa, 1973; orig. French edition, Paris, 1969), 19–85. 35 Alfonso el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa Maria, 219 (before 1284), as quoted in Caleca, A., “Dal 1260 al 1330,” in E. Castelnuovo (ed.), Niveo de marmore (Genoa, 1992), 203–7: 203. Molina López, L. “Viaje a Italia a través de las Cantigas Historiadas de Alfonso X el Sabio,” Anales de Historia del Arte, special issue (2011), 319-30: 321-5. 36 Pisa, Biblioteca Cateriniana (Seminario di Santa Caterina), ms. 78, f. 40 Full transcription in Da Peccioli, D., “Chronica antiqua conventus S. Catharinae de Pisis,” ed. F. Bonaini, Archivio Storico Italiano 6:2 (1845), 399–593 (the quotation in the text is at p. 467). The chronicler is probably recasting a famous hyperbole on the same subject by Dante in his Purgatory Canto X, 32–33: ‘d’intagli sì, che non pur Policleto, ma la natura lì avrebbe scorno’. The bibliography on this passage is vast. See Collareta, M., “Visibile parlare,” Prospettiva 86 (1997), 102–4. 37 Pisa, Biblioteca Cateriniana (Seminario di Santa Caterina), Annalia Conventus S. Catharinae de Pisis, f. 35, as quoted in Marchese, V., Memorie dei più insigni pittori, scultori e architetti domenicani, vol. 1 (Florence, 1854), 398 (emphasis mine): ‘Frater Guillelmus conversus, sculptor egregius, cum Nicholaus Pisanus, Patri nostri Dominici sacras reliquias in marmoreo, vel potius alabastrino sepulcro a se facto collocaret.’ 38 The reverse was also possible. For example, Jan Andrzey Morsztyn (1621–1683) called

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The Pisan chronicler’s use of the adjective alabastrinus to describe marble would not have puzzled medieval readers, since it was customary to praise the physical qualities of a material by comparing it to another one. Good quality marble, for instance, is typically ‘whiter than snow’, in the same way that cheap marble is likely to be ‘opalescent’. A material could also be associated with a geographical site, regardless of its actual provenance. The adjective ‘Parian’ when used in reference to marble often means ‘of high quality’, rather than from the Greek island of Paros.39 Carrara would similarly become synonymous with high-quality marble in the late-medieval and Early Modern periods. Such automatically repeated rhetorical formulas constituted a repertoire used by medieval people to frame their understanding of an artefact’s materiality, both informing their expectations about an object or class of objects and interfering with their aesthetic experience of it. The latter could occasionally lead to unexpected perceptual overlaps, as when the Anonimo Romano mistook marble for alabaster in Bologna.

POLISHING MARBLE, IVORY, ONYX AND ALABASTER IN MEDIEVAL ITALY Levigated white surfaces were certainly not new to late-medieval artists and their audiences. Mentions of tombs and monuments of ‘polished Parian marble’ recur in sources and documents from as early as the twelfth century in places outside Italy, like Belgium for instance.40 However, we have evidence to suggest that by the end of the thirteenth century, sculptural surfaces had become an even greater concern for sculptors and patrons than they had previously, regardless of the material. Surface polish is even mentioned in contemporary contracts and documents, as are, albeit more rarely, the tools and techniques used by sculptors to smooth down and levigate stone, marble and other materials. The contract recording Giovanni Pisano’s commission to execute the ivory altarpiece for the main altar of Pisa Cathedral (Fig. 3.3) details Giovanni’s duties: to carve images, and to polish them as well as [to perform] all the other duties that pertain to the art of sculpting and polishing ivory.41 Carrara marble ‘alabaster’ in one of his poems. See Lipińska, “Polished alabaster,” 295. 39 On the medieval fascination with Parian marble, see Gramaccini, N. and Raff, T., “Iconologia delle materie,” in E. Castelnuovo and G. Sergi (eds), Arti e Storia nel Medioevo. Volume II. Del costruire: tecniche, artisti, artigiani, committenti (Turin, 2003), 395–415. 40 Klapisch-Zuber, Carrara e i maestri del marmo, 39. 41 Pisa, Archivio Capitolare, Acta capituli, A, 7, cc. 31v–32r (dated 5 June 1298), as quoted in Seidel, M., Father and Son: Nicola and Giovanni Pisano (Munich, 2012), 103, note 58. The original Latin reads as follows (emphasis mine): ‘…taliter agere et procurare quod ipse faciet et complebit et perficiet opus heburneum quod incepit et factum completum et

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FIG. 3.3  GIOVANNI PISANO, VIRGIN AND CHILD, 1298–1299. IVORY, 53 CM HIGH. PISA, MUSEO DELLA PRIMAZIALE PISANA

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FIG. 3.4  GIOVANNI PISANO, VIRGIN AND CHILD, C. 1312. MARBLE, 53 CM HIGH. PRATO, CATHEDRAL OF SANTO STEFANO, CHAPEL OF SACRA CINTOLA

Surface polish was so crucial to the aesthetics of Giovanni’s opus eburneum for Pisa that it was expressly mentioned in the contract. As we have already seen with Theophilus and as this passage confirms, levigare (to polish) was considered a principal task of a medieval ivory carver, and of carvers in general. To keep with our example, Giovanni Pisano took great care with the sculptural surfaces of his marble figures. His Madonna della Cintola (Fig. 3.4) for Prato Cathedral is a good example of a reflective marble statue that competes visually with Giovanni’s own work in ivory. Indeed, the modest size, yellow patina and selective gilding confer upon this work perfectum erit in proximo Pascate Nativitatis Dominis in eo scilicet quod ad eum spectat videlicet insculpendo ymagines, et levigando et omnia alia facendo que ad artem sculture et levigationis heboris pertinent…’

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an ivory-like aesthetic that may well reflect Giovanni’s original intent.42 Documentary evidence suggests that the sculptor chose his carving material in person whenever possible. Having access to Apuan marble allowed him to not only exercise control over the quarrying process, but also to select the quality of marble best suited for the aesthetic effect he was aiming for in a particular work. Thus far unnoticed by other scholars, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano’s choice of a light-diffusing medium, most likely white onyx, rather than marble, for the basin of their baptismal font in the church of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas in Pistoia must have been equally intentional (Fig. 3.5).43 Their choice to use onyx – a material also called alabaster by Pliny and medieval authors – is revealed upon close inspection of the work’s pattern of wear. It is also evocatively confirmed by this photograph made using artificial light placed inside the basin. The radiant effect this produces is similar to the glow of selenite window panes described by Dante. The trade-off for using a less resistant material than marble was that Giovanni could exploit onyx’s softness and translucency to produce a highly polished object whose turbid, almost watery texture instantly reminds viewers and touchers of its content. In Pistoia, Giovanni appears to have conflated an onyx vase and a traditional water basin into a single object, hence also reviving an association between alabaster and water that is documented in the ancient Roman world, especially in Asia Minor.44 Art historians have overlooked the fact that white onyx and gypsum alabaster would have been readily available in medieval Tuscany, in Castelnuovo l’Abate (Siena) and Volterra, respectively.45 While the use of Volterra alabaster declined during the Middle Ages, it is quite feasible that both onyx and gypsum alabaster were occasionally used for small-scale On Giovanni Pisano’s Madonna della Cintola, see Hohenfeld, K., Die Madonnenskulpturen des Giovanni Pisano: Stilkritik, Kulturtransfer und Materialimitation (Weimar, 2014), 178–192. 43 For an overview of the Pistoia baptismal font, see Pini, M., entry on “Taglia di Nicola Pisano. Acquasantiera,” in Neri Lusanna, E. (ed.), Arnolfo. Alle origini del Rinascimento Fiorentino, Exh. Cat., Florence, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo (Florence, 2006), 162–165. The baptismal font’s vertical support is made of marble. Pietro Toesca (Il Trecento [Turin, 1951], 226 note 28) and Sabina Spannocchi (Giovanni Pisano, seguaci e oppositori [Florence, 2008], 17) perceptively noted that the water basin and the vertical support appear to be made of different materials yet mistakenly concluded they are both made of marble. For a discussion of alabaster and white onyx quarries in Tuscany, see Sartori, R., “Alabastri e alabastri-onici della Toscana. Genesi, loro presenze nelle opere, e antiche zone di estrazione,” Bollettino ingegneri 54 (2006), 10–16. 44 The Red Hall temple at Pergamon featured an alabaster-clad water basin set into its floor just before the plinth upon which stood the God statue. See Feldman, C. “Re-Placing the Nile: Water and Mimesis in the Roman Practice of Egyptian Religion at Pergamon,” in C. Moser and C. Feldman (eds), Locating the Sacred: Theoretical Approaches to the Emplacement of Religion (Providence, 2014), n.p. Further research and an article on the Pistoia baptismal font are underway. As I argue, the onyx basin in Pistoia was used for the consecration of holy water on the vigils of Easter and Pentecost. 45 Sartori, “Alabastri e alabastri-onici,” 15 ff. 42

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FIG. 3.5  WORKSHOP OF NICOLA PISANO (VERTICAL SUPPORT) AND GIOVANNI PISANO (HOLYWATER BASIN), BAPTISMAL FONT, 1270S. MARBLE AND WHITE ONYX, 130 × 50 CM. PISTOIA, CHURCH OF SAN GIOVANNI FUORICIVITAS

carvings and liturgical objects in Tuscany, and that we are simply unaware of this because of their perishability. The small, lesser-known alabaster Virgin and Child (Pl. VI) attributed to Nino Pisano in the Berlin-Dahlem Museum, though likely carved by his father Andrea, and the Virgin and Child possibly by a Florentine sculptor that recently appeared in an auction in Italy, seem to provide additional evidence of this.46 46

I am grateful to Massimo Ferretti for sharing his insight on the Berlin Madonna

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We can deduce Giovanni Pisano’s use of different chisels and drills in areas he left unfinished in both his Pisa and his Pistoia pulpits.47 Marble sculptors progressed from larger, rougher tools to slimmer, more precise ones, eventually smoothing and polishing the surface before the work could receive polychromy and gilding. A rare exception to this rule is Giovanni’s unconventional use of a toothed chisel to add texture to the head of a lion in Pistoia after this piece had already been polished. Over time, dust and dirt have settled deeply within these tool marks, so that they now look darker than the surrounding marble. The original effect was quite the opposite. The freshly carved marks would have been snow-white, standing out from the levigated surface of the lion’s head like white lead on coloured paper. These opaque-white marks would have interfered with the reverberation of artificial light on the lion’s shiny hide, thus creating a visual blur that Giovanni may have intended to enhance the impression of movement and life that the Pistoia lion is meant to convey. While the documents are rather laconic, it is safe to assume that Giovanni and his contemporaries would have gone about polishing their sculptures using the technology available at the time: basalt stone, emery, perhaps shark skins, straw, sand, marble powder and water; as well as a great deal of patience and goodwill. Some thirty years after Giovanni Pisano, the Venetian sculptor Andriolo de’ Santi was indeed using emery (smerilglio in the documents) and a grindstone (mola), possibly basalt, on the new portals of San Lorenzo Church in Vicenza.48 We learn from a payment made to him in 1344 that the sculptor himself acquired emery during one of his trips to or from Vicenza.49 On the Vicenza work site, payments were made to several workers to complete the time-consuming task of polishing the marble surfaces of the portals. Two workers were employed for this purpose (ad fricandum) with me. See Metz, P., Bildwerke der Christlichen Epochen von der Spätantike bis zum Klassizismus. Aus den Beständen der Skulpturenabteilung der Staatlichen Museen BerlinDahlem (Munich, 1966), 37; Delpriori, A., “Madonna con Bambino in alabastro, scultore fiorentino della cerchia di Andrea Pisano, 1340–1345 circa” [electronic edition: http:// www.cambiaste.com/it/asta-0228/madonna-con-bambino-in-alabastro-scultore-fior. asp] (last accessed on 28 March 2018). This work’s provenance and whereabouts are unknown. 47 In Giovanni’s Pisa workshop, payments were being made to: ‘Ciolus senensis pro pretio unius corii de cervo ad faciendum corrigias trapanis qui operantur ad laborerium pervij et pro pretio ipsorum trapanorum et eorum fornimentorum l. iii’; and to ‘Cecchus faber pro accentura suprascriptorum trapanorum sol. XII, den. III’ (emphasis mine). Archivio di Stato, Primaziale, Codex 83, cc. 100–102, 107, as quoted in Bacci, P., La ricostruzione del pergamo di Giovanni Pisano nel duomo di Pisa(Milan and Rome, 1926), 32. 48 The documents are in Venice, Archivio di Stato, Procuratori di San Marco, Misti, Busta 4, fasc. 3. The transcriptions are in Gallo, R., “Contributi alla storia della scultura veneziana. I. Andriolo de Santi,” Archivio Veneto 44–45 (1949), 1–40: 29, 32: ‘Item pro una mola libr. VII’; ‘Item dictus Andriolus pro smerilgio (sic) et expensis quas fecit in via duc. VIIII s. XXXVI.’ 49 See the previous note. On emery in art, see “Smeriglio,” in Grassi, L. and Pepe, M. (eds), Dizionario della critica d’arte, vol. 2 (Turin, 1978), 544–5.

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for sixteen days each, and two more were occupied by the same task, each for ten days, in 1342 or early 1343. A year later, a certain Antonius was paid for having spent twenty-four days polishing the portals.50 Thinking about sculptural surfaces, we must bear in mind that medieval Italian sculptors and their patrons took the Latin adjective splendidus, meaning both lustrous and magnificent, to identify artistic quality.51 In the commemorative inscription, the newly erected portals of San Lorenzo are characterised as nitida and splendida, referring to the marble’s whiteness and lustre as well as the excellence of the work.52 The coupling of nitidus and pulcher recurs in the signature affixed by the Lombard sculptor Bonino da Campione to the tomb of Cansignorio della Scala in Santa Maria Antiqua, Verona, in 1375. Bonino’s name is followed by that of a ‘Gasparus recultor’, possibly the painter who executed the monument’s polychromy and gilding.53

POLISH, WHITENESS AND COLOUR: A BLIND SPOT Very much like contemporary English alabasters, the marble sculptures of Bonino and Andriolo would have been highly polished, brightly coloured,

50 Venice, Archivio di Stato, Procuratori di San Marco, Misti, Busta 4, fasc. 3, as quoted in Gallo, “Contributi,” 29–30: ‘Item duobus laboratoribus ad fricandum pro sexdecim dietis libr. IIII’; ‘Item duobus laboratoribus ad fricandum pro decem dietis s. LV’; ‘Item Antonius ad fricandum pro vigintiquattuor dietis libr. III s. XVI.’ 51 The upper inscription of Giovanni Pisano’s Pisa pulpit (1302–1310) refers to him as sculptor who ‘carving stone, wood and gold, produces splendid work, and would not know how to produce bleak work even if he tried’. English translation mine. Original Latin in Banti, O., “Giovanni Pisano: rileggendo le due epigrafi del pergamo del duomo di Pisa,” Critica d’arte 69 (2007), 105–13: 110–11: ‘sculpens in petra ligno auro splendida, tetra sculpere nescisset vel turpia si voluisset.’ 52 For a transcription, see Musaeum Lapidarium Vicentinum collectum et editum a fratre Joanne Thoma Facciolio, vol. 1 (Vicenza, 1776), 46, n. 1, as quoted in Gallo, “Contributi,” 3: ‘Has satus egregia votivo munere Petrus / stirpe Maranensi condidit Urbe fores. / Frater, et hoc voto sibi Pax ab origine Lugi, / consuluit, nitidum quo duce fulsit opus / volverat orbe suo tunc annos mille trecentos / sol quarter atque decem, quartaque messis erat; / cum tibi mirificis, Laurenti, splendida saxis / structa fuit templis janua bina suis.’ Andriolo de’ Santi went on to make marble polish a feature of his work, as is confirmed by the contract for the erection of the St James Chapel in the Church of St Anthony in Padua (12 February 1372). In this document, the different stages of marble surface treatment –‘fregare’, ‘polire’ and ‘lustrare’– are carefully identified. A transcription in Gualandi, M., “Patti e Convenzioni tra Bonifazio Lupi e Maestro Andriolo da Venezia per lavori su una Cappella nella Chiesa di S. Antonio di Padova,” Memorie originali italiane risguardanti le Belle Arti 6 (1845), 135–52. 53 As hypothesised in Mellini, G.L., “L’arca di Cansignorio di Bonino da Campione a Verona,” in R. Bossaglia and G.A. Dell’Acqua (eds), I maestri campionesi (Bergamo, 1992), 173–98. The text of the inscription is in Vergani, G.A., L’arca di Bernabò Visconti al Castello Sforzesco di Milano (Cinisello Balsamo, 2001), 128: ‘Hoc opus fecit et sculpsit Boninus de Campigliono / Mediolanensis Dioces(is) MCCCLXXV octobris XVIII obiit magnificus Cansignorius. Ut fieret pulcrum pollens nitidumque sepulcrum Boninus erat / sculptor Gaspar(o)que recultor.’

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and glittering with gold and silver, a metal classified as ‘white’ in the Middle Ages. In the funerary lament he composed for his city’s ruler, Matteo da Milano describes Bonino da Campione’s equestrian monument of Bernabo Visconti (Fig. 3.6) in the church of San Giovanni in Conca as ‘entirely covered in gold and silver’, adding that many people take great pleasure (diletto) in its precious skin.54 He explains how people go to see it purely for aesthetic reasons. Viewers in late-fourteenth or early-fifteenthcentury Milan would have treasured the same precious quality in the English alabaster polyptych of the Rocchetta of Porta Romana mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. Colours and precious metals had been used since antiquity to highlight surface lustre – and the other way around. Medieval viewers saw ancient sculpture in colour and were attracted to both the softness of levigated marble figures and their life-like blush. While the former quality never went unappreciated, in the Middle Ages polychromy had both its supporters (St Bonaventure among them) and its detractors (most prominently Bernard of Clairvaux).55 Renaissance theorists, on the other hand, agreed on its undesirability for use in monumental sculpture, which may also partly explain the ongoing colour-blindness of many modern art historians working on medieval stone sculpture. When Leon Battista Alberti shifted the discourse from the technical aspects of marble carving to sculpture’s spatial qualities in his De statua, he ignored sculpture’s materiality, namely its ability to engage viewers and touchers through surface treatment and colour.56 Alberti mentions Carrara marble only once in connection with an ancient anecdote and pays no attention to sculptural surfaces in his treatise.57 Artists, and most notably Donatello during his Florentine sojourn of 1434–43, took a different view by promoting a renewed interest in textured sculptural surfaces and polychromy in their work, hence signalling a distance between current art theory and practice.58 Writing a century after Alberti, Giorgio Vasari did address surface 54 Medin, A. and Frati, L. (eds), Lamenti storici dei secoli XIV, XV e XVI, vol. 1 (Bologna, 1887), 202–3: ‘D’oro e d’argento coperto è il barone … e per dilecto il guarda assai persone.’ On this monument, now preserved in the Musei d’Arte Antica del Castello Sforzesco, Milan, see Vergani, L’arca di Bernabò Visconti. 55 Klapisch-Zuber, C., “Statua depicta, facies ficta: il colore delle statue e il belletto delle donne,” in Niveo de marmore, 21–6; Carruthers, M., The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford and London, 2013), 194–9. For a focus on a later period, see Roman d’Elia, U., “How the Quattrocento Saw Ancient Sculpture in Color,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 35:3 (2016), 216–26. 56 Find similar considerations in Collareta, M., “La figura e lo spazio: una lettura del De statua,” in Leon Battista Alberti, De statua, ed. M. Collareta (Livorno, 1998), 32–52: 35. 57 Alberti, De statua, 16: ‘Ex his etiam, quae recensuimus, dabitur, ut id etiam bellissime possis, quod commonefeceramus, dimidiam quidem statuam in Lunensibus, alteram vero dimidiam volens in Paro perficies.’ However, Alberti praised the whiteness of polished ivory as opposed to polychromy in his Libri della famiglia. See Klapisch-Zuber, “Statua depicta, facies ficta,” 21 ff. 58 In synthesis, see Roman d’Elia, “How the Quattrocento,” 216–26.

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FIG. 3.6  BONINO DA CAMPIONE, EQUESTRIAN MONUMENT OF BERNABÒ VISCONTI, BEFORE 1363, AND 1385– 1386. CANDOGLIA MARBLE. MILAN, RACCOLTE D’ARTE ANTICA, MUSEO D’ARTE ANTICA DEL CASTELLO SFORZESCO

treatment in his Lives of the Artists.59 However, he seems to imply that polish alone, pulimento or leccatezza, without colour is enough to make marble ‘look alive’, as with the dancing putti on the sarcophagus of Ilaria 59 Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, 7 vols (Florence, 1966–87), Introduzione (T), vol. 1 (Text), p. 35: ‘e si gli si dà [al porfido] il pulimento con lo smeriglio e col cuoio strofinandolo, che viene di lustro molto pulitamente lavorato e finito.’

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FIG. 3.7  NINO PISANO, VIRGIN AND CHILD, 1353–62. MARBLE, POLYCHROMY AND GOLD, 172 CM HIGH. TRAPANI, CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL

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del Carretto in Lucca cathedral.60 Besides this work by Jacopo della Quercia, his examples include the works of two fourteenth-century sculptors, Andrea and Nino Pisano. Describing the Madonna del latte and the so-called Madonna della Rosa in Pisa, Vasari affirms that ‘Nino had truly begun to draw lifelike flesh out of the hard stone, polishing it to make it shine’, making no mention of polychromy or gilding even though these would have been fundamental for a sculptor like Nino.61 This had certainly been the case with Nino Pisano’s most iconic work, the monumental Virgin and Child on the main altar of the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in Trapani (Fig. 3.7). Traces of gilding and polychromy, including the dark-red lipstick worn by both the Virgin and her Son, give us some idea of the dazzling effect this sculpture would have had on medieval viewers. Its fascinating story, as narrated in seventeenthcentury sources, has it carved between 1353 and 1362, inscribed with now-lost Arabic letters, and destined for Cyprus. Shipped back from Famagusta to Pisa, it sailed no further than Western Sicily. Whether we credit it or not, the story is plausible and mirrors our initial episode of the alabaster carvings shipped from London to Rome in 1382.

CONCLUSIONS Nino Pisano likely lived to witness the spread of French and English alabasters through Europe and beyond. Within the artistic commonwealth of the medieval Mediterranean, his marble sculpture, characterised by shiny, almost self-effacing polychrome surfaces, coexisted and occasionally competed with sculptures in alabaster, as well as other artworks and artefacts from afar such as ivory Madonnas from France and bone carvings from the Islamic world. Indeed, if the attribution of the Virgin and Child in the Berlin-Dahlem Museum is correct, Nino’s father Andrea Pisano would have carved small devotional alabaster figures as well. Though different in material, style, size, function and provenance, and greatly valued for all these peculiarities, these ‘things’ also owed much of their commercial success to a few shared physical qualities: whiteness, lustre and translucency, enhanced by bright pictorial finishing touches. Contemporary sources and documents imply that people acknowledged these similarities and were occasionally deceived by them. 60 Vasari, Le vite, Jacopo della Quercia (T), p. 29: ‘e morbidamente s’ingegnò gli ignudi di maschi e di femine far parere carnosi [made of flesh, flesh-like] e di leccatezza pulitamente il marmo cercò finire con diligenza infinita.’ 61 Vasari, Le vite, Andrea Pisano (G), 159: ‘nell’attitudine della quale si vede essa madre porgere con molta grazia una rosa al Figliuolo, che la piglia con una maniera fanciullesca e tanto bella che si può dire che Nino cominciasse veramente a cavare la durezza dei sassi e ridurgli la vivezza delle carni, lustrandogli con un pulimento grandissimo.’ Scholars now attribute the Madonna del latte to Nino’s father, Andrea Pisano. For Nino’s ‘polished sculpture’, see Burresi, M.G., Andrea, Nino e Tommaso, scultori pisani (Milan, 1983), 31.

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I have contended that alabaster English carvings owed part of their appeal to their very material, which was readily familiar, used and discussed throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages in both the West and the East. However, I have also pointed to a number of inconsistencies and more or less accidental aesthetic and material overlaps. People used the word alabaster to refer to other light-diffusing materials besides calcite and gypsum, including muscovite mica and selenite – or what Pliny called lapis specularis. Furthermore, medieval viewers seem to have perceived alabaster and marble as strikingly similar; both had strong literary reputations and similar aesthetic connotations. It is no surprise that onlookers could have easily mistaken one for the other, as occurred when a Roman chronicler called the marble in Giovanni di Balduccio’s altarpiece in Bologna alabaster. Conversely, modern art historians have mistaken Giovanni Pisano’s onyx holy-water basin in Pistoia for marble owing to the subtle boundaries of visual perception, the cultural and material context (a ‘marble city’) and our acquired knowledge of the artist, whereby Giovanni never carved onyx or alabaster. We now know that the great marble carver of the Italian Middle Ages, Giovanni Pisano, did also carve onyx, a material that was readily available in Siena and other sites in the Italian Peninsula. As I have conjectured, and Andrea Pisano’s little Virgin and Child now in Berlin confirms, an entire production of small alabaster Madonnas might once also have existed in Tuscany and since been lost due to the material’s soft and perishable nature. If correct, this conjecture would reinforce the idea that Italian, and by extension Mediterranean, viewers were already well acquainted with figural sculpture in alabaster by 1382, which is another possible reason for the large-scale diffusion of the English alabasters that are the focus of the present volume.

ENGLISH ALABASTER IMAGES AS RECIPIENTS OF MUSIC IN THE LONG FIFTEENTH CENTURY: ENGLISH SACRED TRADITIONS IN A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE † PHILIP WELLER AND ANDREW KIRKMAN

PROLOGUE: ETON COLLEGE, CIRCA 1480 1 From at least around 1480 – but probably also from much closer to the beginnings of Henry VI’s college in the 1440s (the official foundation was in 1440, a year before that of King’s College, Cambridge),2 – every evening after Vespers and Compline3 the singing men and choristers of Eton chapel 1 Eton College, founded in 1440, worshipped and sang its liturgical services until around 1480 in the local parish church, dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. Thereafter, the present chapel was used in its by then completed state (the projected nave was never built). The feast of the Assumption has always been its most important Marian symbol, as well as the date of its annual patronal festival and (in the pre-Reformation period) pilgrimage. 2 See Harrison, R., Our College Story: a short history of the King’s College of St Nicholas and Our Lady in Cambridge (Cambridge, 2015). The late-medieval musical tradition of King’s has been studied by Roger Bowers, but will still benefit from further study and extrapolation: Bowers, R., “Chapel and choir, liturgy and music, 1444–1644,” in J.M. Massing and N. Zeeman (eds), King’s College Chapel 1515–2015. Art, Music and Religion in Cambridge (London, 2014). 3 The daily Offices were Matins (Matutinae), Lauds (Laudes), Prime Terce, Sext, None, Vespers (Vesperae) and Compline (Completorium), with daily high Mass being celebrated usually at around 11 or 11.30 a.m. and other Masses for different purposes at different times of day, as scheduled. Musically, in addition to Mass the most important events were Matins,

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94 FIG. 4.1  (OPPOSITE) ENGLISH WORKSHOP, VIRGIN AND CHILD (‘THE FLAWFORD MADONNA’), C. 1360–80. 81.3 × 20.5 CM. THIS STATUE OF THE VIRGIN IS CROWNED (‘AVE REGINA CELORUM…’) AND WAS CLEARLY INTENDED, ALONG WITH ITS COMPANION STATUES OF ST PETER AS POPE (LITURGICALLY ROBED, IN MASS VESTMENTS) AND ST WILLIAM OF YORK (OR ELSE ST THOMAS BECKET), TO UNDERLINE NOT ONLY THE RITUAL AND DEVOTIONAL PRESENCE,

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processed down from their stalls in the chancel to a position below the rood screen, in a space open and accessible to the public. Here, a devotional action (the so-called ‘Salve ceremony’) was performed in honour of the Blessed Virgin, in front of her sculpted image (Our Lady of Eton).4 Music and intercession alike were directed, in principle and also in physical fact, towards this statue. The musical settings functioned as direct greetings and eulogies to Mary, the sculpture marking (physically) her sacred presence. Ceremony and devotion were material and spiritual at the same time. In this way, the statue of Mary and the Marian music were spatially and psychologically connected – and, moreover, all bystanders were in theory made welcome for the sequence of short prayers and devotional texts that were chanted and recited at this event. The texts were preceded and/or followed by a polyphonic votive antiphon, a sophisticated and sometimes richly elaborate musical genre which enjoyed the greatest imaginable popularity in the later Middle Ages in many types of institutions and choral foundations, as well as in smaller churches.5 This type of votive event was thus an important point of access to art and music, in a devotional context, for the general, non-clerical public. This scene – of a shared moment of ‘poetic’ devotion and ceremony, (re) enacted day by day in front of a revered cultic statue, and performed with music and lighting of technical and aesthetic sophistication – was both special (in its poetry and beauty) and ordinary (in its regularity). It may stand as an illustrative and perhaps emblematic prologue to the present study. It was a type of scene that was repeated all over England, indeed all over Catholic Europe, from the fourteenth through to the sixteenth century, in a variety of ways and styles. It was more or less universally observed and, in addition to a procession to and from the statue, consisted (as we have indicated) of simple, spoken texts and chanted melodies, with or without the addition of full-blown polyphony of the complexity and sophistication found at Eton and other similarly endowed choral foundations. Either way, it involved the close co-operation of image and

BUT ALSO THE FUNCTIONAL ROLE OF SUCH IMAGES WITHIN EVEN A MODEST PARISH CHURCH SETTING SUCH AS FLAWFORD. NOTTINGHAM, NOTTINGHAM CASTLE MUSEUM

Vespers, sometimes Compline, and the votive ‘Salve ceremony’ for the Virgin after the end of the other Offices, performed last thing in the evening (in theory around dusk). A useful and easily consultable online historical and critical edition of the surviving Sarum liturgy and chant, published by the Gregorian Institute of Canada, is available at http:// hmcwordpress.mcmaster.ca/renwick/ (edited by William Renwick of McMaster University). 4 The college’s title and dedication were specifically enshrined in the foundation documents as the ‘Kynge’s College of Our Ladie of Eton besyde Wyndesore’, with the Assumption as its annual patronal festival. The daily ‘Salve ceremony’ (as it is usually known today) was one of the cornerstones of its ritual and devotional functioning as a chantry college of broad scope and copious liturgical-musical resources. 5 The Eton Choirbook itself (Eton College, MS 178) contains many wonderful examples of polyphonic Marian antiphons, though few that are technically and stylistically straightforward enough to have been suitable for smaller (indeed, most) churches, which would obviously have used much simpler types of piece – or even just chant, which could in both principle and practice have been sung by all those present, collectively. Chant is always the default form of sacred song in Latin.

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music, as well as of coordinated words and actions. Unfortunately, we do not know (crucially) whether the Eton statue of Our Lady was of alabaster.6 But it very easily could have been – we are at this time, in the mid-to-later fifteenth century, somewhere past the midpoint of the richest alabaster carving period for English sacred art, – and it is clear that some of the finest surviving examples of independent single figures of the Virgin and Child – even, perhaps, the majority of them – represent a type of image that would have fulfilled the important role of being a revered cultic statue in just this way. In principle, then, any one of the surviving large-scale, independent Marian statues in alabaster – the Flawford Madonna (Fig. 4.1), the newly acquired and conserved British Museum Virgin and Child (Pls I, II), the beautiful and under-appreciated enthroned statue in Cologne, and many others besides7 – could have fulfilled this precise function. Thus we have a potentially viable functional typology to go on for music and image, if not precise documentary confirmation. 6 We know that it apparently did have gilding, but then so too did many alabaster statues, in their origins (most of them also had rich polychromy.) The royal chapel of St George at Windsor, close by Eton on the other side of the river, famously took delivery of a very large alabaster reredos for the high altar in the 1360s (ordered from Peter Maceon [i.e. the Mason] of Nottingham). There are pilgrim badges from Eton which show the iconography of Our Lady of the Assumption, and a coloured badge of Our Lady of the Assumption stands on the façade of Lupton’s Tower in School Yard (constructed in 1520), round from the west end of the chapel. Anyone making the pilgrimage to Eton on the actual feast of the Assumption (15 August) was deemed to have merited a plenary indulgence. 7 References here and in subsequent footnotes are to Cheetham, F., Alabaster Images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003). See also, for the Virgin and Child and other Marian types, Land, K., Die englischen Alabastermadonnen des Späten Mittelalters (Düsseldorf, 2011).

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Henry VI would also have been acutely aware of the presence of the monumental alabaster reredos (ordered under Edward III in 1367, and costing as much as £200) which decorated the high altar in the (pre-Edward IV) castle chapel of St George’s, Windsor where he had been born, just over the river from Eton.8 The growing prestige of alabaster as a medium for sculpture at this period, and its symbolic value for the Lancastrian dynasty from as early as circa 1330, cannot have been lost on him.9 The St George’s high altarpiece was an absolutely major historical example even though we know nothing of it, visually or iconographically. It was one of the great early monumental examples of sacred alabaster carving of a large-scale, architectonic kind, and absolutely must have dominated the old chapel, visually speaking. We do not know how long it lasted as the fixed reredos, nor in particular whether it outlived the great rebuilding of the chapel from 1475 onwards, though it seems likely that it probably did.10 We can say, however, that it would have witnessed, spatially and acoustically, all the Mass celebrations and other liturgical-ceremonial events performed in music that went on in the chapel (Matins, Lauds, Vespers, obits, commemorative and Garter ceremonies…) during the long period of ascendancy of the chapel as an institution, following its rise to royal and cultural eminence under Edward III.11 Furthermore, in addition to its extant statutes and (in part) documentable musical repertory,12 Eton is one of the only places in England where late-medieval wall paintings still survive in situ (the medieval stained glass windows have gone),13 visually recording 8 See above, note 6 and Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of English Medieval Alabaster Works held in the Rooms of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1913), 3. 9 Tutbury, Fauld and Chellaston were all part of the feudal domain of John of Gaunt, whence (almost certainly) came the sumptuous alabaster tomb effigies of Edward II (Gloucester), Henry IV (Canterbury) and others besides, which took their origin and social prestige from this connection (including the tombs of John of Gaunt himself, his wife Philippa, Queen Isabella and so on). See Ramsay, N., “Alabaster,” in J. Blair and N. Ramsay (eds), English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products (London, 1991), 29–40: 31–6. 10 The great rebuilding, initiated by Edward IV, took over fifty years (1475–1528), being finished only under Henry VIII, therefore. The earlier chapel (founded by Henry III, within which Edward III’s college was accommodated) had been dedicated to Edward the Confessor, with a later combined dedication to the Blessed Virgin and St George the Martyr. Though we know nothing of the great reredos of the 1360s, it seems on the face of it unlikely that so extensive an altarpiece, with such a pedigree, would have been dispensed with until the destruction of images in the 1540s. 11 There is a range of studies which help to furnish an account of this early growth of the chapel and its liturgical functioning from the date of its refounding (at the same time as St Stephen’s, Westminster) in 1348. See inter alia Saul, N. (ed.), St George’s, Windsor in the Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005). 12 The Eton Choirbook (Eton College, MS. 178), facsimile edition with an introduction by M. Williamson (Oxford, 2010). This copious and detailed introduction contains all the important bibliographical references necessary for further study. 13 As a result, the immersive yet articulate visual environment created by the effects of the best stained-glass schemes needs, as in the case of Tattershall College, to be

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miraculous stories of the Virgin14 in a place where her liturgy would have been most conscientiously practised and celebrated, to the highest standard, and its relation to visual imagery understood. So while our immediate focus here is specifically on the interaction and range of meanings of musical polyphony and alabaster carvings, there are in fact multiple possibilities for study, documentation, reconstruction and interpretation within this fruitful area of art and music in sacred and domestic spaces across a wide spectrum in late-medieval England.

MATERIALS, APPROACH, INTERPRETATION English alabasters and English sacred polyphony shared a broadly common historical destiny – in terms of cultural usage and dissemination, and of their wider reputation – during the long fifteenth century. They both enjoyed not only a period of high artistic flourishing but also a parallel regional, national and international career that extended over the course of the entire late medieval period. Our essay considers, beyond this shared artistic trajectory and wide dissemination, their physical proximity and their modes of interplay within liturgical and devotional contexts. It addresses the topic of how these forms of interaction might have occurred, experientially, for viewers and listeners in real time and space. It does so in both a historical and a ritual-cultural (that is, anthropological) perspective, setting out to pinpoint the evident cultural differences from today as well as the possibilities of reconstruction and renewal in the present – thus recognizing, while seeking also to bridge, the intellectual and experiential gaps between “then” and “now”. This chapter looks at the way English alabaster carvings were used and appreciated, in the long fifteenth century, as images embodying the sacred, and therefore as hallowed presences within devotional and liturgical spaces. Physical images were not just beautiful and decorative, they were an intrinsic part of the wider, shared religious and spiritual culture. They had spiritual value, they were revered and loved. This was the root of their popularity and utility, which, in addition to wide imaginatively reconstructed as far as is feasible. Extant models for how such schemes operated within entire church spaces can be found at Fairford (Gloucestershire) and King’s College, Cambridge. In both these places, stained glass panels of the Crucifixion and its attendant scenes surround, not unexpectedly, the high altar and sanctuary. 14 Williamson, M., “‘Pictura et scriptura’: The Eton Choirbook in its iconographical context,” Early Music 28:3 (2000), 359–80. A not dissimilar, if rather earlier, cycle of Marian wall paintings of the miracles survives at Winchester, in the Lady Chapel, recently reopened. The link here, in terms of initiative, iconography and also possibly finance for the Eton images, may have been William Waynflete, founder of Magdalen College, Oxford, who, in addition to his career in Winchester, was Provost of Eton in the 1440s, and remained all his life intensely loyal to Henry VI and the Lancastrian cause. The scheme of visual scenes for the miracles of the Virgin appears (unsurprisingly) to have been selected from Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea.

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availability of their materials and the craftsmanship that went into their making, created the impetus for alabaster production in such quantities and with such a wide-ranging social and economic, as well as devotional, remit.15 Our approach in this study is therefore broadly anthropological, and, without neglecting important artistic and technical matters, is grounded in social and cultural history. We intersect here with the history of religion, in both its liturgical-clerical and its popular, lay-oriented registers. We focus both on the nature of the artistic types themselves, as forms of expression, and on their various uses within real, defined social and psychological contexts – thereby working towards an understanding of the internal dynamic of how artistic and spiritual factors interact. Hence our study contributes to what might be termed a cultural history of devotional practices and values – the ways in which actual artistic manifestations fit within the shared (social and cultural) history of religion, helping to illuminate and articulate it afresh in vivid, experiential terms. In parallel with this sacred alabaster strand, our chapter also considers (mainly polyphonic) English music as a complement to the spatial and visual dimension – sacred music as it is ‘received by’ sacred images, as it is experienced by those attending to the images and ritual, and, more widely, to the whole perceptual field: listeners, observers, and the participants and performers themselves.16 Music and image are specifically located, both physically and psychologically, and are also mutually enriching – thereby working in complementary fashion within this frame of perception. We ask the question (answering it in both general and specific ways): how did image and music interact in the long fifteenth century, within a multisensory religious environment; and how did this then stimulate, or allow for, the new creation of a wider, culturally framed, synergy of meaning? Finally, there is also an important cultural-historical – and more generally historiographical – strand to our account, in the sense that English polyphony enjoyed at precisely this period as great a breadth of European diffusion and renown as did alabaster sculpture itself; perhaps, if anything, even greater. Little has so far been made, on the critical15 The present study into late-medieval religious – specifically, liturgical and devotional – contexts, and the rôle played in such contexts by the arts of sung polyphony and alabaster carving, represents a cultural-historical approach aiming to bring music and image into closer relation. It is related also to an ongoing research and performance project (see next footnote). Fundamental are the writings of Francis Cheetham, especially English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984), and the already mentioned Alabaster Images. 16 This broad area of research, performance and multisensory display forms the kernel of our current English Music and Alabasters Project, conducted in partnership between the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham, the Castle Museum, Nottingham and the Castle Museum, Norwich. See also Kirkman, A. and Weller, P., “Music and image/image and music: the creation and meaning of visual-aural force-fields in the later Middle Ages,” Early Music 45:3 (2017), 55–75.

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historiographical level, of this parallel transmission as an element of the written history of late-medieval art and culture. Exploring it with renewed energy allows us to map the artistic traditions both in technical and aesthetic detail, and in a wider cultural-anthropological sense. Vocal music of different kinds served, through regular performance, to endow ritual and devotional activity (including personal, interior spirituality) with perpetually renewable vitality, colour, and expressive movement. Image and music complemented one another in the fullest sense, and inhabited sacred (public) as well as domestic (private) spaces. Here, then, is a parallel cultural and artistic transmission not just within the English sphere, but throughout Europe. It is one of those rare moments when English art – in two media simultaneously – was at the European cutting edge.17

IMAGE, MUSIC, AND SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CULTURE What does all this mean? First, it reminds us that religious culture and experience were not merely text or book-based, but multisensory. Religious culture, both public and private, certainly operated within a range of powerful codes and conventions, and according to a multiplicity of rules and written texts. But it also went far beyond these regulatory formalities: it sought vital expression in a multitude of ways, often concurrently, within broadly conceived yet also detailed, closely calibrated multisensory environments. Second, it tells us that wide social involvement in the arts within the religious sphere was direct, and culturally significant. In church, lay people did not have access to the chancel, observing High Mass and Vespers from a ‘poetic’ distance, looking on into the space of the choir and sanctuary from beyond the rood screen. But they could always be close to other altars, and often enjoyed a real social presence and influence of their own not just in the nave and some (at least) of the nave’s side chapels (including those maintained by guilds and confraternities), but also in such important spaces as the Lady Chapel. This occurred, moreover, in all sizes and ranks of church from the modest parish establishment through collegiate foundations to (even) the great secular or monastic cathedrals. Part of the rationale of the present study and its parent project is precisely to trace the concurrent experience of music and alabaster across a wide social and liturgical-devotional range, and to draw on the historiographical, social-

17 In another applied art form, the European as well as national eminence of English embroidery from the beginning of the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century was shown in a fascinating and beautifully curated exhibition of ‘Opus Anglicanum’ work at the V&A (Browne, C., Davies, G. and Michael, M.A. [eds], English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum [New Haven and London, 2016]).

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cultural and performance-driven consequences of this for a broadened appreciation of these cultural and artistic practices today. Third, it acts as a corrective to the received idea that English art and artistry were essentially insular and rarely, if ever, at the European forefront, let alone the cutting edge. Here, by contrast, it becomes clear that not only was there strength-in-depth among English practitioners – composers, singers, sculptors – but that social and economic demand radiated out far from the immediate locale where alabaster was quarried and carved, to embrace much of the Christian world in the West.18 Here, then, religious, social and economic spheres co-operated – the alabaster corpus and the musical repertory (not to mention the performing musicians themselves) were able to come into being and operate as they did precisely because there was strong need and demand. The social and economic engine of art rested, in this case, in lay as well as clerical piety, channelled through the varied conduits of spiritual devotion, liturgical practice and cultural expression at all levels of society and in all types of institution. Fourth, it enables a combined view of the role of the arts within a shared religious culture that presents a model that is potentially useful not just for the English situation in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, and for the cultural interaction of England with Europe in those years (which is richer and more varied than is often assumed),19 but for our view of the sacred arts more widely in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance. The historical discourse of Enlightenment and nineteenth-century cultural history shaped a scholarly debate concerned less with the origins and uses of artefacts within the motivating frame of religious and social culture than with an emphasis on making and aesthetics, on biographies and workshop practices of artists and musicians, on stylistic development, on the genres in which they worked, and on the technical and aesthetic innovations they made. By contrast, in this project we aim for a complementary approach, looking for a range of contextual meanings and shared experiences of people inhabiting this culture, and the various types of problems the artists and musicians encountered and solved in addressing precisely these kinds of needs with artistic skill and an abiding sense of decorum and appropriateness.

18 One of the goals of the Music and Alabasters Project is to secure the collaboration of scholars abroad to chart and document, and to interpret, the appearance and uses of Midlands alabasters in continental contexts. 19 For Italy, see Murat, Z., “Medieval English Alabaster Sculptures: Trade and Diffusion in the Italian Peninsula,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 22 (2016), 399–413. There are also inventory-articles and catalogues setting out preliminary lists of alabasters, often published to accompany temporary exhibitions, as in the case of Flavigny, L. and Jablonski-Chauveau, C. (eds), D’Angleterre en Normandie: Sculptures d’albâtre du Moyen Age, Exh. Cat., Rouen, Musée Départemental des Antiquités and Evreux, Musée de l’Ancien Evêché (Rouen, 1997).

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MATERIAL AND SOUNDING CULTURE: ALABASTERS AND MUSIC IN THEIR PERCEPTUAL WORLD As our title states, the starting point for this study is the idea of alabasters as ‘recipients’ of music.20 But in what sense, exactly? And how does this then affect our understanding and appreciation of these sculptural artefacts as sacred presences, and as integral to the medieval spaces they once inhabited? Such an approach moves us, on a scholarly and interpretive level, towards a (partial) historical and historiographical synthesis in the manner of a carefully researched, but broad-based, Kulturwissenschaft. The first way of approaching music–art relations needs to address the question of location and function, something which it is possible – at least in part – to reconstruct. Also partly traceable through archival sources, though to some extent inevitably more hypothetical, are the cultural and psychological values which would have informed the viewer’s and listener’s (and indeed any participant’s) attitude to the whole multisensory environment of liturgical and devotional performance, as a living encounter in real time. We need therefore to try to understand this relationship both in terms of physical and spatial (i.e. material) culture and also socially and psychologically – what actually happened in front of these sculptures, and why? What was the nature of such an encounter? What did people do, and say, and sing about? How, in other words, does tangible heritage relate to its wider network of (mostly intangible) human aspects and circumstances? An important corollary to this is an attempt to understand the notion of the images as ‘receiving’ music also in a modern sense, in the creation of new meaning for modern ears and eyes through live (and also recorded or audio-visual) performance. In other words: what can it mean for us to witness such performance, and how does it enrich our immediate musical and visual experience? How, too, does this new knowledge then transform our historical understanding? Experiencing art and music directly changes our knowledge of them, just as multisensory perceptions inflect and colour our knowledge of each art gained in isolation. Such an interpretive move is designed to offer the scholar, the medieval enthusiast, and the modern public generally the possibility of a new quality of attention and understanding gained through multisensory contemplation, as well as through live and recorded performance and through written scholarship. And while our experience today can obviously never replicate that of the past, it can at least offer a real sense of the synergy of perceptions that earlier viewersand-listeners took for granted. 20

See Kirkman and Weller, “Music and image”.

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While presenting in the end only an analogy of past dimensions of experience, then, what we offer is nevertheless an informed and historically grounded one – one that, moreover, can open up through performance a vivid and evocative glimpse of the circumstances of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century religious practice, with its distinctive modes of public and private devotion. Within this culture, the proximity and interaction of music, text, image and internal architecture was part of the warp and weft of religious experience. Viewing and listening, acts which today are habitually thought of as essentially passive, acts of mere absorption, were at that time – ideally – seen as fully engaged and active, informing and stimulating deep engagement with the experience at hand, along with the help of ancillaries such as books of hours, personal religious objects, and varied spiritual texts. In the case of music (of whatever type), the insistent problem of what actually constitutes the historical object – since the musical score and the notation are not enough, in themselves, without an informed sense of performance and performing traditions, of vocal sonority and interpretation, of historical perspective, and so on – greatly complicates the issue. Before we can put image together with music we first have to reconstruct, interpretively, what exactly the sound-world of the music, imaginatively and acoustically speaking, is going to be (always bearing in mind that music, when sung, in effect takes over the expressive articulation and intentionality of the words). In truth, we do not empirically know enough about vocality and ensemble singing in this period, nor about its variability between different geographical centres. Performance practice research and also practical developments over the past several decades have put us in a more promising position to be able to combine a greater degree of historical plausibility with the possibility of directly expressive aural appreciation and communication. And this directness of ‘live utterance’ is in itself, anyway, a profoundly historical category.

SCHOLARLY, INTERPRETIVE AND PERFORMANCE PERSPECTIVES Even given the relative scarcity of documentary evidence, it is still important (a) to be able to show what the historical intersections and connections (and also the special modalities of those connections) might be; and (b) to use corroborative evidence − archival and literary documentation, other sacred objects and church interiors, surviving stained glass, and decorative or iconographical schemes – to fill out our knowledge of sacred spaces and their (very varied) uses, and thus of how alabasters and music would have fitted into them. How, then, were such things experienced? This was, after all, their purpose. While historical sources can provide some information, we need, on the basis of such evidential leads, to (re)enact performatively –

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in thought, of course, but also to some extent in practical reality – these kinds of situations and processes, in order to grasp experientially as many aspects and dimensions of the original setting as possible.21 How, for example, does a Marian antiphon or a Latin invocation in music (eulogistic motet, devotional song, commemorative suffrage, lyrical plea, intercessory chant…) resonate with the images by which it is faced, or to which it is presented? How does an Alma redemptoris mater chant, or a three-voice setting of the same text in polyphony, or a polyphonic Mass setting based in turn on the chant, interact with a statue of Our Lady, or a seated Madonna and Child, a panel of the Coronation or the Assumption of the Virgin, or a complete altarpiece of the Joys of the Virgin including (for instance) the Annunciation and the Tree of Jesse? To begin with, the sacred texts and music were made to be directed towards the sacred presence, and so (in turn) towards the physical representations of that presence. ‘Staging’ the sacred and ‘invoking’ the sacred was a combined, artistic-and-magical act. And we need to remember that saintly figures – and especially that of the Virgin – carried a sacred identity and presence, but also embodied different aspects and attributes. The enyclopedically learned and ‘classic’ text of the spiritual virtues and physical attributes/epithets of the Virgin Mary, from the high Middle Ages, is undoubtedly the Mariale of (pseudo) Albertus Magnus.22 How, then, do other images of other subjects and other saints, in turn, relate to musical settings from their relevant liturgical repertories? The answer is that they enter into a reciprocal relationship – both in general ambience, in terms of spatial and acoustic setting, and in particular matters of detail. The Blessed Virgin, however, offers a pre-eminent case of what was standard in the invocation of the saints. In the case of the Marian Alma Redemptoris text we may note that it asks for mercy and help, while going on to refer, in simple terms, to the technicalities of the Annunciation and the Incarnation (themes which are almost always sensed in the background of Marian devotion):

21 The notion of history, historiography and Kulturwissenschaft as resting on a foundation of (re)enactment in thought, and to some extent in actual performance and perception (in empirical doing-and-making, for example), has strong roots in the thinking of the great and polymathic – though in many ways also idiosyncratic – philosopher, practitioner, and archaeologist R.G. Collingwood (1889–1943). See, for probably the best all-round technical and thematic survey of his thinking in different areas and epistemological positions, the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood/; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ collingwood-aesthetics/. 22 The so-called Mariale was always, until quite recently, ascribed to Albertus Magnus (St Albert the Great; 1193–1280), the great German Dominican philosopher and theologian. It deals exhaustively, in almost eulogistic fashion, with the virtues and qualities and the literary epithets of the Blessed Virgin, within devotional and theological literature.

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Thou that remainest the portal of heaven,

[Tu] quæ….. cæli porta manes,

and the star of the sea,

stella maris,

have mercy on one who is falling … succúrre cadénti… … thou that gavest birth,

… tu quæ genuísti,

in sight of Nature in wonderment,

natúra miránte,

to thy divine parent, ever-virgin,

tuum sanctum genitórem, prius ac postérius,

receiving the Ave from the mouth of Gabriel,

Gabriélis ab ore sumens illud Ave,

have mercy on us sinners.

peccatórum miserére.

These types of antiphons (further discussed below) are hence typically able to offer a general theological and spiritual sense, as well as fulfilling a practical and immediate devotional purpose. Meaning and range of reference go hand in hand with affective response. They take their place within a sacred space created by a church interior, its architecture and acoustics, together with the image and lighting deemed suitable. This kind of multisensory environment is immersive, yes, but also detailed and connective – the points of intersection, where music resonates keenly with image, are clear but may often be fleeting, even when they are most intense. Here, we have an intercessory and devotional tone, but with subtle allusions to the Annunciation and the Incarnation. The resonant moments, however short, nevertheless always aspire towards the condition of a nexus, a point of focus, of a perceptual coming-together of ideas and motifs, offering in combination a real moment of illumination, of understanding and new meaning, that is more than the sum of its parts.

ALABASTER IMAGES: TYPES, THEMES, AND FUNCTIONS As is known, the surviving alabaster corpus divides broadly speaking – in terms of the physical object – into larger-scale, usually independent statues, and the much more numerous small-scale scenes carved in relief on panels (tabulae).23 Most of these smaller, often flatter panels would originally have been presented within the familiar framed altarpieces of horizontal format, usually of five but sometimes of seven panels, the fivepanel scheme being either with or without end statues at the extremities of the frame.24 Multipartite altarpieces of this kind offered a wider narrative 23 The term tabula seems to have been used, at times inconsistently, both for individual panels and, on occasion, for complete altarpieces, diptychs or retables. 24 It may well be that some five-panel altarpieces (the Passion altarpiece in Nottingham

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(and sometimes a conceptual or theological) setting for the individual scenes, while the central panel was often taller and more prominent, and might take on a special character, typically (though not necessarily always) related to the ritual nature of the altar as the dedicated site of the celebration of Mass.25 Most of the visual features can, in principle, be addressed by sung or spoken liturgical and devotional words, and thus, by extension, by polyphonic music carrying the appropriate type(s) of text and being voiced (sung) at the appropriate moments. The function of the altar is, then, by definition Eucharistic. Crucifixions and Trinity-Crucifixions26 were therefore common as central panels, of course, but more specialised scenes such as the Mass of St Gregory can also be found.27 Celebratory and hieratic Marian scenes such as the Assumption or the Coronation (occasionally with all three persons of the Trinity doing the crowning),28 were also sometimes placed as central panels in Marian altarpieces – and it is plausible to think of these images too as being destined for Lady chapels, where both Office and Mass would have been celebrated on a (probably) daily basis. Iconography in these altarpiece formats has to take account not only of the dedication of the church, or chapel, or altar, but also, more specifically, of the varied locations of such altars within a wider, multi-altar church space. Religious observance, while consistent and governed by rules and conventions, was Castle Museum is a case in point) may have lost their end statues over the course of time, but that they probably originally had them. The study not only of the physical typology and classification of alabasters, but of their structural, stylistic and iconographical features, was initiated from around 1890 by St John Hope, Gardner, Prior and their associates – see in particular Illustrated Catalogue, passim. 25 Here is not the place for a full technical and anthropological account of the altar and its accoutrements in their historical development. Illuminating studies include Kroesen, J.E.A. and Schmidt, V.M. (eds), The Altar and Its Environment, 1150–1400 (Turnhout, 2010), and Binski, P., “Statues, Retables and Ciboria: the English gothic altarpiece in context, before 1350,” ibidem, 31–46. It is important to recall that the high altar, and all the subsidiary altars in larger churches, always comprised the primary spatial and visual focus, and gave the sense of axis, orientation, and perspective. 26 Narrative or dramatic Crucifixion scenes are self-explanatory. ‘Trinity-Crucifixion’ refers to the iconography of the Throne of Mercy in which the seated figure of God the Father holds the crucified Christ between his knees, with the dove of the Holy Spirit often appearing just above the top of the Cross – this iconography usefully references not just the omnipresent theology of the Trinity, but also the overtly sacrificial nature of the altar. We use the term Trinity-Crucifixion here, as signifying clearly the composite nature of the image, which gives it greater depth and a wider range of reference. 27 Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 42 lists seven such surviving Mass of St Gregory panels. One of these, in a framed altarpiece in the church of Montréal (Yonne, Burgundy, France), stands as the taller central panel of a Virgin altarpiece (Illustrated Catalogue, Pl. VII, Fig. 15), thus clearly emphasizing the Eucharistic nature of, say, the Lady Mass (‘Missa De beata Virgine’) at a Marian altar within a designated aisle or Lady Chapel. This sacrificial/sacramental element is also strongly emphasized by the end statues of St Lawrence and St Stephen (both deacons, and liturgically robed). On the Montréal altarpiece, see Stevenson, W., “Art Sculpture in Alabaster preserved in France, considered in its relationship to the Nottingham School of Alabasterers,” Transactions of the Thoroton Society XI (1907), 89–98. 28 See Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 99–106.

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never fully standardised, especially not in the pre-Trent, pre-Reformation era. Different chapels and altars would witness subtly different liturgies and sung devotions; and so the way in which image and music resonated together would depend, in part, on these wider factors. We cannot always judge precisely how and in what order the now typically separated alabaster panels were combined, and therefore how they were thematically presented, nor which end-statues would have been thought appropriate and why. There are widely used conventional orderings, but these do not hold true in every case. Sometimes, complex juxtapositions are encountered (as for example in the combination of a central Mass of St Gregory image with a broader Marian iconography). Examples of altarpieces that have survived in a complete, framed state obviously help enormously, but can only go part of the way. Certain formulae and iconographic solutions are obvious enough, but this is not by any means always the case. A wider liturgical and musical approach can aid in precisely this sort of case in promoting a close, historically informed reading of the sculptures by reference to spiritual and doctrinal ideas, and to liturgical practice. It is possible, then, inferentially, to establish an idea at least of how the patterns of liturgical and devotional themes – theological ideas and topical motifs within the sacred narratives, for example – may have resonated with the more obviously artistic visual detail and expression of the sculptures. From here we may further consider how such themes could have intersected with the Latin text and its musical settings in the plainsong Mass and Office, and specifically in the corpus of available English polyphonic settings.29 All these thematic factors relate not only to original viewing and listening conditions, but also to ritual and devotional usage. Physical format and placement affect the nature and function of an image, and its perceived effect. The different physical formats represent different spatial locations and hence, to an extent, different modes of human attentiveness given to the image. Any independent cultic statue, most often of the Virgin Mary30 (but other types are in existence, notably the Trinity-Crucifixion),31 29 So far as narrative context and the wider scenario for any individual saint are concerned, the Office texts and chants for particular feasts frequently allude to the signal events of the saint’s life, as a kind of sung vita or historia, as if orally recounting the nature-and-narrative of the saint’s earthly life, in illustration and justification of their virtue and hence sainthood. Mass texts (i.e. of the varying ‘proper of the Mass’ for the day, known as the Proprium Missæ) are much more compact and selective, often more theologically oriented. 30 Cultic statues of the Virgin Mary must have been very numerous (one in every church, at a minimum), and examples of them survive in a variety of formats – often of high sculptural quality, in different styles and designs. They were one of the most prominent forms of high-level alabaster sculpture, with an obvious public rôle within sacred spaces (see Land, Die englischen Alabastermadonnen). 31 Trinity-Crucifixions of large, cultic type, apparently to be wall mounted, are found for instance in the Burrell Collection (Glasgow), and at Kilkenny (Ireland). Cheetham,

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represents without question an obligatory, commanding sacred presence. It would have been revered as such and would have received in both speech and song the gift of formal liturgies, personal devotions, other ceremonies, invocations and prayers of all kinds, in a very immediate and palpable way. Here music was directed towards the sacred presence in its material form, being at the same time diffused, acoustically, within the building. Such statues were hallowed and venerated in real time, and addressed directly – frequently in direct speech and often in the singular, familiar Latin form (‘tu’ and ‘te’), as in this ubiquitous and universally known Marian antiphon: Salve Regina (Marian votive antiphon)32 Salve, Regina, mater misericordiæ:

Hail, Queen [of Heaven], mother of mercy,

Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

Our life, our sweetness, and our hope: Hail.

Ad te clamamus exsules…

To thee we cry, [poor] exiles…

Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos

Turn then, most gracious advocate

misericordes oculos ad nos converte; thine eyes in mercy towards us…

The entreating, personal note is unmistakable; while the graphic details of the Virgin’s gaze and eyes link directly to the world of visual contemplation, and the physical presence of the alabaster Madonnas.33 We should note, too, the common habit shown here – as also in the antiphons ‘Regina cæli’ and ‘Ave regina cælorum’ – of addressing Mary easily, almost familiarly, as Queen of Heaven.34 This queenliness (not a biblical way of viewing her) was one of her Alabaster Images, 147–53 lists different iconographic types, but puts the larger, more monumental cultic statues together with the smaller panels. 32 The Salve Regina is one of the four famous seasonal Marian antiphons. The ‘Salve ceremony’ may in some places have privileged this chant over the other three, giving rise to the name. The guilds of St George and St Mary in the church of St Peter’s, Nottingham, for example, regularly paid the parish clerk ‘6s. 8d. for the observance [performance] of Mass and “le Salve” [or] the Antiphon daily (cum nota)’ – probably this means attending, participating in and singing, and assisting the celebrating priest or chaplain at the daily guild Mass; and the ‘Salve’ reference probably indicates the ringing of the Salve bell and singing at the Marian ceremony. See Hodgkinson, R.F.B. (ed.), The Account Books of the Gilds of St George and of St Mary in the Church of St Peter, Nottingham, Thoroton Society Record Series, 7 (Nottingham, 1939), 22, 23 etc. and then repeated through most of the yearly accounts (passim). 33 See Land, Die englischen Alabastermadonnen. 34 Thus giving extra force and immediacy to the visual representations of her wearing a crown and bearing a branch or flowers, a reference also to her royal descent and lineage (as expressed symbolically in the phrases ‘Stirps Iesse’ and ‘Virga Iesse’), and in the larger iconographic scheme of the Jesse Tree, which groups together King David and the Virgin

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principal medieval rôles and attributes, referenced both visually and textually as well as theologically; and yet the human relationship to her is at the same time an intimate, first-person one. It is not difficult, from considering this straightforward and very accessible example, to understand how interior thought, spiritual intention, murmured or recited prayer, plainsong and polyphonic musical settings all express – each in its own way, along a continuum, and in varied combination – an act of address and loyalty towards an admired and respected statue. This is the wider spiritual framework within which English music was addressed – in ritual, rhetorical and devotional terms, – towards a type of sacred sculpture exactly contemporary with it, or, in the case of the earlier, fourteenthcentury examples, fashioned within known memory.

ALABASTER IMAGES: FORM, FUNCTION, ICONOGRAPHY Form, function, style and expression in principle work in parallel. The physical types of alabaster sculpture, and their likely locations, conditioned their purposes and uses, their meanings, and to an extent also their expressive character and iconography – not just in the abstract, but when combined with different internal architectural settings, and with different types of sacred text and song, as used on different kinds of ceremonial or devotional occasion. (1) CULTIC STATUES Typically, the larger types of alabaster figure (carved in high relief, usually giving the impression of being freestanding) would have served as cultic statues, that is, as sculpted images marking specific sacred presences within specific sacred spaces, over an altar, within a wooden tabernacle, or in a separate chapel – most commonly, a statue of the Madonna, of the Madonna and Child, of the Coronation or Assumption of the Virgin, positioned within the Lady Chapel or Marian aisle, if there was one in the church.35 They would have been the direct recipients of spoken or sung devotions, intercession and invocation, antiphons and hymns, the ‘Little’ or the ‘Full Office’ (Officium Parvum or Plenum) of the Virgin found in Books of Hours and in Sarum service books,36 and the regular Lady Mass (whether weekly or daily, either chanted or with polyphony). and Child with others in an ensemble of figures stemming from Jesse, father of David (for some surviving panels see Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 71). 35 See Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 89–92 and Figs 68–73 (Figs 74–77 show examples of small independent statues of the Pietà). 36 Renwick’s edition (2012) is found within The Sarum Rite – Office – Latin Breviary Noted, ‘Psalterium A-14’ (2012), where it is titled ‘Servitium’ rather than ‘Officium’ (both terms are encountered).

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(2) ALTARPIECES As indicated above, the standard-sized alabaster narrative panels were typically formed into box-framed altarpieces to stand upon altars. Slightly larger individual panels – perhaps of more pronounced cultic, theological or ritual character, and visually with a strong vertical axis – may well have been positioned above altars as a ‘focal point’ for the chapel. The horizontally constructed altarpieces required reading from left to right, usually with some special significance attaching to the central image, and, exceptionally, with a two-tiered construction dedicated to two different subjects or saints – a form of presentation which can be mirrored very closely in the layered polytextuality of certain polyphonic motets, such as the pair of three-voice works from the musical chapel of Henry V by Damett and Cooke which were addressed to the Blessed Virgin and St George simultaneously – thereby in effect tracing the layered iconographical structure of the two-tiered Virgin Mary–St George alabaster altarpiece found at La Celle, Normandy.37 A mirroring of this kind shows a deep structural parallel in thinking between the functioning of music and image. (3) SMALLER FRAMED PANELS, SINGLE SCENES, DIPTYCHS We know too little about these smaller formats, because few, if any, frames have survived. But from the very sparse archival evidence available it seems likely that individual panels – perhaps framed individually, or else placed within small wooden tabernacles, closing with doors – were destined for votive and ad hoc use in church, hung or placed on pillars, on the rood screen, or on smaller altars within chapels. Even in the case of the later tradition of the St John’s Heads, we should beware of classifying all of these simply as objects of private devotion: some of the larger and more richly decorated examples might easily have been hung as plaques or votive panels in churches and side chapels, or on pillars. Guilds and 37 Two-tiered altarpieces must surely have encouraged a more complex, layered form of reading and response in the viewer: Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 162–3, lists two, the St George–Virgin Mary altarpiece at La Celle/La Selle (Eure, Normandy, France), and a St Martin–Virgin Mary example in Génissac (Bordeaux, Gironde). Others must certainly have existed. The two early fifteenth-century motets by Chapel Royal composers which address the Virgin and St George simultaneously (as music can do where speech cannot) are: [?Thomas] Damett’s Salvatoris mater pia / O Georgi Deo care (O454) and John Cooke’s Alma proles / Christi miles (O40; see The Binchois Consort, Music for Henry V and the House of Lancaster, Hyperion Records CDA 67868 [2010], tracks 12 and 13). References to all musical works (prefaced by the letters O, M or C) are given according to Curtis, G. and Wathey, A., “Fifteenth-Century English Liturgical Music: A List of the Surviving Repertory,” Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 27 (1994), 1–69. Revised online version by James Cook and Peter Wright (2017, http://www.eecm.ac.uk/ sourcesdatabases/). The most extensive and detailed study of this two–tiered arrangement is Riches, J.E.S., “The La Selle Retable: An English Alabaster Altarpiece in Normandy”, PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 1999.

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confraternities of St John existed; his liturgical feasts were universally observed; and the Head of St John certainly acquired sacramental significance, coming to signify the power of the Eucharistic sacrifice and thus thematically related to Corpus Christi.38 The smaller, individual panels would, as a matter of course, also have been used for individual, private or domestic use by pious bourgeois men and women. This category applies potentially to all types of image, but especially to the very popular St John’s Heads, production of which seems to have been a speciality of Nottingham itself, in later years.39 In sum, we need also to consider the wider private use of single panels by (for example) spiritual conversi, anchorites, secular contemplatives, and so forth. Much social and documentary research remains to be done, so as to arrive at a clearer idea of who owned and used what particular kinds of alabasters, and to what purpose. Once we have begun to envisage more concretely the spaces and uses for sculpted figures and panels, it is easy to see that cultic statues were especially important. Like miraculous images (which functioned at a still higher religious level),40 they were in a sense ‘living’ embodiments rather than ‘mere’ representations: their physical setting and appearance incorporated also the presumption of the viewer’s presence in a wider reality. The ‘liveness’ of expression of music helped, in turn, to endow this whole scene with a lived and living quality.41 Such images were always the locus of a revered sacred presence, ritually and devotionally; and they provided a means of access to the beyond, and thus a vehicle in real time and space for invocation in words, song, chant, polyphonic music. Thus, as we have indicated, examples such as the statues of the Virgin we have illustrated (Washington, Nottingham, Westminster…) would have been the recipients of spoken, recited, and 38 Rubin, M., Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), 315–16 (further English references can be traced quite widely). In the Low Countries, too, compare Baert, B., Caput Johannis in Disco: Essay on a Man’s Head (Leiden and Boston, 2012), and also Masciandaro, N., “‘Non potest hoc corpus decollari’: Beheading and the Impossible,” in L. Tracy and J. Massey (eds), Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 15–36: 21–5. 39 This fact was first discussed by St John Hope, W.H., “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets called St John’s Heads,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to Antiquity LII:2 (1890), 669–708, and was more widely publicised in Illustrated Catalogue, 12, 14. 40 There is a significant and interesting, if not voluminous, scholarly literature on miraculous images and image-cults from an art-historical and cultural-anthropological standpoint. See the studies by Holmes, M., The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence (New Haven and London, 2013); and by Garnett, J. and Rosser, G., Transforming Images in Italy from the Renaissance to the Present (London, 2013). 41 Compare the nuanced accounts of the relationship between image and viewer (embracing also collective bystanders), and between absence and presence as a dialectical function of the material/spiritual functions of representation in sacred images, in the publications of Beate Fricke. See for example her Fallen Idols, Risen Saints: Sainte Foy of Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art (Turnhout, 2015) and her recent public lecture ‘Miracles of Mediation’ (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, 8 May 2018).

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FIG. 4.2  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN, C. 1400–1410. 101.6 × 58.4 CM. A FINELY EXECUTED PANEL, WHOSE SCALE MAKES IT CLEAR THAT IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN MOUNTED INTO THE WALL ABOVE A MARIAN ALTAR, WHERE IT WOULD HAVE RECEIVED SPEECH AND MUSIC IN LITURGICAL AND DEVOTIONAL CONTEXTS, INCLUDING THE OFFICE AND MASS OF THE VIRGIN, AND VOTIVE CEREMONIES, OFTEN WITH POLYPHONIC SINGING. IT MAY WELL HAVE ADORNED A LADY CHAPEL. BIRMINGHAM,

sung texts of all kinds.42 The relationship of both clergy and laity to an image of this kind was, in a sense, obligatory and non-negotiable. They were to be reverenced, and addressed decorously, in both liturgical and devotional fashion and with appropriate kinds of music. 42 The paraliturgical ‘Salve ceremonies’ were typically conducted in richly embellished ceremonial and musical form in larger collegiate and cathedral churches, from at least the time of the later (Lancastrian) Plantagenets onwards. The example at the outset, that of Eton College in the later fifteenth century, is an illustrated instance of this and has music for it surviving in the Eton Choirbook (MS 178).

BARBER INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

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CASE STUDIES: IMAGERY AND IMAGE TYPES, CONNECTED WITH “THEMED” MASSES AND MOTETS Our chosen illustrations of Marian statues (Pls I, II, VII; Figs 4.1–4.4) show a varied group of figures, all broadly speaking of the cultic-image type yet stylistically distinct and very individual, in both design and artistry. They demonstrate that even when exercising the same kind of function, images could always present themselves as finely conceived figures of real character and individuality – coming from obviously different periods, hands and workshops. Like musical settings of the same or similar texts, they were able to embody different types of expression, while retaining a functional kinship – for in the case of musical settings, too, we note exactly the same combination of similarity and difference, of typicity and individuality, of the ‘merely’ functional and the ‘artistically’ conceived. There is no trace, in these Marian images, of the sculptural production line, of the readymade or merely adequate, of the rough and ready. So it is important, in this context, to take account of the fact that alabaster carvings (again like polyphonic music) in fact spanned the whole gamut of visual idiom, technique, stylistic register, and workmanship, from the level of fully individuated skill and eloquence to (especially in later times) the more obviously popular and mass produced. In terms of social history, this very multiplicity of levels of production is in any case revealing. These figures of Mary mark a sacred presence that typically combines a hieratic and ‘ennobled’ quality with an innate expressive intimacy and elegance. The symbolic meaning of the Marian image relates not just to its physical attributes and style but to its position and use, which affect its exposure to text and music. The format may be that of a large panel, to be mounted in the wall above and behind an altar, or of an apparently freestanding figure (in fact carved in very high relief, almost in the round, but with a flat or slightly hollowed-out back). Our examples embrace a temporal span from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth century, and show very clearly something of this variety. Within church interiors such cultic figures stood if not quite alone then at least saliently, in a position of visual and devotional prominence, as they would have done for instance in any functioning Lady Chapel (the Sarum liturgy occasionally refers in its rubrics to ‘ad missam beate Marie in capella eiusdem’ or the [votive] Mass of the Blessed Virgin celebrated within a Lady Chapel). One of the key features linking the history of the alabaster panels and altarpieces with that of polyphonic music in the early fifteenth century was the development of the cyclic polyphonic Mass setting. This was a new, specifically English development around 1420, hence situated at the very centre of the chronology of alabaster production. And as a fashionable and liturgically useful new technical approach to sacred polyphony, it

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was soon widely disseminated on the continent. It consisted, first and foremost, in giving the Mass a chosen, liturgically ‘themed’ cantus firmus. Such a technique was therefore both a principle of organization (within the musical work) and also, more importantly, a statement of devotional and theological intention (at the liturgical level). It served, among other things, to keep individual Mass celebrations keenly focussed on their particular intention and purpose at any given time, thus on all the relevant spiritual and liturgical motifs. The cyclic Mass was first developed around 1420, specifically in England, by Leonel Power, John Dunstaple, John Benet and their contemporaries. It was an English invention, and was quickly taken up by musicians in Europe from around the 1440s, on the basis of their newly acquired knowledge of the English repertoire. Like the alabaster tradition, therefore, English Mass music and Latin polyphony more generally circulated widely in an international forum. And while it would be impossible to assert that this momentous new musical and liturgical idea was in any way causally linked with the rise of the ‘themed’ altarpiece, the closeness of these developments in time and space offers pause for reflection. Mass settings – the Ordinary of the Mass contains five standard texts: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei – could be individually ‘themed’ (that is particularised, emblematised) by introducing texts and chant melodies (known as cantus firmi) specific to a particular saint, or theological concept, or devotional intention.43 This was exactly the way in which cantus firmus Masses or Mass movements functioned, symbolically, within particular liturgies. And such a practice served as the mechanism which allowed the moments of connection and resonance between visual imagery and musical-textual features to function at all. The range of Marian-themed music is in general matched, both quantitatively and in terms of variety, by the very varied details and differences of emphasis within the various scenes and image types of the alabaster sculpture repertoire. One regularly used – evidently widely known, and appreciated – plainsong cantus firmus was the Alma redemptoris mater, mentioned prominently by Chaucer.44 This chant survives as the cantus firmus of a number of Mass settings, the first and most famous of them by Leonel Power, the others being anonymous works and surviving only in

43 The range of historical and critical literature on cantus firmus practice in the Mass is wide. For a lucid and well informed, brief technical consideration of some early examples of English practice, see Sparks, E.H., Cantus Firmus in Mass and Motet, 1420 to 1520 (Berkeley, 1963), 95–100. 44 Geoffrey Chaucer, Prioress’s Prologue and Tale. The boy in the tale learns the ‘Alma Redemptoris mater’ chant, text and melody, in the school classroom – a realistically observed social detail, demonstrating that the study of the Primer involved some learning of actual devotional songs and plainchant melodies, and no doubt all the common chants such as the Pater noster, Ave Maria, and familiar Marian antiphons.

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fragmentary form.45 It is also present in a Credo (C70) probably by ‘Forest’ (a historically shadowy but musically gifted composer, who flourished in the first half of the fifteenth century), who also used it similarly as an extra musical and textual layer in a motet for Mary’s Assumption, Ascendit Christus / Alma Redemptoris mater (O 57; MS. Old Hall no, 68).46 Statues of the Virgin were very often shown crowned, and might also display a flowering branch symbolic of the Rod or Stem of Jesse (Latin ‘Virga Iesse’), thereby emphasizing through a long-recognised floral symbolism the royal lineage of Mary (hence also the royal descent of Christ). Mary is the flower on the stem, and she is also the theotokos (Mother of God).47 Three of our examples – those in the British Museum (c.  1350–1380, Pls I, II), in Westminster Cathedral (c. 1420–50, Fig. 4.3) and in Washington, National Gallery of Art (c.  1440–1460; Pl. VII) – display this motif; and by extension, such symbolism applies also to the wider use of Jesse Tree iconography. References to Mary as the ‘flos regalis’ (royal flower), as the ‘rosa sine spinis’ (rose without thorns) and so on reflect this broad and familiar symbolic tradition. A cultic statue could equally have been incorporated as a centrepiece within a grander architectural reredos, as in the kinds of wall-screens found at, say, St Cuthbert’s, Wells and paralleled on an even larger scale in the high-altar screens at Christchurch Priory (Hants.), Durham Cathedral (the late-fourteenth century Neville Screen), and elsewhere.48 And here, the incorporation of the alabaster image into the wider ritual space gives it an if anything even greater exposure and receptivity to music, albeit one a little less closely focused. Other Marian scenes – we have chosen here to show images of the Annunciation (Fig. 4.4) and the so-called Jesse Tree (Pl. VIII) – might depict either specific moments from the Life of the Virgin (e.g. the

45 M43 (‘Leonel’; lacking its Kyrie), M53 (anonymous, comprising only Kyrie and Gloria) and M12 (anonymous, comprising parts of the Kyrie, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei). 46 Bent, M., “Forest,” New Grove Revised 9 (2001), 8–88. 47 The usual Latin translations of theotokos were ‘Deipara’ or ‘Dei Genitrix’ (God-bearer). Symbolically, there is also a background OT reminiscence of the Rod of Aaron and the flowering of the rod of Joseph in his courtship of Mary. 48 The magnificent church of St Cuthbert’s (in Wells, Somerset) has two reredos sculpture-screens in a now half-ruined, fragmentary state, but which in the fifteenth century would have operated as richly adorned chapels of St Katherine (north transept, originally thirteenth century) and the Blessed Virgin (south transept, c. 1470, Jesse Tree). For the destruction of these and similar statues and screens, see Aston, M., England’s Iconoclasts. Volume I. Laws against Images (Oxford, 1988); and Eadem, Broken Idols of the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2016). The Christchurch Screen has a monumental iconography of the Jesse Tree situated on (and just behind) the high altar. The Neville Screen in Durham was consecrated in 1380 – the screen itself is made of Caen stone, brought from France via London and Newcastle; but the persistent local tradition (as transmitted in the Rites of Durham) has always been that the original 107 statues were of polychromed and gilded alabaster (hidden by the monks to preserve them from the iconoclasm of the Reformation).

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FIG. 4.3  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, SEATED VIRGIN AND CHILD (‘OUR LADY OF WESTMINSTER’). 90.5 × 51.8 CM. A SEATED VIRGIN AND CHILD THAT MANAGES TO COMBINE BOTH A HIERATIC QUALITY, AND AN INTIMACY OF EXPRESSION, THAT GO TO THE HEART OF MARIAN DEVOTION AND LITURGY. IT IS ONE OF THE FEW ALABASTER IMAGES IN ENGLAND THAT STILL SERVES ITS ORIGINAL DEVOTIONAL PURPOSE WITHIN A SACRED SPACE. LONDON, WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL

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FIG. 4.4  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE ANNUNCIATION, C. 1440–1460. 50.9 × 22.9 CM. THE ANNUNCIATION IS ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY ENCOUNTERED MARIAN TYPES OF PANEL, AND USUALLY FORMS THE FIRST OF THE TYPICAL SEQUENCE OF SCENES IN VIRGIN ALTARPIECES. IMAGERY FROM THE ANNUNCIATION, AND REFERENCES TO THE INCARNATION ABOUND IN TEXTS AND MUSIC FOR THE LADY MASS, FOR MARIAN FESTAL MASSES, FOR THE OFFICE, AND IN ANTIPHONS AND DEVOTIONAL SONGS. PHILADELPHIA, PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

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Annunciation, which almost always comes as the first panel in composite Marian altarpieces) or else symbolic scenes showing the Virgin’s wider theological significance: in the case of the Jesse Tree, displaying the relatedness of Christ, through her, to King David (whose father Jesse was).49 The sung genealogies of Christ found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke,50 and performed at Christmas and Epiphany in chant (perhaps also occasionally in polyphony), would have found a clear echo here;51 but so too would all the imagery about dynasty and incarnation, touching on the royal line of David, the kingship of Christ, and Christ’s redemptive vocation.52 Overall, within the surviving alabaster corpus it is overwhelmingly the case that, for all the variety of altarpiece subjects that must once have existed, the Marian and Passion types by far outweigh all the others.53 Musically, too, the polyphonic repertory in honorem Beatae Mariae Virginis and (to a lesser extent) the repertory in honorem Domini Nostri Iesu Christi overwhelmingly dominate – but that is precisely why it is also important to engage as energetically as possible in the more demanding search for contexts which fit the (quantitatively) less common iconography of other saints and sacred motifs. The selection of particular subjects and iconographies for representation in any given instance must have come about through a variety of factors and influences: from lay patrons, from specific needs and traditions (local saints, chapels, shrines, relics…), or from ad hoc decisions taken by the leaders or advisors of purchasing institutions (collegiate churches, monastic houses…). Among lay patrons, organized religious guilds in particular were wealthy and influential, as well as pious. Their money and power without doubt went a long way towards commissioning altarpieces and supporting the performance of polyphony throughout the later medieval period. There was a large and flourishing tradition of urban guilds and confraternities operating in England, as well as elsewhere in Europe, and these guilds had

49 Jesse (Yishai) thereby exercised a linked double role – as the father of David, the psalmist and king of Israel, and also as the ancestor of Christ – and so was shown as the progenitor of the ‘Virga Iesse’ (a famous and magnificent English wooden Jesse Tree of the late fifteenth century survives in the Priory Church of St Mary, Abergavenny). 50 Matthew 1: 1–17, where it introduces the whole concept of Christ’s iconic descent right at the beginning of the gospel; and Luke. 3: 23–38, where it is placed narratively at the beginning of his public life, immediately after his baptism in the river Jordan. 51 As a rule the Matthew Genealogy (Liber generationis Christi…) was sung at Matins of the Nativity, after the ninth Responsory (the famous Verbum caro factum est… text), and the Luke Genealogy was sung at the equivalent place in Matins of the Epiphany. 52 At the popular end, a pithy – and early – Latin carol refrain (‘burden’) in Cambridge MS. 9414 sings with sublime simplicity: Parit virgo filium Regali stirpe David (see Fallows, D., Henry V and the Earliest English Carols: 1413–1440 [Abingdon and New York, 2018], Ex. 10.1). 53 See Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 161–77, who lists 37 Marian and 42 Passion altarpieces.

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a variety of patron saints and religious emblems as their signs of social and religious allegiance.54 Ecclesiastical dedications and confraternity emblems and insignia would have helped determine many choices for liturgy, devotion and suitable forms of artistic and musical representation. Just as importantly, guilds would have had the financial means to support all this artistic and devotional activity – they would have been able to pay for singers to perform music celebrating their guild feastdays and patronal festivals, and to sing music for the annual procession (generally part of the flotilla of urban processions held on the feast of Corpus Christi, usually the Thursday after Trinity Sunday). (1) MASSES A short list of representative English fifteenth-century musical settings of the Mass that are relevant here might include the Missa Fuit homo missus (St John the Baptist);55 the Missæ Nobilis et pulchra and Sponsus amat sponsam (for St Katherine of Alexandria);56 and the Missæ Da gaudiorum præmia and Summæ Trinitati (for the Holy Trinity).57 The dedications of these Masses represent absolutely standard religious themes, which could and would have been regularly used both for feast-day and for votive celebrations. These types of sacred themes are widely found in church dedications, in chapels and chantries within larger churches, and in guilds such as (for example) the wealthy and influential united guilds of medieval Coventry. Themed Mass settings such as these, and others like them, would have enjoyed wide currency among those institutions which could afford to pay to have them performed – and they would have found ready correspondence among the available alabaster repertoire of panels and altarpieces. The united Coventry guilds, for instance, encompassed all three of these dedications, as well as a Guild of St Mary.58 With further research, connections will undoubtedly come to light between other areas

54 See the thoroughly researched, but also interestingly generalised and thematised, study by Rosser, G., The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England 1250–1550 (Oxford, 2015). 55 M56 (anon.), c. 1430 – The chant ‘Fuit homo missus’ is located in a prominent position within the Sarum Office: at the very beginning of the first responsory at Matins for the Nativity of St John the Baptist (24 June). 56 M31 by Walter Frye (fl. 1450–75); and the Missa Sponsus amat sponsam by Robert Fayrfax (1464–1521), respectively. 57 M5 and M28, by John Dunstaple and Walter Frye, respectively. 58 The Coventry guilds began with the foundation of the guild of St Mary’s in 1340 and culminated in the amalgamation of four guilds (St Mary’s, John the Baptist, St Katherine and Holy Trinity) as the Holy Trinity Guild by 1392, physically located close to the civic church of St Michael. There was a designated guild church (St John’s, Bablake) which was set up with land and money from Queen Isabella and others, with an endowed royal chantry, and with independent musical resources (choristers, a grammar school, and singing men).

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of the musical repertory and the devotional and theological themes which still await investigation. (2) MOTETS In the realm of motets and polyphonic antiphons, which display a wide variety of verbal styles (both ‘poetic’ and more formally theological or liturgical), the choice of text itself becomes part of the process of decision making which finally results in the finished musical piece. And it is precisely this mode of musically glossing and embellishing the main corpus of liturgy that makes for differentiation and for the individualising of personal, devotional factors in what is otherwise a ritual, collective set of agreed religious actions and recitations. So far as motets are concerned (as they have been generically grouped together in modern musicology), they in fact cover quite a wide range of different ritual, votive and devotional slots. Some are formal, ceremonial pieces; others are modest antiphons or suffrages or memorials (such as one finds needed in various areas of the late medieval English liturgy, whether of Sarum, York or Hereford Use). Short, often overtly melodious antiphon or suffrage settings may be modest in musical idiom and scope, but at the same time exquisitely refined in style, jewel-like in their expression, like small stained glass panels or illuminations in Books of Hours. Votive uses of antiphons might be processional, commemorative, dedicatory, intercessory – the antiphon as a genre, though having various assigned liturgical slots, was also to some degree a flexible, movable, and in that sense ‘useful’ form. It was typically fairly concise in both length and expression, though (for example) the special Eton antiphons and others like them could be much more broadly conceived, musically speaking – expansive, sonorous, elaborate. Before concluding, we should give a brief idea of these types of short antiphon texts and their musical settings, so as to offer a sense of just how easily they could be positioned in relation to alabasters (and indeed other types of image) through the varied liturgical-devotional slots that were available. These types of texts were voiced and sung in hundreds, even thousands, at this period. They may be given as an example of the unpretentious “lyric” Latin poems of free but balanced construction, beautiful and evocative even when shorn of their music. This brief selection of short intercessory and devotional texts in praise of the Virgin59 gives a good idea of the compact antiphon style that filled the sacred spaces, large and small, of the fifteenth century, and went on, in many places, into the sixteenth: 59 For a concise, expert summary of the plainchant Marian antiphon repertory in England and abroad, see Hiley, D., A Handbook of Western Plainchant (Oxford, 1993), 104–8.

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Sancta Maria Virgo, intercede pro toto mundo, quia genuisti Regem orbis.60

Holy Mary, virgin [and mother] intercede for the whole world for thou hast borne the king of the world

Beata mater, et innupta virgo, gloriosa regina mundi, intercede pro nobis ad dominum.61

Blessed mother, virgin unwed, glorious queen of the world, intercede for us with the Lord.

Mater, ora filium ut, post hoc exilium, nobis donet gaudium sine fine.62

Mother, beseech thy Son that after this exile he may give us joy without end.

Speciosa facta es et suavis in deliciis virginitatis, Sancta Dei genitrix, quam videntes filiæ Sion vernantem in floribus rosarum et liliis convallium, beatissimam prædicaverunt et reginæ laudaverunt eam.63

Thou art lovely, made beautiful in the delights of virginity, holy mother of God, whom the daughters of Sion, seeing her blossoming in rose-flowers and lilies of the valley, declared most blessed, and the queens praised her.

Salve porta paradisi qui peccatis sunt illæsi feras his solatium, et qui mente te fideli

Hail, gateway of paradise, who will bring comfort to them that are untouched by sin, and who will raise up whoever

60 O523 – O531: attributed musical settings of Sancta Maria virgo survive by named composers (‘Wyvell’ and ?Leonel Power) as well as by anonymi. 61 O103 – this famous piece survives in as many as seven widely dispersed sources, including copies with ascriptions to John Dunstaple (c. 1390–1453) and to Gilles Binchois (c. 1400–1460). 62 O338 – O339: the setting by Leonel Power (1375/80–1445) survives in three sources, all continental, two of them interdependent. An anonymous English setting also survives. 63 O548 – O590: the very fine, lyrical setting by Dunstaple appears in two important continental manuscript collections; the two anonymous settings, unusually, each appear (as unica) in a different English source. Speciosa facta es belongs to that large group of texts adapted from the Song of Songs, though not literally extracted from it. The feast of the Assumption in particular, but also other Marian feasts, used a great deal of Song of Songs imagery for antiphons, responsories etc. (following the devotional impetus of St Bernard of Clairvaux’s sermons, aided and abetted by commentaries going back to Origen). See also the writings of Rachel Fulton, and in particular “‘Quae est ista quae ascendit sicut aurora consurgens?’ The Song of Songs as ‘historia’ for the Office of the Assumption,” Mediæval Studies 60:1 (1998), 55–122.

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laudat iubilando cæli Leves ad palatium, O mater Christi.64

praises you with loyal mind rejoicing to the palace of heaven, O mother of Christ.

All these types of text, and the varied musical settings that were made of them – ­ both simpler and more complex – offer a potentially significant, often close and intricate relationship to the imagery of the alabaster carvings that embodied the Virgin’s sacred presence, wherever these might be placed physically (also when viewed from a distance, or held in memory). Examples of these types of pieces – compact, written in a typically simple yet elegant style – from the first two-thirds of the fifteenth century were very numerous, and still survive in surprising quantities (especially considering the destruction of manuscript sources in the sixteenth century). Consequently, we can form a reasonably clear idea of how this type of liturgical-devotional music was designed to function and sound in situ. And if such pieces were popular in their native English setting, they were also transmitted to influential centres on the continent – admired for their expressive, jewel-like lyricism, their songlike character, and doubtless appreciated also for the fact that they could be sung in a variety of suitable slots within the Office, as evening or processional or votive (commemorative, intercessory) antiphons, as needed, or for reasons of “pure” contemplation and devotion. In this multiplicity of uses, they also paralleled the alabaster images. Both types of art had sensual beauty, and were at the same time liturgically useful, while this particular type of musical antiphon setting was not either very long or technically especially demanding – so that its popularity is completely understandable.65 To a modern mentality, it might seem a complicated and possibly esoteric matter to identify subtle connections between text, music and image in this way. But we shall argue that, for a mind and sensibility operating “within the game” in the fifteenth century, it may (on the contrary) have been remarkably easy to trace these connections and their varied resonances in a range of different circumstances. In parallel with this, such connections can anyway be found in the simpler, vernacular musical repertory as well as in sophisticated liturgy – that is, in the Middle English devotional song corpus and in the English or Latin-English carol repertory, which offer a private counterpoint to the official Latin idiom of chant and polyphony, and would have been used in much the same way that individual alabaster

64 O447: [?Thomas] Damett (d. 1436/37), the motet preserved uniquely in the Old Hall manuscript (London, British Library, MS. Add. 57950, no. 54). Damett was one of Henry V’s chaplain-musicians, along with John Cooke, [?Nicholas] Sturgeon, and others. 65 Similarly compact types of piece – sometimes of even greater musical simplicity – might serve also for signal moments in the Mass liturgy such as the Offertory, or the Elevation of the Host, or the post-Communion blessing and dismissal.

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panels would have been used, for private contemplation, by merchants, pious bourgeois, or anchorites and spiritual conversi.66 It is important, also, to bear in mind the fact that the dissemination of English music and alabasters to a wide network of important cultural centres across continental Europe went on during broadly the same decades, especially within the fifteenth century, and formed a kind of parallel cultural transmission. These two artistic traditions were hence not just English in an insular way, but European in scope. Detailed understanding of their parallelisms requires further research and careful interpretation. But we can state already that certain music manuscripts of the first half of the fifteenth century from Florence and Ferrara, from Trento (Trentino) and from the Veneto show clear, extensive evidence of English musical repertoire being known and used in central and northern Italy at the very same period which also saw alabaster altarpieces being installed in chapels and churches there.67 This recognition enables us to envisage not just a strong English influence across the European cultural area, but, in northern Italy at least, the performance of sacred ritual using alabaster altarpieces with English, as well as international, musical repertory. In the case of Ferrara, furthermore, this involves in all likelihood nothing less than the ceremonial of the court chapel of the d’Este princes.68

See the collected edition Musica Britannica, vols iv, xviii and xxxvi, ed. J. Stevens. These volumes print (respectively) the English polyphonic carol repertory (in a representative selection); the contents of the Henry VIII manuscript; and the songs of the Fayrfax MS. (London, 1952, rev. 1958; 1962, rev. 1969; 1975 respectively). Musica Britannica, vol. xcv (Songs in British Sources, c. 1150–1300), ed. H. Deeming (2013) contains an earlier Latin and vernacular devotional repertory, individual examples of which could easily have survived, in an informal and perhaps essentially private or domestic context, through into the fourteenth and perhaps even the fifteenth century. A very new study looks in greater detail than ever before at the origins and earliest layers of the vernacular carol repertory (not only, not even primarily, for Christmas): Fallows, Henry V. 67 Modern scholarship views the Trent Codices (as they are known in English; they are referred to by number as Trent MSS. 87–93) as a personal type of repertorial library for the then-Germanic musical and ecclesiastical community in Trento (Südtirol), in the valley of the Alto Adige (NE Italy). Other important continental MSS. containing significant English repertoire carry the short shelfmark sigla Bologna Q15; Oxford 213; ModB [Modena]; and Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Magliabechiano XIX 112 bis. 68 See Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 409–10. The musical manuscript ModB (Modena, Bibioteca Estense Universitaria MS. [alpha] X. 1. 11 was initially compiled and made, in all probability, in Florence in the 1430s, before being transferred to Ferrara by one of its singer-scribes around the time of the cessation of the Council of Florence. The manuscript contains one of the most extensive and interesting groups of English polyphony in a continental source of the first half of the fifteenth century. Both the Passion altarpiece and the MS. ModB belonged to the d’Este court chapel; so generations of musicians – say, from the very last years of Borso or the first years of Ercole I until the altarpiece was removed – would have sung in front of this altarpiece. 66

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FURTHER HORIZONS, VISUAL AND MUSICAL: EXPERIENTIAL SYNERGIES WITHIN A SHARED RELIGIOUS CULTURE All these varied musical examples – of “themed” Masses, of specific musical genres assigned to the Office and related ceremonies (antiphons, suffrages, responsories…), and of individually devised motets of different kinds – illustrate the great range of what was deemed possible. They show what could have been perceived within the liturgical and devotional culture of the long fifteenth century, offering a range of connections to the extant alabaster repertory. Furthermore, these connections operated potentially both within the English (insular) cultural sphere and in those centres in (continental) Europe to which English music and alabaster carvings were disseminated. The ritual or devotional moment within the liturgy was always perceptually composite, and to some degree multifarious, even when it had ostensibly a single focus. Different strands, motifs and tropes of biblical, theological and spiritual type were all present within the ritual texts and actions of Mass and Office. The effects of such moments were hence polysemic – nuanced and complex, being both physical and spiritual in nature and also interestingly layered. Simplicity was allied with richness and a certain complexity of texture. Word, sound and image interacted – being closely interwoven, yet standing in a dynamic relation to one another – within a three-dimensional present. In modern terms, we would see this as an immersive yet articulate, temporalized environment that was freighted with implications and symbolic allusions. The mobility and “liveness” of music naturally made it a crucial source of agency within any such environment; while alabasters provided the clear and constant point of reference, the immediate physical sense of a sacred presence. The forms of music’s interaction with image and internal architecture were fully spatialised and temporalised. Music and alabaster came together to play a combined rôle within this type of carefully constructed, and subtly nuanced, cultural and social space. In England, alabaster images of different kinds and formats were a widespread presence in churches large and small from the fourteenth and increasingly through the fifteenth centuries, and on into the early sixteenth. Here, too, in parish, collegiate and cathedral foundations alike, the complete body of Latin plainchant had been sung in its specifically Sarum (Salisbury) form since around the beginning of the thirteenth century.69 69 By far the best online resource is Renwick, W., (ed.), The Sarum Rite: http:// hmcwordpress.mcmaster.ca/renwick/. Influential facsimiles of Sarum noted (musically notated) liturgical manuscripts of early (thirteenth-century) date were prepared and edited by W.H. Frere: Graduale Sarisburiense (London, 1894) and Antiphonale Sarisburiense, 6 vols (London, 1901–1924). Printed Sarum volumes are available in the collection Early English Books Online: https://eebo.chadwyck.com/home. See also the

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The interaction of alabaster and plainchant, and of the polyphony (both improvised and composed) that came to enrich and expand the various types of liturgical service throughout this period, was hence a social and cultural given. It was a phenomenon of long standing, and was to persist until the violent changes of the Reformation took hold in the 1530s and 40s. At that point, both the musical tradition and the images themselves were largely dispensed with, again more or less in parallel. One of the nearest things we have to a secure documentary connection between polyphonic music and alabaster image occurs in the case of the Guild Church of St John the Baptist, Bablake, in Coventry in the third quarter of the fifteenth century. This was a wealthy and important church – the only secular, collegiate foundation in the city, so far as we can tell, with choristers and clerks (singing men). It housed a royal chantry, as well as a richly endowed liturgical community presided over, and largely financed by, the United Guild of the Holy Trinity.70 The making and installation of an alabaster statue (undoubtedly cultic) for St Mary’s Altar in Bablake Church is recorded, apparently the work of a certain Richard Couper of Burton-upon-Trent, described in different places as both as ‘peyntor’ and ‘corver of alabastre’: St Mary’s Altar, 1462: paid [to] Coup[er] of Burton upon Trent, peyntor, for an image [statue] of St Mary in alabaster for the inheritors [i.e. the guild as collective heirs] of St Mary at Bablake, 40 shillings (‘p[ro] j Imagine de Alblast[re] be[ate]’ marie’ suitat[i]’ apud Bablake, xls.’).71

The customs of the Bablake guilds specified a full performance of the Office and also a daily antiphon to be sung before the statue of Our Lady (which would doubtless have been regularly sung in polyphony as well as chant). So this is one of those very few cases where we can actually document alabaster carvings in direct confrontation with the performance of music. This one documentable occurrence does not, of course, prevent there having been many hundreds of other such cases. Connectivities between music and image were sometimes situational, based on the myriad details of occasion, event, and action; sometimes, they occurred through specific formulations (tropes, ideas, motifs…) within the verbal text, and the ways in which these then related to elements of music and image; sometimes, they might involve extrapolation from theological or devotional concepts which gave the sacred moment its specificity, as well as its layers of subtlety and complexity – images of the Trinity-Crucifixion, enormously detailed, interpretive historical study of Pfaff, R.W., The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge, 2009). 70 Dormer Harris, M. and Templeman, G. (eds), The Register of the Guild of the Holy Trinity, St. Mary, St. John the Baptist and St. Katherine of Coventry, published for the Dugdale Society, 2 vols (Oxford, 1935–1944). 71 Cited in Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 15.

English alabaster images as recipients of music

or the Mass of St Gregory, might be cited as sophisticated relevant examples here.72 Texts and verbal cues, taken from the liturgy or from devotional poetry, provided a specially effective common link, offering a series of devotional ‘prompts’. Books of Hours, primers, prayer books and devotional tracts or spiritual treatises (in Latin or the vernacular) were all common adjuncts to individual contemplation.73 Human thought and experience, functioning within a shared perceptual environment, provided the common medium linking music and image within the wider spatial and social continuum. The physical materiality of the (fixed) image and the acoustic properties of the (unfolding) music were the vehicle for spiritual and affective meaning. Alabaster images, of different kinds, thus mediated physically and thematically between the individual’s thoughts, speech, reading matter and devotional attentiveness, on the one hand, and the surrounding environment of chant, devotional song and sacred polyphony, on the other. The two arts enjoyed, within the historical cradle of their religious culture, an essential and in many ways normative, quotidian co-existence: not mere juxtaposition, but real interaction. The result offered all participants and observers a layered, multidimensional reality within their religious experience, thereby creating – along with the surrounding contingencies of space, sound, light, smell and so on, as contributory factors in the “atmospheric conditions” of perception – a fully immersive environment. Unfolding sound is both focalised and diffused, directional and volumetric. Its sonic presence, perceptually speaking, is always mobile, dispersed, and spatialised, thereby enlivening the fixed and permanent nature of the images – which in turn serve to ground and to bring a focal point to bear on the mobility of the music. Flickering lighting (by candlelight), translucency and texture of stone (with its extreme receptivity to pigment and illumination) all help to enhance the mobility and vividness (even,

72 Trinity-Crucifixion images have a theological and also a specifically Eucharistic message; the Mass of St Gregory is overtly Eucharistic – related to Corpus Christi (a feast-day instituted by Urban IV in 1264, with liturgical texts by Thomas Aquinas, and with a great many guilds and confraternities dedicated to it). Of primary Eucharistic character also are the moments of the Elevation of the Host and (outside the Mass proper) the Benediction and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. 73 The secondary historical and critical literature, as well as the editions, facsimiles and anthologies, are vast here. Latin (poetry and treatises) and vernacular (poetry and treatises) were all in widespread use and spanned different social and cultural publics. For a varied selection of Middle English devotional texts within the period 1350–1450 see Clark Bartlett, A. and Bestul, T.H. (eds), Cultures of Piety. Medieval English Devotional Literature in Translation (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1999). See also Woolf, R., The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1968) and Gray, D., Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric (London and Boston, 1972). Short Latin and Middle English lyrics, and the supplementary and marginal texts to primers and personal prayer books, played a very direct rôle in channelling and focusing the energies of personal devotion.

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perhaps, the lifelikeness) of the overall scene, in parallel with the mobility of the music and the liturgical and devotional action.74 To appreciate this proximity and interaction of music and image is both an act of historical recognition of what happened in the past, and a source of new experiences in the present. The synergies of music and image are, we suggest, a historical given which require the sustained attention of scholarship. They can also to a significant extent, we believe, be re-enacted for audiences in the present. In any case, as other scholars will perhaps agree, this multisensoriality is something which needs to be taken account of in written historiography and in other forms of social, artistic and religious history, as viewed within the wider framework of an anthropologically influenced Kulturwissenschaft. Such a combined approach to the two traditions allows not only a richer understanding of the artistic involvement of England within Europe at this period, but also serves to create a dimension of “living” historical experience capable – with all due caution – of bridging the gap between “then” and “now”.

74 Scholars and curators alike are coming to realise that the understanding of alabasters, as of other artworks and objects, benefits not just from technical-aesthetic interpretation within a context of museum display and art-historical commentary, but from different forms of contextual interpretation and reconstruction (whether physical or virtual). This increasingly involves detailed research into conditions of space and lighting, into perceptual and cognitive processes, into audiences and modes of viewing and listening, and into pigments and polychromy. It is into this new sphere of research that our work with different types of poetic/devotional and liturgical texts, and their different forms of musical setting, broadly fits. Multisensory reconstruction in this detailed, relativised sense involves perceptual awareness directly. We are particularly grateful to Professor Alan Chalmers, of the University of Warwick, for his discussion and advice in these areas. We are grateful, also, to information from the current Tracking Colour project, investigating original polychromy and the visual aspect of sculpture, centred on the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

CONTEXTUALISING ALABASTERS: IN THEIR IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT. THE ‘ANCONA D’ALLABASTRO DI DIVERSE FIGURE’ OF THE NOVALESA ABBEY: MEANING AND FUNCTION* ZULEIKA MURAT

I

t is now universally recognised just how important it is to restore a work of art to its original context – a term taken broadly to mean historical, spatial, liturgical and functional context – if we are to gain a precise understanding of it. The study of context is really a fundamental point of departure for analysis, the basic premise for each new study, since it is context that allows the scholar to establish the full suite of meanings proposed by a work – meanings which have often been stripped away over the course of time, especially in the case of museum-displayed objects – and indeed a sense of the agency that a work may have had at * The essay presents the partial results of a research I have undertaken at the University of Padua, Dipartimento dei Beni culturali: archeologia, storia dell’arte, del cinema e della musica, where I was the recipient of a two-year Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship (2014–2016) devoted to the study of English Alabaster carvings, with a focus on pieces preserved in Italy. The project was supervised by Prof. Giovanna Valenzano.

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the moment of its creation.1 The understanding of context thus provides the necessary interpretive structure: without it, a work would simply float in an a-historic and impersonal non-place, reduced to a shell that, even if still appreciable in some sense, has been emptied of its substance. A methodology of this type, however, encounters serious difficulties when applied to the study of English alabasters. Only a few alabaster works remain in their original location, and of the examples that have been re-located (either relegated to museums or sent to a new location after the Reformation),2 often little is known of their provenance or history. These difficulties apply especially to English alabasters found in Italy, as these are works which appear doubly out of context. Not only are they often fragmentary objects displayed in museums, they are also works produced by an “other” culture, appearing then to modern viewers as incongruous presences, alien to the place in which they are found. The modern status of these objects, however, contrasts greatly with the high value given to them in the past. In Italy alone, there are more than thirty reliefs, a clear indication of the high regard in which these objects were once held.3 This prestige is further confirmed by the knowledge that many pieces – the polyptych now in Naples (still intact), the polyptych in Ferrara, and the fragments in Milan – originally decorated the private chapels of the lords of those cities. Sculptures now conserved in Rome, meanwhile, were commissioned by no lesser man than the Pope’s representative in England, to be placed in the Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.4 An awareness of the status that these objects once held has encouraged more sustained critical attention in recent times, and there are now promising branches of research being undertaken that are taking advantage of new methods of inquiry, based on the integration of different kinds of material, archival and historical sources. This kind of research has led to a more complete comprehension of the phenomenon of English alabasters in Italy,5 contextualised against a backdrop of more general considerations 1 On the concept of agency in art, the crucial reference remains Gell, A., Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford, 1998). 2 For discussion of these historical re-locations, refer to the introduction of this volume. On the iconoclasm that followed the Reformation and its consequences, see also: Haigh, C. (ed.), The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987); Aston, M., England’s Iconoclasts. Volume I. Laws against Images (Oxford, 1988); Duffy, E., “The Reformation and the Alabastermen,” in P. Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion. Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Exh. Cat., Palm Beach, FL, Society of the Four Arts, and five other institutions, with contributions by F. Cannan, E. Duffy and S. Perkinson (Alexandria, 2010), 54–65; Aston, M., Broken Idols of the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2016). 3 For a general exploration of this matter, and an overview of the pieces in Italy, see Murat, Z., “Medieval English Alabaster Sculptures: Trade and Diffusion in the Italian Peninsula,” Hortus Artium Medievalium 22 (2016), 399–413, with bibliography. 4 On these pieces: Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 401–2, 409–10. 5 For a summary of the most recent contributions, consult the bibliography listed in Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster.”

Contextualising alabasters: meaning and function

on the widespread exportation of English works (in various media) to Europe, and the reception of such works on the Continent.6 The piece that will be discussed here, the alabaster polyptych from the abbey of Novalesa, contributes incisively to a deepening of these contextual paths of knowledge. Study of the Novalesa polyptych provides helpful critical tools that can be used to establish a broad interpretive framework, which I propose might then be applied more generally to other pieces conserved in Italy and on the Continent (that is, pieces made for export), as well as to the reliefs that are now widely dispersed but made initially for English churches. The fact that Novalesa was – and still is – a Benedictine abbey, and the fact that the polyptych was purchased by its commendatory abbot, means that this particular piece arguably transcends the localisms that might otherwise have made this a meaningful example only for its immediate geographical context. On the contrary, the Novalesa polyptych can be considered a useful prototype for numerous more far-reaching conclusions. The study to be presented here is divided into two parts: the first part reconstructs how the now-fragmentary polyptych (its single panels currently held in different collections) may have originally looked. On the basis of the proposed reconstruction, the typology of the work is then discussed in relation to better-known examples of English alabasters. The second part proceeds from an awareness that, although English alabasters were an autonomous artistic medium, no single medium can be studied in isolation. This latter section concentrates on the space for which the work was commissioned, examining the relationship between the polyptych, the chapel in which it was located, and the frescoes that decorated the walls. The role of the patron is then considered, exploring the reasons and methods for the choice of this type of work.

THE NOVALESA ALTARPIECE, REUNITED The Benedictine abbey of Novalesa is located in Piedmont’s Susa valley, around seventy kilometres north-west of Turin, close to the French border. It lies on the route of the Via Francigena, the most important artery of pilgrimage in medieval Europe: a position, therefore, of absolute prestige and high visibility. The complex comprises a monastery and an abbey church, the latter dedicated to the apostles Peter and Andrew. Although the church has been altered over the course of time, and was partially 6 Cf. Ramsay, N., “La production et exportation des albâtres anglais médiévaux,” in X. Barral i Altet (ed.), Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen Age. Volume 3. Fabbrication et consommation de l’œuvre (Paris, 1983), 609–19; Idem, “Medieval English alabasters in Rouen and Evreux,” Apollo 147:435 (1998), 50–1; Woods, K., “The Supply of Alabaster in Northern and Mediterranean Europe in the Later Middle Ages,” in J. Kirby, S. Nash and J. Cannon (eds), Trade in Artists’ Materials. Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700 (London, 2010), 86–93.

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reconstructed in the eighteenth century, parts of the original stone and the older mural decoration are still preserved, along with rich archival records that allow us to reconstruct and investigate its historical context with a good deal of accuracy. Founded in 726, the abbey gained importance in the Carolingian era as a result of generous donations and privileges bestowed by the Frankish kings, which made Novalesa one of the most influential monastic sites in Northern Italy. Its fortunes continued to rise in the succeeding centuries, a period which saw the abbey assume a central position in a dense network of relationships connecting the most important monastic institutions in Europe, and further, the principal exponents of European political power.7 The second half of the fifteenth century, in particular, was a moment of rebirth at the abbey, a new golden age inaugurated by the first of Novalesa’s commendatory abbots, Giorgio Provana. He was the first in a long series of abbots belonging to the Provana family; in fact, the post was to end up so exclusively controlled by the Provana that the abbey became what was essentially a feudal possession of the family. Giorgio Provana promoted an extensive decorative campaign designed to give a new facies to the abbey church, designed at least in part to manifest in visual form his dynastic control over the abbey.8 The commission for the alabaster polyptych dates to this phase of the abbey’s history. The polyptych is now split into pieces, and some portions have been lost entirely; the traceable fragments now belong to different collections. Isolated and decontextualised in this way, the fragments have lost their signifying capacity, and are now reduced to the status of mere objects to be admired in the clinical environment of an exhibition hall. A probable reconstruction of the polyptych begins with two small fragments held in a private Piedmontese collection, now known only through black and white photographic reproductions (Figs 5.1–5.2).9 The first of these depicts two crowned male heads, shown as if speaking to each other; the second depicts a kneeling figure, who carries his crown

7 It would be impossible to do jutice here to the rich history of the abbey. The major studies on it, along with their bibliographies, provide an excellent starting point: Comunità Benedettina dei SS. Pietro e Andrea (ed.), La Novalesa: ricerche – fonti documentarie – restauri, 2 vols (Novalesa, 1988); Cerri, M.G., (ed.), Novalesa. Nuove luci sull’abbazia (Milan, 2004); Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo (ed.), Carlo Magno e le Alpi (Spoleto, 2007); Arneodo, F. and Guglielmotti, P. (eds), Attraverso le Alpi: S. Michele, Novalesa, S. Teofredo e altre reti monastiche (Bari, 2008); Giai, G.,“Tra Novalesa e Chartres: Adraldo e la Renovatio novalicense nell’XI secolo,” Benedictina 59 (2012), 271–96. 8 On the Provana, the most recent study is Castagno, P., Notizie sulla famiglia Provana (Carignano, 2002). 9 The last clear record of these fragments confirms their presence in the Couvert collection in Turin. After this, all trace of them is lost. Cf. the entry by Giovanni Romano, in Romano, G. (ed.), Valle di Susa. Arte e storia dall’XI al XVIII secolo, Exh. Cat., Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna (Turin 1977), 92, no. 11 (“Scultore inglese, Incoronazione della Vergine”).

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FIG. 5.1  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, FRAGMENTS OF AN ADORATION OF THE MAGI. PRIVATE COLLECTION

in his hands in a rather humbler manner. As noted by Giovanni Romano, the scholar who first published the fragments in 1966, the figures can be identified as the three Magi, represented in the act of rendering homage to the Christ Child.10 Certain formal details, particularly the general compositional outline, find strong correspondence in other alabaster reliefs that depict the Adoration of the Magi, for example the panel of this subject now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York (accession number 12.15),11 or the example in the Victoria and Albert Museum (A.97-1946).12 The orientation of the faces of the two standing Kings turned towards each other in conversation appears nearly identical, as does the kneeling Magus’ gesture of placing the crown on his thigh. According to a note on a label once affixed to the back of the sculptures, the pieces were first found in 1910 in Venaus, a town in the Cenischia valley, which borders the Susa valley, and is also on the Via Francigena. 10 Romano mentioned the reliefs but didn’t publish any reproductions of the pieces. Not until Alessandra Guerrini (“La chiesa abbaziale di Novalesa: cantieri conclusi, cantieri aperti,” Bollettino d’arte LXXVIII:80–81 (1993), 163–81: 170, Figs. 14–15) were images made publicly available. 11 Information and images available online: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/ search/463570?pos=7&rpp=20&pg=1&rndkey=20140318&ao=on&ft=*&deptids=17&wh en=A.D.+1400–1600 (last accessed February 2018). On this piece see also Cheetham, F., Alabaster images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003), 84, no. 36. 12 See information and image provided online: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70346/ adoration-of-the-magi-panel-unknown/ (last accessed February 2018). See also Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984), 186, no. 113.

FIG. 5.2  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, FRAGMENT OF AN ADORATION OF THE MAGI. PRIVATE COLLECTION

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FIG. 5.3  FRAGMENTS OF CARVING WHICH CAME FROM THE NOVALESA ABBEY CHURCH (AFTER BISCARRA, FRAMMENTI DI BASSORILIEVI, 1875, PL. III)

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This same note confirmed that the fragments’ provenance could be traced to Novalesa, along with other pieces which then belonged to the collection of Felice Chiapusso (1841–1908).13 Chiapusso was a lawyer and parliamentarian. Born in Susa, he had moved early in his life to Turin, where he began to collect artistic objects drawn principally from his territory of origin, and where he eventually became a member of the Society of Archaeology and Fine Arts for the province of Turin. In 1875, another member of this society, Carlo Francesco Biscarra, published an essay that described, amongst other things, some fragments of bas-relief, for which he included two drawings (Fig. 5.3). These were precisely the pieces in the Chiapusso collection, those mentioned in the note that accompanied the fragments of the Magi.14 According to Biscarra, who claimed to be reporting information This note is transcribed in Guerrini, “La chiesa abbaziale,” 176, note 21. Biscarra, C.F., “Di alcuni rari cimelii in Susa,” Atti della Società di Archeologia e Belle Arti per la Provincia di Torino I (1875), 183–92: 188–191, Pl. VIII. 13

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given to him by Chiapusso, the two reliefs, which depicted the Coronation of the Virgin and the Crucifixion respectively, had definitely come from Novalesa. The first had been donated forty years earlier by the monks of the abbey to one D. Gattiglio, a priest in Ferrera, who in turn had given it as a gift to an uncle of Felice Chiapusso, a canon. The second relief, broken into three pieces and reconfigured inside a wooden frame, had turned up thirty years earlier in Novalesa among the ruins of a house that had been destroyed in a fire.15 Both reliefs are visible in an archival photograph (Fig. 5.4), evidently taken at the beginning of the twentieth century when they were still part of 15 The reliefs had evidently been sold after the Napoleonic Suppressions, or after the last suppression ordered in a law of 19 May 1855. On the latter, see: Bogge, A., “La soppressione dell’Abbazia di Novalesa nel 1855 e la vendita dei suoi beni,” in Segusium, Società di ricerche e studi valsusini (ed.), Nuove scoperte alla Novalesa. Raccolta di studi presentati al convegno per il 1250esimo dell’atto di donazione di Abbone alla abbazia benedettina (Susa, 1979), 111–12.

FIG. 5.4  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, CRUCIFIXION AND CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN, AS THEY APPEARED IN FELICE CHIAPUSSO’S COLLECTION

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FIG. 5.5  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. TURIN, PALAZZO MADAMA, MUSEO CIVICO D’ARTE ANTICA

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Felice Chiapusso’s collection in Susa.16 The reliefs then took different paths, and were soon definitively separated: the Coronation of the Virgin was acquired in 1954 by the Museo Civico d’Arte Antica – Palazzo Madama in Turin, where it is still held (Fig. 5.5). The Turin museum had bought it from Augusta Pongiluppi Chiapusso, heir of Felice.17 Of the Crucifixion, all trace was lost, and scholars long believed it had been destroyed, or permanently lost. Recently, however, I have been able to locate the relief in a Veneto collection: the Cini collection at the Castello of Monselice, near Padua, where it is displayed in the Colonna room next to the chapel of the castle (Fig. 5.6).18 The late owner of the collection, the count Vittorio Cini, acquired the relief in 1942 from an art dealer, who apparently did not provide any information on its provenance. In order to make it more aesthetically pleasing, the fractures were partly concealed by adding a thin layer of gessoed plaster, visually similar to alabaster, while the missing portion at the top right was completely re-made. It is still possible, however, to see the damage caused by the fire, evident in the marked blackening of the surface. The relief has remained inside the same wooden frame shown in the archival photograph. The rediscovery of this important panel demonstrates just how critical it is for scholars to continue working on isolated fragments. Until now this panel has been completely overlooked, as reflected in both its placement within the museum space – it is exhibited in a secondary room, where it is marginalised – and in the lack of academic study directed towards 16 The photo is published by Gentile, G. “Antichi arredi alla Novalesa,” in Segusium (ed), Nuove scoperte, 81–110: 94, Fig. 2. 17 On this relief, see the bibliography cited in Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 216; Guerrini, A., in Pagella, E. (ed.), Tra Gotico e Rinascimento. Scultura in Piemonte, Exh. Cat., Turin, Museo Civico d’Arte Antica and Palazzo Madama (Turin, 2001), 122–3, no. 41 (“Bottega inglese”). 18 For a panoramic study on the sculpture collections of Count Cini, see: Campigli, M., “Vittorio Cini e la scultura,” in A. Bacchi and A. De Marchi (eds), La Galleria di Palazzo Cini. Dipinti, sculture, oggetti d’arte (Venice, 2016), 371–87.

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it.19 Yet even such an isolated fragment, recontextualised, is able to re-acquire its meaning, revealing in the process a provenance and history of great prestige and interest. As other scholars have previously suggested, there is one further frag­ ment that can be reunited with those above in a possible reconstruction of the original polyptych: an Assumption of the Virgin, now displayed at the Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra in Susa, close to Novalesa (Pl. IX ). Although no documentary testimony survives that links this piece definitively with the others in the series, a common provenance is suggested by the fact that this relief resurfaced at the parsonage of San Giusto in Susa, which was linked to the abbey of Novalesa.20 Moreover, there are shared stylistic, technical and material details which connect all of the pieces discussed, demonstrating clearly their common origin. A particularly persuasive piece of evidence is that the reliefs all correspond in terms of their dimensions, each measuring around 39 × 24 cm, with the exception of the Crucifixion which measures 48 × 28 cm. The divergence of the latter is in line with the standards of the period, which allowed for slightly larger dimensions, both in height and width, for the central panel of polyptychs. Additionally, without wanting to linger too long on questions of style (which, for English alabasters, do not usually offer supporting evidence with respect to attribution, nor is stylistic comparison as incontrovertible a tool as for other types of works; the situation complicated, too, in this case, by the problematic state of conservation of some of the pieces), the reliefs show affinities in their execution close enough to be able to link each piece confidently to the same workshop. It is worth noting, for example, the similar physiognomies of the sacred personalities, as well as the identical manner of rendering the hair and the figures’ dense, curly beards. There 19 Since it has been part of the Cini collection, the relief has not been the object of any specific study, nor has it been cited in any general publications. 20 Gentile G., “Immagini e apparati per il culto e la memoria nell’antica chiesa abbaziale,” in Cerri (ed.), Novalesa, 73–89: 82.

FIG. 5.6  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, CRUCIFIXION. MONSELICE, CASTELLO CINI

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FIG. 5.7  RECONSTRUCTION OF THE NOVALESA ALABASTER ALTARPIECE

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are also smaller details that are typical of a shared workshop practice, understood here as the summation of individual formal and figurative styles that makes up the operative practice of a single atelier. I am referring to details such as the pictorial decoration of the haloes, characterised in both the Coronation and the Assumption by circular dark stamps on a red ground, and the angel wings, described with an eye-catching red pattern with small bright feathers sticking out, recalling the wings of a peacock. These are details that correspond closely to other works made during the second half of the fifteenth century,21 a chronological span to which our own altarpiece must also date. This dating is confirmed by typological factors. One imagines that the polyptych was originally comprised of five reliefs, as can be seen in the graphic reconstruction here proposed (Fig. 5.7). The opening panel, the one which began the narrative sequence, is unaccounted for, but it is clear from iconographic evidence that it would have depicted an Annunciation. The individual panels would have been fixed to a wooden support structure via thin metal wires, with three closable shutters attached.22 The composition would have been completed with other elements: a series of canopies above each relief, two saints at the edges, and inscriptions on the frame to identify the scenes and the figures represented. From a typological and formal point of view, the reconstructed polyptych as described is similar to a number of other alabaster altarpieces realised 21 In particular the Coronation of the Virgin in the V&A (A.157–1946, http://collections. vam.ac.uk/item/O70695/the-coronation-of-the-virgin-panel-unknown/), where the same decorative motifs recur in the haloes; the variegated wings of the angels in the relief with the Assumption of the Virgin, also at the V&A (A.32–1910, http://collections.vam. ac.uk/item/O68933/the-assumption-of-the-virgin-panel-unknown/), are also similar (last accessed February 2018). On these pieces see: Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 216, no. 143 and 203, no. 130, respectively. 22 On the framing see: Nelson, P. “The Woodwork of English Alabaster Retables,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 72 (1920), 50–60; Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 24–6.

Contextualising alabasters: meaning and function

in the mid-fifteenth century and in the decades just after.23 A particular example, in Santiago di Compostela, is the Stories of the Life of St James, the titular saint of that church, donated in 1456 by the English priest John Goodyear when he visited Compostela as part of a pilgrimage.24 Another example similar to the Novalesa altarpiece is the Swansea polyptych in the V&A, also generally dated to around the second half of the fifteenth century, which comprises the same number of reliefs.25 The Master of the Polyptych of Novalesa would have belonged, therefore, to a relatively large group of ‘alabastermen’ who were active in the fifteenth century, mostly in the region of the East Midlands, and many of whose names have been found in sources.26 These alabaster workers were probably members of a guild that comprised also painters and other ‘imagemakers’,27 who, through this guild membership, managed to position themselves expertly on the national and foreign market. Alabaster workers were as much businessmen as they were craftsmen, overseeing every aspect of production, from the extraction of the raw material to its sculpting in the workshop, finishing with its arrival on the market and the sale and transport of finished pieces.28 23 For a chronological reading of alabaster production, based on iconographic, typological and formal details, see: Prior, S.E., “The Sculpture of Alabaster Tables,” in Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of English Medieval Alabaster Works held in the Rooms of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1913), 16–50; Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 31–44; Rollason, L., “English Alabasters in the Fifteenth Century,” in D. Williams (ed.), England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium (Woodbridge, 1987), 245–54. 24 The altarpiece was published by Hildburgh, W.L, “A Datable English Alabaster Altarpiece at Santiago de Compostela,” The Antiquaries Journal 6 (1926), 304–7. It has since been examined by Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, passim, and, more recently, by Spanish scholars: Barral Iglesias, A., “Retablito inglés de John Goodyear,” in J.M. Garcìa Iglesias (ed.), Galicia no Tempo (Santiago de Compostela, 1990), 209–10; Idem, La Catedral de Santiago de Compostela: meta de peregrinación (Trobajo del Camino, León, 2003); Franco Mata, Á., “Escultura gótica inglesa en Galicia,” in F. Singul and J. Suárez Otero (eds), Hasta el Confín del Mundo: Diálogos entre Santiago y el Mar (Santiago de Compostela, 2004), 163–73: 170–1. 25 On the Swansea altarpiece, see the information provided online (http://collections. vam.ac.uk/item/O70204/the-swansea-altarpiece-altarpiece-unknown/; last accessed February 2018), and Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, passim. 26 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 11–51. The evidence discussed by Cheetham has now been augmented by recent documentary discoveries, many of which are the work of Jon Bayliss. For a general discussion of this, refer to his study in the present volume. 27 Such a solution was probably driven by the fact that many alabaster sculptors were multi-skilled artists, working in painting, or also working in other kinds of stone such as marble. In July 1483, for instance, Walter Hilton, mentioned as an ‘imagemaker’ in 1480 and as an ‘alabasterman’ in 1496, was involved in a court action over the painting of a tabernacle. In 1495 he was involved in the making of the tomb of Richard III. Edward Hilton is described as an ‘imagemaker’ and as a painter. As for guilds, Henry VIII founded a guild of painters, gilders, stainers, and ‘alabastermen’ in Lincoln in 1525–26. In York, ‘alabastermen’ were part of the guild of masons: Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 13–15. 28 In 1414, for example, Thomas Prentis acquired a raw block of alabaster to export to Normandy; in 1418–19 he signed a contract together with Robert Sutton for sculpting the tomb of Ralph Greene and his wife, which is still conserved in its original location

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From a narrative point of view, the Novalesa polyptych was evidently dedicated to the Joys of the Virgin, a theme of widespread popularity in the period, well-documented by numerous surviving works. It was a subject based on textual sources found in some apocryphal Gospels and in the Golden Legend, that is, in texts that were widely known in medieval England as well as on the Continent, substantially influencing the art of the period.29 The subject of the polyptych was clearly consistent with the space in which it was located, on the altar of a chapel dedicated to the Virgin.

SPATIAL CONTEXT AND PATRONAGE A key piece of evidence for determining the space in which the polyptych once stood is provided by an inventory of property for the sacristy, church and chapels of the monastery of Novalesa, dated 18 June 1644.30 This document lists, amongst other things ‘an alabaster altarpiece with many figures, on the altar in the chapel of the Madonna’:31 an item which can clearly be identified with our polyptych. A Liber capellarum compiled in 1664 – the liber capellarum being a type of document used in monasteries as a complete list of the property and the liturgical obligations linked to each chapel – offers a further determining detail, listing ‘the chapel of the Blessed Mary in the Novalesa abbey church of St Peter, which is on the southern side of the main altar, founded by the Prior Giorgio Provana, who died on the 14th June 1502’.32 This space was located in the last bay on the right side of the nave, which at that time would have opened onto the presbytery. The election of Giorgio Provana to the position of commendatory abbot is generally traced to 1479, the year in which he is referred to for in Lowick Church, Northamptonshire. His workshop was therefore occupied with both the extraction and exportation of materials, as well as the successive phases of working the stone, right up to the consignment of the finished work. Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 14–16. 29 Cf. Jeffrey, D.L., A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids, MI, 1992). 30 Turin, Archivio di Stato, Sez. Camerale, Economato dei Benefici Vacanti. Abbazia della Novalesa, B. 1, Inventario delli mobili, della chiesa e sacrestia del monastero di San Pietro di Novalesa. The document was first mentioned in Gentile, G., “Documenti per la storia della cultura figurativa in Valle di Susa,” in Romano (ed.), Valle di Susa, 43–81: 43. It was then fully transcribed and published in Gentile, “Antichi arredi,” 106–10. 31 The translation provided here is my own. The original text reads: ‘nell’altare e capella della Madonna, l’ancona d’allabastro di diverse figure’. See Gentile, “Antichi arredi,” 109. 32 Turin Archivio di Stato. Corte, Abbazia di Novalesa, mazzo 14. Transcribed in Bo, A., “Gli affreschi seicenteschi della chiesa dei SS. Pietro e Andrea dell’abbazia di Novalesa,” in Comunità Benedettina (ed.), La Novalesa, vol. 1, 235–7. The translation provided in the text is mine; the original document says ‘Cappella Beate Marie fundata in Ecclesia Abbatiali Sancti Petri Novaliciensis a latere magni altaris a parte meridiei fundata fuit per reverendum Dominum Georgium Provana priorem dicte Abbatie qui defunctus est anno 1502 die 14 Junii’.

Contextualising alabasters: meaning and function

the first time in this role in abbey documents.33 1479, however, is really a terminus ante quem. Some earlier sources do in fact seem to imply that the progressive wresting of control by Provana, and perhaps even his official nomination to office, happened prior to that date. An eighteenth-century inventory of old manuscripts found amongst the Provana papers at the Archivio di Stato in Turin refers to him in relation to the abbey as early as 1463,34 while seventeenth-century sources make reference to documents that record him there in 1476 and 1478.35 It is of great interest that, as shown by Carlo Cipolla, Giorgio Provana was named in documents from at least the 1470s not as an abbot, but as an administrator – a role that perhaps preceded that of commendatory, indicating that he was active there earlier than once thought.36 It is worth noting too that in the 1460s there was an absence of real power at the abbey, since the administrators in charge at that time, Eusebio de Margario and Theodore Paleologue, spent most of their time in Rome at the papal court with only sporadic attention directed to the monastery. It is therefore possible that Giorgio Provana profited from the power vacuum and the functional vacancy of the position of administrator, gradually entrenching himself more and more at the abbey. Only later would he obtain official recognition of a role he had, in practice, already been occupying. The Provana family were rich merchants and the lords of Leini, and they boasted close links with the highest ranks of ecclesiastical hierarchy. These networks are demonstrated by the presence, in their coat-of-arms, of a column against a background of red, the symbol of Martin V Colonna. Its use had been granted to Bartolomeo and Giacomo Provana by the pontiff in 1428 as a mark of recognition for the hospitality shown to Colonna on his return from the Council of Constance.37 Around the time of the nomination of Giorgio Provana to the post of commendatory abbot of Novalesa abbey, the family was busy strengthening its links with the dukes

33 Gattullo, M. and Lucania, A.M. (eds), Materie Ecclesiastiche. Abbazie. Novalesa. SS. Pietro e Andrea (Turin, 2010), XVI. 34 Turin, Archivio di Stato. Riunite, Provana di Leini, Parrocchiale, 4: Sommario de’ titoli riguardanti il padronato della parrocchia di S. Pietro di Leyni, e del beneficio di S. Nicolao del detto luogo (1742). 35 Rochex, J.-L., La Gloire de l’Abbaye et Vallée de la Novalese, située au bas du Mont Cinis, du coté d’Italie, (Chambery, 1670), 145; the same date is recorded also in Carretto, M.A., Vita, e miracoli di S. Eldrado abbate dell’insigne monasterio di s. Pietro della Noualesa (Turin, 1693), 110. On the other hand, Della Chiesa, F.A., Cardinalium, Archiepiscoporum, Episcoporum et Abbatum Pedemontane Regionis Chronologica Historia (Turin, 1645), 203, alludes to the date 1478. 36 Cipolla, C., “Antichi inventari del monastero della Novalesa: con la serie degli abati e dei priori del medesimo,” Memorie della R. Accademia delle scienze di Torino 44 (1894), 113–173: 169. 37 Mossetti, C., “Testimonianze figurative della trasformazione della chiesa abbaziale al momento dell’affidamento della commenda alla famiglia Provana,” in Comunità Benedettina (ed.), La Novalesa, vol. 1, 219–32: 221.

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of Savoy, attempting to extend its own network of alliances and to secure the support of the most powerful local dynasty.38 The family’s interest in Novalesa can be read, then, as a sign of their intention to climb the social ladder, a strategy pursued energetically in both the political and religious arenas.39 From Giorgio’s time on, the monastery became a sort of feudal territory held by the family. This lasted until 1646, when Filiberto Maurizio Provana ceded it to the Cistercians, marking the end of the Provana’s charge and the beginning of a new period of autonomy for the abbey. The complete redecoration of the abbey church under Giorgio Provana was clearly part of the family’s strategy to manage their dynastic assets effectively. The program consisted of a series of frescoes commissioned by Provana and executed by the workshop of the Burgundian painter Antoine de Lonhy, who moved to Savoie in 1462.40 In the presbytery there were full-length saints of the Benedictine order: a gallery of portraits designed to reinforce visually the hierarchical system of the order, while suggesting that Giorgio Provana followed in absolute continuity with a long tradition. The campaign also extended to the nave aisles and the chapel of the Madonna, decorated with an ornamental frieze and figures of prophets respectively – the latter were discovered under a layer of whitewash during restorations undertaken in the 1990s.41 In every location, the reiterated presence of the family coat-of-arms served to make the abbey seem almost an extension of the Provana’s actual holdings, making visually obvious the control and authority exercised by family members over its foundation: almost a ‘mark of possession over the abbey’.42 It is obvious that we are dealing with a well-orchestrated figurative program in which the various parts were not single entities autonomous from one another, but rather elements in fluent dialogue, integrated into a

38 A growing relationship between the two families is evident from 1469, when Martino Provana was pardoned by Amadeus IX of Savoy after a trial in which he had been condemned, and it becomes further evident in the participation of a Provana family member in the funeral procession of the widow of Amadeus, Yolande of Savoy, in 1478; Guerrini, “La chiesa abbaziale,” 73. Andrea Provana of Leiny also fought as Captain general in the Battle of Lepanto in the service of the Duke of Savoy, and at the side of Emanuele Filiberto I at Nice Castle during the war against Henry II of France; Segre, A., “L’opera politico militare di Andrea Provana di Leyni nello Stato Sabaudo dal 1553 al 1559: memoria,” Memorie della Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche della Reale Accademia dei Lincei VI (1898), 5–123. 39 For several decades previously, in fact, the Provana had controlled important religious establishments by means of family members serving as abbots. Cf. Castagno, Notizie sulla famiglia. 40 For a synthesis of the attribution of the frescoes, see Caldera, M., “Antoine de Lonhy,” in E. Pagella, E. Rossetti Brezzi and E. Castelnuovo (eds), Corti e città. Arte del Quattrocento nelle Alpi Occidentali, Exh. Cat., Turin, Palazzina della Promotrice delle Belle Arti (Milan, 2006), 333–7. 41 On the restoration works: Guerrini, “La chiesa abbaziale,” and the appendix to that same article by Antonio Rava, Fabrizia Cavinato and Laura De Nardi (at pp. 178–81). 42 Mossetti, “Testimonianze figurative,” 220.

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single organism. This scenario is confirmed by the program in the chapel of the Madonna. As already discussed, the alabaster polyptych stood on the altar in this chapel. Here, the Virgin was the obvious protagonist, and her fundamental role in the story of salvation is revealed in the episode of the Annunciation, when Mary accepts her designation as an instrument of the Incarnation, thus making possible the progressive completion of the whole series of events that make up the story of redemption. This is a promise clearly enunciated by the central Crucifixion, where Christ, with his ultimate sacrifice, liberates humanity from sin and assures their redemption. It is the Crucifixion that serves as the divide in the narrative sequence, separating the episodes of the life of Mary from those of her afterlife. In the latter, her investiture as Regina coeli is achieved first of all in the Assumption, and then in the celestial Coronation. This was a narrative sequence that would have invited the worshipper to reflect on the destiny of their soul after death and on the opportunity to follow the exemplum offered by the saints to enter the kingdom of heaven. The figurative program was completed by paintings on the walls. Here, a series of frescoes depicted prophets with furrowed brows, positioned inside niches with trilobe arches, bearing long scrolls with inscriptions (Figs 5.8–5.10). These figures of the Old Testament announce the coming of Mary, as well as her election and glorification as mother of the Incarnate

FIG. 5.8  ANTOINE DE LONHY, PROPHET. NOVALESA, ABBEY CHURCH

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FIG. 5.9  (LEFT) ANTOINE DE LONHY, PROPHET. NOVALESA, ABBEY CHURCH FIG. 5.10  (RIGHT) ANTOINE DE LONHY, PROPHET. NOVALESA, ABBEY CHURCH

Zuleika Murat

Word.43 On the intrados, Isaiah displays the words ‘Ecce Maria genuit nobis Salvatorem’,44 as if to introduce the Marian theme and present the Virgin to the visitor. Malachi bears the text ‘Statim veniet ad templum suum [Dominator]’,45 and the prophet in front of him has an inscription that, while difficult to read,46 could be made out as ‘[…] ista est speciosa.’ A third, unidentified figure carries the text ‘[Assumpta est] Maria in celum’. The program would have originally been much fuller, including other inscriptions (some of which are still visible, but difficult to read), and comprising a total of at least eight scrolls – one for each prophet figure that has re-emerged from the whitewash. We cannot exclude the notion that there were originally even more figures, together articulating an even richer cycle. Guerrini, “La chiesa abbaziale,” 177, n. 24. The scroll was deciphered by Mossetti (“Testimonianze figurative,” 226, note 27), who identified the phrase it bore as a text drawn from an antiphon for the eighth day after Nativity, i.e. the feast of Circumcision. Mossetti further outlined its affinity with Isaiah 14:7, a text which provides the foundation for her identification of the figure depicted with Isaiah. 45 Malachi is the prophet who anticipates the Virgin, in the sense that it is he who prophesies the arrival of the angel (Mal 3: 1–14). 46 Guerrini (“La chiesa abbaziale,” 177, note 26) proposes that we can read the incomplete verses as: ‘Ubi (ibi?) est a vobis est […]’ (for one of the figures on the intrados); ‘[…]b[…] nitio et dantes’ (for the figure to the left of the window). 43

44

I  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, VIRGIN AND CHILD, 1350–1375. GYPSUM ALABASTER, 75 CM HIGH. LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM

English Alabaster Carvings - Plates (alternate).indd 1

II  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ST URSULA AND THE VIRGIN MARTYRS. GYPSUM ALABASTER, 87 CM HIGH. PARIS, MUSÉE DE CLUNY – MUSÉE NATIONAL DU MOYEN-ÂGE

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III  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, PROPHETS, FIFTEENTH CENTURY. ALABASTER PANEL. ACQUIRED BY HILDBURGH IN PARIS IN 1936; GIVEN BY HIM TO THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM TEN YEARS LATER. LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

IV  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ST PETER, C. 1382. GYPSUM ALABASTER. ROME, CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE IN GERUSALEMME, MUSEUM

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V  JOAN DE TOURNAI, TOMB OF ST NARCISSUS, 1328. GYPSUM ALABASTER, COLOURED GLASS, POLYCHROMY AND GOLD. GIRONA, CHURCH OF ST FELIEU

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VI  ANDREA PISANO, VIRGIN AND CHILD, 1340S. GYPSUM ALABASTER, 35 CM HIGH. BERLIN, MUSEEN DAHLEM

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VII  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TABERNACLE WITH THE VIRGIN AND CHILD, ST CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA, ST APOLLONIA, ST MARGARET OF ANTIOCH, AND (POSSIBLY) ST MARY KLEOPHAS. 62 × 19 CM (CENTRAL STATUE), 100 × 50 CM (OVERALL). THIS STATUE OF THE MADONNA IS CROWNED (‘REGINA CAELI’) AND HAS A BRANCH OR STEM WITH SEVERAL FLOWERING ROSES IN HER LEFT HAND (‘AVE ROSA SINE SPINIS…’), A REFERENCE TO THE BUDDING AND FLOWERING STEM OF JESSE. THIS PIECE WAS BOUGHT FOR A FAMILY CHAPEL IN SPAIN DEDICATED TO THE VIRGIN, AND CONSECRATED IN 1461. WASHINGTON, NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

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VIII  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TREE OF JESSE, C. 1440–1460. THE JESSE TREE IS A REPRESENTATION OF THE ROYAL LINEAGE OF MARY AND CHRIST, AND THEIR DESCENT FROM JESSE THROUGH KIND DAVID. PHILADELPHIA, PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART.

IX  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. SUSA, MUSEO DIOCESANO

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X  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE. GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS, INV. 1.34

XI  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE. GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS, INV. 1.33

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XII  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE. GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS, INV. 1.35

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Contextualising alabasters: meaning and function

The prophecies correspond to the stories depicted in the alabaster polyptych, where the crucial events of the Virgin’s life, especially those concerning her role in the story of salvation and her Assumption into heaven, are sculpted in stone. The Marian theme of the frescoes and polyptych would have been closely intertwined with the liturgical use of the sacred space. We know that a daily mass was performed in the chapel pro defunctis, along with a weekly perpetual mass for the Provana.47 The role of Mary as mediatrix,48 and the promise of salvation offered in the Incarnation and Sacrifice of Christ, were self-evidently appropriate visual accompaniments for the habitual uses of the space. This is especially true as concerns the masses performed in honour of the dead to reduce their penalty in purgatory, but also in terms of the weekly masses for the Provana, who benefited from the constant intercession of Mary, which they themselves had secured by the gift of the polyptych and the paintings. Although the specific source for the inscriptions that accompanied the frescoed prophets has not been traced with absolute certainty,49 it is likely that we are dealing with texts drawn from prayers and chants of our Lady, of which these are the probable incipits. As such, ‘Ecce Maria genuit nobis Salvatorem’ corresponds to the incipit of the antiphon sung for the eighth day of Nativity, sometimes even for the Nativity itself, or for simpler votive masses. The verse ‘ista est speciosa’, drawn from the Song of Songs, is part of the response that was recited on the occasion of the festival of the Assumption. The latter is also obviously linked to the verse ‘Maria in celum’, which appears drawn from the antiphonies sung for the Lauds of the Assumption.50 The alabaster polyptych functioned, therefore, as a type of performative staging for these ceremonies. These were evidently rites augmented with an element of spectacle, designed, that is, to be a multi-sensorial experience, in which communication was based on a careful combination of verbal and non verbal cues (i.e. images, written texts and music). In this sense the rites were possibly influenced by the mystery plays that were characteristically practised in the Alpine valleys, which emphasized the performativity of the liturgy and stimulated a multi-sensorial, dynamic

47 The Liber cappellarum confirms this fact; Gentile, “Immagini e apparati,” 82. During the course of archaeological excavations, some fifteenth- and sixteenth-century graves were found inside the chapel. While it was not possible to identify the bodies, it is almost certain that they were the graves of monks of the abbey. Grilletto, R. and Lambert, C., “Le sepolture e il cimitero della chiesa abbaziale della Novalesa,” Archeologia medievale 16 (1989), 329–56: 344–6. 48 On this important aspect of late Medieval and early modern piety, see Oakes, C., Ora Pro Nobis: the Virgin as Intercessor in Medieval Art and Devotion (London, 2008). 49 Mossetti (“Testimonianze figurative,” 220) and Guerrini (“La chiesa abbaziale,” 177, note 24) propose to identify the source with the Benedectine breviary. 50 I owe this information to Philip Weller, who I thank for his generous help. Cf. Elders, W., Symbolic Scores: Studies in the Music of the Renaissance (Leiden, 1994).

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experience.51 In this area of Italy, sacred plays were performed at least until the Napoleonic era:52 at the abbey of Novalesa, in fact, there was an annual liturgical drama dedicated to St Stephen, titular saint of one of the churches of the village.53 From the fifteenth century on, moreover, there had been a sacred play dedicated to St Sebastian that took place over two days, performed throughout the Susa valley.54 We have further evidence of many Nativity plays that were performed on Christmas Eve in various places in the valley, whose origins dated back to ancient representations of the Nativity that took place in parish churches,55 as well as to theatrical representations on a lesser scale with puppets and complex scenography dedicated to the Infancy of Christ.56 The theatrical pretensions of the prophets frescoed by Antoine de Lonhy are clear in the way that they look out and fix their gaze on the observer, or seem to be moving within the pictorial space with lively gestures, each diversified by a highly-characterised face – they look almost like portraits – and individualised clothing. Moreover, they push their scrolls out towards the real space of the church and invite the observer to read the texts written there. It is almost as if they are putting words in the viewer’s mouth, with their explicit suggestion for the recitation of the prayers57 – appearing, then, almost as supporting actors in a sacred drama. This hypothesis becomes even more attractive when we consider that, in Guido

51 For a general framing of the issue: Norton, M., Liturgical Drama and the Remaining of Medieval Theatre (Croydon, 2017). 52 Cf. Chocheyras, J., Le théâtre religieux en Savoie au XVIème siècle (Geneve, 1971); Centre d’Études Francoprovençales «R. Willien» (ed.), Le théâtre populaire dans les Alpes occidentales (Aosta, 1999); Giai, G., “Le sacre rappresentazioni nella Valle di Susa,” Segusium 45 (2006), 11–52; Eadem, “La sacra rappresentazione di Sant’Agata di Venaus. Un manoscritto inedito,” Segusium 49 (2010), 255–60; Eadem, “S. Andrea di Ramats e i Mystères della Valle di Susa,” in Teatro religioso e le comunità alpine (Susa, 2010), 196–208; this last reference notes how religious establishments in the valley often had frescoes with subjects that were very similar to scenes acted out in mystery plays – to the point that it is possible to hypothesise a reciprocal influence between the frescoes and the mystères. 53 Giai, “S. Andrea,” 205–6. 54 Tuaillon, G., “Saint Sébastien dans la théâtre religieux de Maurienne et de la Vallée de Suse,” in Centre d’Études (ed.), Le théâtre populaire, 101–16. 55 Giai, “S. Andrea,” 208. 56 Leidy, R., “Gelindo ritorna? Materiali per lo studio del più popolare testo teatrale piemontese,” in Centre d’Etudes (ed.), Le théâtre populaire, 53–89. On the use of Marionettes to enliven preachers’ sermons or to present sacred dramas: Klapisch-Zuber, C., “Les saintes poupées: jeu et dévotion dans la Florence du Quattrocento,” in P. Ariès and J.-C. Margolin (eds), Les jeux à la Renaissance (Paris, 1982), 65–79; Cutler Shersow, S., Puppets and “Popular” Culture (Ithaca, NY, 1995); Drábek, P., “English Comedy and Central European Marionette Drama: a Study in Theater Etymology,” in R. Henke and E. Nicholson (eds), Transnational Mobilities in Early Modern Theater (Farnham, 2014), 177–98. 57 On the relationship between figurative works and written texts, that is, between the subject proposed by an image and the prayer meant to be recited alongside it, cf. Johnson, G.A., “Art or Artefact? Madonna and Child Reliefs,” in S. Currie and P. Motture (eds), The Sculpted Object, 1400–1700 (Aldershot, 1997), 1–24: 7–8; see also Murat, Z., “Un’aggiunta al catalogo di Guariento. Il Cristo passo già Seligmann,” Arte Veneta 73 (2016), 118–28.

Contextualising alabasters: meaning and function

Gentile’s reading of the frescoes in the presbytery,58 the manner in which the saints of the Benedictine order are painted by Antoine seems to find its analogy in a similar “staging” motif – a hedge of intertwined branches – that appears in an illuminated manuscript by Jean Fouquet in the Hours of Étienne Chevalier. In the latter, this motif is used to enclose the theatrical setting for the representation of the Mystère du martyre de Sainte Apolline, similar to how the rows of Benedictine saints in the Novalesa presbytery “stage” the events in the chapel.59 According to Gentile, Antoine de Lonhy seems to derive inspiration from the types of theatrical sets that were then used for the staging of processions of figures from sacred history, showing the Benedictine saints as if they were a line-up of majestic actors in a sacred play dedicated to the celebration of the Order, conversing amongst themselves. Indeed, it has often been hypothesised that alabaster polyptychs were used in the course of para-liturgical dramas,60 as their use of colour – with blazing gold and brilliant polychrome finishes, and the clever use of dark pigments to mark the faces of “evil” figures – made them suitable for these kinds of performances. The possibilities offered by the wooden carpentry, too, were apt for this use: hinged to be able to reveal and then conceal their content for ritual purposes. Along with shutters, we know that works of this type were often concealed with curtains, which could be fixed directly onto the wooden carpentry and manipulated to reveal or to hide the images at particular moments in the drama.61 The large quantity of objects and apparatus used for ritual celebrations that are recorded in the inventories of the Novalesa church allows us to intuit that scenographic re-enactments did take place there, using a combination of curtains, figures of wooden angels, candelabras, thuribles and other furnishings to induce a multi-sensorial experience of liturgical

Gentile, “Immagini e apparati,” 81. The interpretation of this image as a representation of theatrical stage has been suggested by Rey-Flaud, H., Le cercle magique. Essai sur le théatre en rond à la fin du Moyen Age (Paris, 1963), 52. 60 Hildburgh, W.L.,“English Alabaster Carvings as Records of the Medieval Religious Drama,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity XCIII (1949), 51–101. More recently: Stevenson, J., Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture. Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York (New York, 2010). 61 Interesting information contained in the records of the Borough of Nottingham show that in 1523 the account of the churchwardens of Leverton, Lincolnshire, registers payments ‘pro factura curtine pendentis ante novam tabulam’ and ‘pro tinxione pedicte curtine pendentis ante tabulam super summum altare’; St John Hope, W.H., “On the Early Working of Alabaster in England,” The Archaeological Journal LXI:1 (1904), 220–40: 235–6. The use of similar scenographic devices, including curtains and shutters, is testified for Italian regions as well. See Schmidt, V.M., “Curtains, ‘revelatio’, and pictorial reality in late medieval and Renaissance Italy,” in K.M. Rudy and B. Baert (eds), Weaving, Veiling and Dressing. Textiles and their Metaphors in the late Middle Ages, Medieval Church Studies, 12 (Turnhout, 2007), 191–213; and the chapter devoted to “La presentazione scenica della pala, capsae e cortine,” in De Marchi, A., La pala d’altare. Dal paliotto al polittico gotico (Florence, 2009), 177–89. 58

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celebration. The inventory of 1644 referred to above mentions that the altar of the Madonna also had a Crucifix and two brass candlesticks, as well as a leather antependium with a painted image of the Virgin. A similar list drawn up in 1651 cites four brass candlesticks belonging to the same altar.62 It seems interesting, too, given the above considerations, that many of the English alabasters in Italy were linked to confraternities – groups which evidently found this kind of work an effective expressive means by which to carry out their petitions, and a potent devotional object to which they could direct their prayers. The confraternity members would have been able to identify themselves in the sacred figures depicted there, and to meditate on the punishments suffered by the holy. Works of this type contributed to bridging the distance between the faithful, the image, and the sacred figure to whom prayers and petitions were made. The Passion polyptych in the Museo Nazionale di Castello Pandone, for example, which came from the church of the Santissima Annunziata in Venafro, originally stood on the altar of a flagellant confraternity. The dramatic use of colour, the unflinching realism, and the insistence on the physical sufferings of Christ all pair well with the intense spirituality of the confraternity members, lived out through their corporal mortifications, through which they strove to emulate the tormented sufferings of Christ himself.63 These sculpted images offered a visual, exemplary configuration of that which they as confraternity members had lived in the course of their public self-flagellations. Returning now to the Novalesa polyptych, it is clear that this dialogue between the altarpiece and the frescoes has to be considered in terms of its aesthetic qualities as well as its narrative or iconographic ones. Not only would the dazzling colours of both alabaster and fresco have been mutually reinforcing, but there is also a correspondence between the two in terms of the utilisation of the trilobed niche with fretwork decoration as a space to contain the painted prophets, a device which seems to recall the canopies that adorned the top of the alabaster altarpiece. There is a sense, then, of wanting to give both painting and sculpture a common scenic apparatus. It is not surprising to find that Antoine de Lonhy, in other polyptychs made during his stay in the Aosta Valley, appears consistently interested in orchestrating such a dialogue between painted figures and the real architectonic framing.64 Along these same lines, the idea of endowing the altar of the Madonna 62 Turin, Archivio di Stato. Corte, Abbazie: Novalesa, mazzo “Documenti antichi”: “Stato del monastero di san Pietro di Novalesa”, reproduced in Gentile, “Antichi arredi,” 106–10. 63 Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 404–5. 64 For a broad discussion on the activity of Antoine de Lonhy in the Aosta Valley, see Caldera, “Antoine de Lonhy”; Elsig, F., “Itinéraire artistique et polyvalence technique: le cas d’Antoine de Lonhy,” in J.C. Heyder and C. Seidel (eds), Re-inventing traditions. On the transmission of artistic patterns in late medieval manuscript illumination (Frankfurt am Main, 2015), 219–29; Idem, La peinture dans le duché de Savoie à la fin du Moyen Âge (1416–1536) (Cinisello Balsamo, 2016).

Contextualising alabasters: meaning and function

with a sculpted alabaster work seems to reflect a desire for an overall aesthetic refinement that would advertise something of the patron’s prestige and power, as well as a sense of his intellectual ostentation. Scholars have already shown that in the Susa Valley, wooden works, or painted multi-tiered polyptychs, were fairly common as furnishings for altars. By comparison, there was a relative rarity of lapidary sculpture, a situation conditioned by the scarce availability, or in some cases total lack of, stone suitable for easy modelling, stone being reserved primarily as a building and functional construction material.65 According to the inventory of 1644, the alabaster polyptych is the only lapidary work amongst all the furnishings that sat on the various altars of the abbey complex. The use of alabaster must therefore have contributed to a distinctive space, implying the prestige of the patron through its use of a furnishing absolutely unique in its category. Another important aspect is the question of how Giorgio Provana procured the polyptych. Some scholars have proposed that Antoine de Lonhy, with all his experience and international contacts, acted as a go-between: at the very least suggesting the acquisition to Giorgio Provana, but perhaps even mediating the process himself.66 In reality, though, the Provana themselves had long had close relationships with Northern Europe, and indeed precisely with the regions bordering the Northern Sea and the English channel, where cultural and commercial exchanges with England were frequent, and where – coincidentally – there was a flourishing trade in alabasters.67 Indeed, two members of their extended family, Antonio and Giovanni (aslo known as Antoine and Jean de Prouvanne), had lending banks at Mechelen and Gorinchem respectively, and both these men are recorded at Bruges in 1473.68 We might also hypothesize that Giorgio Provana ordered the altarpiece in London, then an important centre of production and commerce, coordinating the production of works that were ultimately sent by ship to

65 Gentile (“Documenti per la storia”) points that phenomenon out. For a general discussion, cf. Pagella (ed.), Tra Gotico e Rinascimento. 66 Alessandra Guerrini (“Bottega inglese,”) for example, affirms that ‘it is evident that the arrival of this object is linked to the activity of Antoine de Lonhy’, (translation and italics mine). She hypothesises that he acquired it in Genoa or in France, pointing out that a very similar Coronation, now at the V&A, came from Toulouse, the painter’s city of origin. 67 Bouillet, A., “La fabrication industrielle des retables en albâtre (XIV–XV siècles),” Bulletin Monumental LXV (1901), 45–62 lists over 300 pieces in France. Cf. also Ramsay, “La production et exportation”; Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 45–9; Woods, “The Supply.” 68 Gentile, “Immagini e apparati,” 83. Cf. also Cannelloni, F., “Credito e pegno, famiglie e nazioni: i Lombardi tra Piemonte e Paesi Bassi” (c. 1380–1500), PhD thesis, University of Padua, KU Leuven, 2015, 126; Scarcia, G., “Élites del territorio piemontese e corte sabauda fra XIV e XV Secolo,” in P. Bianchi and L.C. Gentile (eds), L’affermarsi della corte sabauda: dinastie, poteri, élites in Piemonte e Savoia fra tardo Medioevo e prima età moderna (Turin, 2006), 163–76.

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a final destination.69 In the same period, for example, the brothers Giorgio and Raffaele Ardizzone bought ‘an altarpiece of many panels, created in London, England’ for the altar of their family chapel in the church of San Domenico at Taggia, in Liguria,70 which offers evidence of the existence of well-organised artistic trade networks between London and northwestern Italian regions. Domenico Provana, a relative of Giorgio’s, might have provided him with his support, acting as a go-between: Domenico lived in Zierikzee, in the southwest Netherlands, and was a wealthy textile tradesman. His commercial transactions were conducted between Flanders and London.71 In the same period we see numerous acquisitions of alabasters taking place on the Italian peninsula. These purchases were concentrated for the most part in areas near the coast easily reachable by ship, but the commercial exchanges penetrated into internal and even mountainous territories too, a process made possible by the easy assemblage and protection of the works in terms of their closable carpentry, but also by the well-connected systems of transport in Italy.72 It is therefore possible that Giorgio Provana knew of and appreciated the alabaster medium, and that, conscious of the fact that alabaster polyptychs were already decorating the chapels of some of the most powerful lords of the peninsula, he decided to emulate them. At this point, it is interesting to consider that the inventory of 1644 cites ‘a Flemish embroidered carpet executed in Turkish style, decorated with the coat-of-arms of the Leini lords’.73 This was one of the many furnishings donated by the Provana family to the abbey church, marked with their 69 In 1372, for instance, John, Lord Nevill of Raby ‘caused to be made the new work of marble and alabaster beneath the shrine of St. Cuthebert […] And he caused it to be enclosed in boxes in London, and sent by sea to Newcastle’. He also gave, in 1380, for 500 pound plus 200 added by the priors and others, ‘the work above the altar which is called La Reredos’. This too was brought by the sea from London in boxes. Hope, “On the Early Working,” 225. 70 The document was published in Calvini, N., La Cronaca dei Calvi. Il Convento dei PP. Domenicani e la Città di Taggia dal 1460 al 1623 (Taggia, 1982), 104; and further discussed in Cervini, F., “Alabastri inglesi nella Liguria del Quattrocento,” Bollettino dei musei Genovesi 13 (1991), 49–63: 54–5; Idem, “Alabastri inglesi tra Genova e Savona,” in P. Coccardo and C. Di Fabio (eds), Genova e l’Europa atlantica. Opere, artisti, committenti, collezionisti. Inghilterra, Fiandre, Portogallo (Cinisello Balsamo, 2006), 46–57: 52–5; Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster,” 400. The translation is mine; the original reads: ‘Icon seu palla altaris quae est in multis quadris, fabricata fuit Londini in Anglia’. 71 Cannelloni, “Credito e pegno”, 150. 72 Regarding the transport, for example, of an alabaster polyptych made in 1367 by Peter the Mason for the chapel of Saint George in Windsor, a record states that the large reredos required ten carts, each with eight horses, and that the journey took 17 days from 20 October to 6 November; Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 16. Cf. also Ramsay, “Alabaster,” in J. Blair and N. Ramsay (eds), English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products (London, 1991), 29–40: 37–9; Woods, “The Supply.” On alabasters in Italy see: Murat, “Medieval English Alabaster.” 73 Gentile, “Immagini e apparati,” 106. Translation provided is mine. The original text reads: ‘Un tapeto di Fiandra traponto alla turchesca, con l’arma d’un abbate de signori di Leiny’.

Contextualising alabasters: meaning and function

dynastic heraldry in perennial memory of the gift.74 What interests us here is the presence of the heraldry in a work of foreign production, which would seem to suggest that we are dealing not with the simple acquisition of a prefabricated work, but rather a specific commission, complete with a request to insert the coat-of-arms as part of the actual weave of embroidered decoration. This is really quite an important point, as it may suggest something analogous in the case of the alabaster polyptych, namely that it was purchased by virtue of a specific order, rather than as a straightforward acquisition of a generic work already on the market. The Flemish carpet, together with the employment of Antoine de Lonhy and the purchase of the English polyptych, confirms the Provana family’s preference, in visual terms, for “exotic” products that served to advertise the range and sophistication of their international networks. In conclusion, the study of the Novalesa polyptych enables us to explore a critical point of interest for works in alabaster, namely that alabasters were not intended to be viewed individually, but rather as an overall arrangement. The alabaster altarpiece at Novalesa was set “within” an immersive visual, textual and musical environment – an environment that functioned, in effect, as the totality of the chapel. Far from being isolated objects, as we often tend to perceive them today, sculptures in alabaster were skilfully integrated into larger complexes, and gave meaning to the space in which they were found, in iconographic and formal dialogue with the other works placed there. It was this dialogue that orientated the devotional experiences of the faithful.

74

Cf. Gentile, “Antichi arredi.”

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ALABASTER CARVINGS IN LATE-MEDIEVAL LINCOLNSHIRE JENNIFER ALEXANDER

T

he medieval county of Lincolnshire had a flourishing economy which coincided with the period of greatest output from the alabaster quarries and it might therefore be expected that there would have been considerable markets for alabaster carvers’ work in the region. Its geographical position, lying between the alabaster quarry sites of the East Midlands and the sea, might also have encouraged craftsmen based in the county to produce work for export around the coast and to continental Europe.1 Depredations due to the Reformation have been particularly severe in Lincolnshire, however, and virtually all the medieval monastic sites were razed to the ground with the consequent loss of most of their contents, whether works of religious art or effigial monuments, including those of alabaster, and so our knowledge of one important area of patronage is limited. Losses from parish churches were equally great but there is a range of documentary evidence, and there are some survivals. Lincoln had a Guild of St Luke that was founded in 1525 for ‘alabaster men’ together with painters, stainers and gilders, and this establishes that carvers were at work at the end of the medieval period in the region, but evidence for the earlier period is less clear.2 Combining the documentary evidence with the number of rediscovered works from across Lincolnshire does however allow us to comment on the popularity of the material. There 1 On the export of medieval alabasters, see Ramsay, N., “Alabaster,” in J. Blair and N. Ramsay (eds), English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products (London, 1991), 29–40. 2 The guild was granted a charter in 1562, by which time its members would have been engaged primarily in tomb-making. Members maintained a great candle before an image of St Luke in Lincoln Cathedral. Lincolnshire Archives Office (henceforth cited as LAO), The Lincoln Minute Book, L/1/1/2, f. 177.

Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

is a particular concentration of evidence from the north-west corner of the county, the Isle of Axholme. This is a low-lying area at the confluence of the river Trent with the Humber, and the presence there of gypsum pits suggests a possible quarrying and production centre in the medieval period that warrants investigation.

TOMBS AND MONUMENTS Perhaps surprisingly, medieval Lincolnshire patrons, or masons, did not choose alabaster for tomb monuments very often. There is no Lincolnshire equivalent to the series of monuments to be found in churches in Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire to suggest a workshop in the region, and it is noticeable that none of the medieval tombs in Lincoln Cathedral is of alabaster. The Willoughby alabaster tombs at Spilsby, Lincolnshire, are an exception, and it has been plausibly suggested that the two monuments to the second and third barons, from the last quarter of the fourteenth century, are metropolitan rather than Midlands work.3 It is possible that the family was seeking out the most fashionable tomb-makers but it may also indicate that there was not a well-established alabaster tomb-maker in central Lincolnshire at that time. When the number of surviving pre-1550 monuments in the county is compared to those of its neighbours, both those with alabaster pits and those without that border them, Lincolnshire is shown to have a much lower proportion of alabaster to freestone monuments than the other counties. Only 10% of Lincolnshire’s monuments are alabaster, against Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire figures of 88% and 74% respectively, and lower than Leicestershire and Rutland at 41%, the East Riding of Yorkshire at 32% and Staffordshire at 20%.4 To offset the effects of loss over time, we can corroborate these figures by looking at the evidence from an excavated monastic site where the monumental floor slabs still remained in situ. Bardney Abbey has sixty-six inscribed floor slabs of which two are recorded as being Purbeck and the rest are freestone. None is alabaster although considerable numbers of medieval slabs of this material can be seen in both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.5 There are two possible missing alabaster tombs that are known from 3 Lord, J., “Repairing and Cleaning of the Said Burying Places,” Church Monuments IX (1994), 83–92. The family seems to have been content to entrust their remarkable freestone wall-monument to local masons in 1580s when a more architectural scheme was envisaged. 4 The figures are taken from the on-line index to the volumes of the Buildings of England series and from Downing, M., Military Effigies of England and Wales, 9 vols (Shrewsbury, 2010–2015); see also, Downing, M., Medieval Military Monuments in Lincolnshire, BAR British Series, 515 (Oxford, 2010). 5 Brakspear, H., “Bardney Abbey,” Archaeological Journal 79 (1922), 1–92. Greenhill’s list includes only three alabaster examples, Greenhill, F.A., Monumental Incised Slabs in the County of Lincoln (Newport Pagnall, 1986).

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documents. One, for Richard Patten, the father of William Wainfleet, was removed from Wainfleet to Magdalen College in Oxford c. 1830 and still remains there.6 The Mowbray family, founders of the Charterhouse at Melwood near Epworth in the Isle of Axholme, had a tomb of alabaster made for the founder, Thomas Mowbray, that may have been the one noted by Leland.7

ALABASTER RETABLES Smaller-scale works are better represented both in the documents and in their survival, including at least one set of fragments that clearly belonged to a single altarpiece in the parish church of St Giles, Scartho, near Grimsby.8 Medieval retables made up of a series of single alabaster panels, or ‘tables’, and set into a wooden frame, were made in considerable quantities in the later medieval period and are represented in museum and private collections in the UK, with a larger number to be found overseas. The Swansea altarpiece, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is one of a very few complete examples still in the UK and is a survival of the industry that was based in the East Midlands with workshops centred on Nottingham, and supplied markets across Europe.9 Production of these tables followed strictly limited patterns and so comparisons can be made although individual carvers’ work is hard to establish. It is not possible to date alabaster tables precisely and a broad chronology worked out in the nineteenth and early twentieth century is usually followed. Much of the work was carried out by Dr W.H. Hildburgh, whose collection forms the basis of the V&A’s holding of alabasters, and continued by Francis

6 Steane, J., “The Tomb of Richard Patten, the Founder’s Father,” Magdalen College Record (1996), 65–72. 7 According to the local antiquarian, Stonehouse, the remains of the abbey’s founder, Thomas Mowbray, ‘were buried here in a tomb of alabaster which was brought here by his son Thomas from Venice, where he died’ and his grandson John was also buried in the Charterhouse; Stonehouse, W.B., The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme (London, 1839), 250. Moreover, ‘one of the Mulbrais dukes of Northfolk was buried in a tumbe of alabaster’, Leland’s Itinerary in England and Wales, ed. L. Toulmin Smith, vol. 1 (London, 1964), 37. 8 There is a large mid-fourteenth-century alabaster panel with two scenes from the life of St Catherine flanking a central one of the Crucifixion in a house close to the cathedral at Lincoln, which may possibly have been made as an altarpiece for the cathedral’s chapel dedicated to the saint but its history is not recorded. Pevsner, N. and Harris, J., The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire, 2nd edn rev. N. Antram (New Haven and London, 1989), 513. 9 There is also evidence for ‘alabastermen’ working at a number of other places, including York and Burton-on-Trent, but the best evidence is from Nottingham: Williamson, P., “Introduction,” in P. Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion. Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Exh. Cat., Palm Beach, FL, Society of the Four Arts, and five other institutions, with contributions by F. Cannan, E. Duffy and S. Perkinson (Alexandria, 2010), 12–21.

Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

Cheetham who built up the collection at Nottingham.10 It is based on the shape of the tables and the form of the canopies above them. The earliest tables, from the period c. 1330–80, are rectangular and were already being produced to a standardised format. Vertical panels had appeared by the end of the fourteenth century and altarpieces made of these panels began to emerge. Two-tier reredoses, sometimes made as triptychs, are also found in the second half of the fifteenth century. There was also a greater variety of subjects depicted in the fifteenth century, with lives of the Saints as well as scenes from the Passion of Christ or the Life of the Virgin the most familiar. Production of alabaster tables continued into the sixteenth century.11 Later examples can be dated by comparison with the documented altarpiece ordered for the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in 1456 by an English priest, John Goodyear, (Johanes Gudguar), with its cycle of the life of St James.12 It is a nearly complete five-panel retable and has most of its original frame with descriptive titles painted on the edge, but lacks the standing figures from either end. In common with other fifteenthcentury examples, the centre section is taller than the other tables and it has traceried canopies in alabaster to complete it. The inclusion of sacred images in alabaster on tombs of the same material can contribute to the dating debate since these are often comparable to retable examples.13 Two monuments in St Mary’s, Abergavenny, illustrate this. The double monument to Sir William ap Thomas, d.  1446, and his wife Lady Gwladys, d.  1454, includes a panel of the Annunciation on one end of the tomb chest that differs only in the cladding of Gabriel in feathered costume from many retable panels of the same subject, although feathered angels do appear on other tables. In the second example, a tall 10 Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters with a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert museum, (Oxford 1984). There is also a considerable collection of papers by nineteenth-century antiquarians, including Hildburgh, and P. Biver, in the periodic literature, which Cheetham lists. 11 Cheetham, F., Unearthed: Nottingham’s Medieval Alabasters (Nottingham, 2004), 10. The dating sequence was derived from the work of Prior, E.S. and Gardner, A., An Account of Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England (Cambridge, 1912), 460–506. Further refinement of the dates is proposed by Rollason, L., “English Alabasters in the Fifteenth Century,” in D. Williams (ed.), England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium (Woodbridge, 1987), 245–54. Isotope analysis of medieval alabaster has now identified the sources of alabaster used in carvings to sites in France and Spain as well as in the East Midlands; Kloppmann, W., et al., “Competing English, Spanish and French Alabaster Trade,” PNAS 114:45 (2017), 11856–60. The effects of the Reformation on the alabaster industry are discussed by Duffy, E., “The Reformation and the Alabastermen,” in Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion, 54–65. 12 Hildburgh, W.L., “A Datable English Alabaster Altarpiece at Santiago de Compostela,” The Antiquaries Journal 6 (1926), 304–7; Barral Iglesias, A., “El Museo y el Tesoro,” in J.M. Garcia Iglesias, et al., La Catedral de Santiago de Compostela, (Laracha 1993), 15–25. 13 Crease, J., “‘Not Commonly Reputed or Taken for a Saincte’: The Output of a Northern Workshop in the Late Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth Centuries,” in S. Badham and S. Oosterwijk (eds), Monumental Industry: The Production of Tomb Monuments in England and Wales in the Long Fourteenth Century (Donington, 2010), 136–60.

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panel depicting a combined Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin resembling the same image on the Swansea altarpiece, was incorporated into the rear wall of the tomb of Richard Herbert of Ewyas (d.  1510), and had been specially made for this setting. The figure of St Thomas is positioned on the lower left to catch the Virgin’s girdle on her ascent but has been obscured by the donor figure in armour placed immediately in front of him.14 The two sections of a figure of St Lawrence in Boultham Park St Helen’s, in the Lincoln suburbs, could equally easily have come from a tomb chest or a retable.15

SCARTHO’S RETABLE No British parish church retains a complete alabaster retable, although single tables in churches may represent survivals from whole altarpieces. For example, the small section of an alabaster table of either the Resurrection or the Betrayal of Christ, found at Barton-upon-Humber St Peter, in north Lincolnshire, would have been more likely to have come from a Passion altarpiece than from a single panel, since such scenes belong in a narrative sequence.16 Both documentary sources and more extensive fragmented examples, such as those from Scartho, establish that medieval churches did own such altarpieces.17 The alabasters were found close to the church at Scartho by workmen digging the foundations of the Grantham almshouses early in 1929, on a site about 150 metres east of the church on a slight rise.18 The find was reported in the local newspaper with photographs of three of the panels, and a brief note appeared in the regional archaeological journal for that year.19 It was observed at the time that the panels had been carefully buried, packed face to face, at a depth of about 75.0 cm, and no trace of any associated building was discovered. Two other churches reported similar finds. At Drayton, Berkshire, six tables from at least one altarpiece were found when a burial vault was dug in the churchyard in 1814, and three tables from an early altarpiece, together with a later panel, were 14 The legend of St Thomas and the Virgin’s girdle is from The Golden Legend, see further below. The Abergavenny tombs have been studied by Phillip Lindley and the pre-Reformation date of the inclusion of the panels established, but the adaptation of the Herbert panel has not been discussed. Lindley, P., Tomb Destruction and Scholarship in Early Modern England (Donington, 2007), 199–236. 15 Fairweather, P., “Sculpture at Risk: St Helen’s Church, Boultham Park, Lincoln,” Bulletin of the International Society for the Study of Church Monuments 9 (1983), 189. 16 Lankester, P.J., “Fragment of an Alabaster Panel,” in W. Rodwell and C. Atkins, St Peter’s Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire – A Parish Church and its Community. Volume 1. History, Archaeology and Architecture (Oxford, 2011), 825–7. 17 The documentary evidence is considered below. 18 At OS TA 269065. 19 The Grimsby Evening News (1 February 1929); “Report of the Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society,” Associated Architectural Societies Reports and Papers 39 (1929), lxxxix.

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Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

discovered in 1864 at Kettlebaston, Suffolk, concealed in the aisle wall of the church. Additionally, Yarnton, in Oxfordshire, has four tables from an alabaster retable that were reputedly excavated close to St Edmund Hall, in Oxford, and given to the church in the eighteenth century.20 As at Scartho, the intention must have been to recover the tables and return these to their respective buildings at a later date and, in each case, not all the tables were present.21 Within Lincolnshire, broken remains of several alabaster tables were found during restoration work at the parish church in Wooton c. 1850. The fragments were shown at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in 1920 where they were recognised as having come from a retable, and one table, of the Annunciation, was reconstructed from three pieces, with parts of an Adoration of the Magi also noted.22

20 For Drayton see Pevsner, N., Tyack, G. and Bradley, S., The Buildings of England: Berkshire (New Haven and London, 2010), 276; Kettlebaston’s find was reported at the 9th February 1882 meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries IX (1883), 71; the tables are now in the British Museum. Two further panels from Yarnton were given to the British Museum and the V&A, the latter from the centre of the retable: Pevsner, N., Brooks, A. and Sherwood, J., The Buildings of England, Oxfordshire: North and West (New Haven and London, 2017), 582. Retables in museum and private collections mostly lack full histories, and many more altarpieces are found overseas, although not all are complete. A recent addition to the corpus is a complete altarpiece from a private collection that was sold in 2017. It consists of tables showing the martydoms of three saints, Stephen, Lawrence, and Erasmus, with a central larger image of the Trinity, all set within a more recent frame. Its provenance is believed to have been the Charterhouse of Vauvers, Paris, but it is not known whether it was created for export or sent abroad at the Reformation. Its unique iconography invites further study. http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/master-paintings-sculpture-daysale-n09602/lot.166.html (last accessed March 2018). 21 The cathedral church of St Marie, Sheffield, has a series of six late-fifteenth-century tables from Virgin and Passion cycles, apparently discovered in Exeter, and given to the newly built cathedral after 1850, together with one post-medieval example; Burleigh, B., A Guide to the Medieval Alabasters of St. Marie’s Cathedral, Sheffield (Sheffield, 2016). When discovered the panels had been very badly damaged and considerable restoration took place in the nineteenth century to make each one complete. Further fragmentary examples can be seen at Whittlesford, (Cambridgeshire), and clearly these too were from more than one altarpiece, Marks, R., Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Stroud, 2004), 251. 22 It is not clear from the brief published note whether the fragments had been broken before they were deposited, or damaged in their recovery, as some of the Scartho tables

FIG. 6.1  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ALABASTER RETABLE FRAGMENTS. SCARTHO, CHURCH OF ST GILES

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FIG. 6.2  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ST JOHN THE BAPTIST. SCARTHO,

Jennifer Alexander

The Scartho tables suffered some damage during their excavation and a number of broken fragments were omitted from the reconstruction. The Report of the Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society refers to parts of, ‘a carved framework, angels, foliage, tracery etc.’ together with evidence of wire attachments on the tables, and not all of these are now to be found.23 Some appear to be the cresting for the tables and others may have been parts of the wooden frame. The alabasters were sent to the V&A for inspection by Dr Hildburgh who published a brief note in 1930 in which he recognised that they were from a single retable.24 A reconstruction drawing was placed in the display case with the tables on their return from London, and plaster used to make good some of the more damaged fragments (Figs 6.1–6.7, 6.9). Confusion as to the form of the retable was already evident, with the reconstruction drawing omitting the very damaged table tentatively labelled ‘Crucifixion?’ (Fig. 6.7), substituting a drawing of a panel of the Trinity instead, and the Assumption was mis-identified. It can be estimated from the more complete tables that they originally measured between 37 and 37.5  cm tall, by 21.3  cm wide, and none of the survivors was taller. Comparisons with tables in the V&A collection establish that these conform to a late fifteenth-century type, and a larger central panel would have been about 60 cm high.25 Although all have suffered abrasion of their surfaces, a large amount of pigment and some detail can still be seen. The commonly encountered stylised ground of daisies on a green background remains on the Annunciation, with a gilded background to the upper part. Several other tables have small blank circles visible behind the figures which are the sites of lost gesso knobs, and the actual knobs still survive in the background to the Magi scene (Fig. 6.6). Further gilding and colour, in red, black and green, have been used to highlight costume details, and as background, for example on the deity’s halo in the ‘Assumption’. The Scartho tables include two free-standing figures that formed the

CHURCH OF ST GILES

were; 18th March 1920 meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries 2nd series XXXII (1920), 117–29. 23 “Report of the Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society,” Associated Architectural Societies Reports and Papers 39 (1929), lxxxix 24 Hildburgh, W.L., “Further Notes on English Alabaster Carvings,” The Antiquaries Journal 10 (1930), 34–45. 25 The majority of the late-fifteenth-century examples in the V&A collection fall within the size range 36–43 cm by 21.5–23 cm.

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Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

ends of the retable (Figs 6.1–6.3). Both are headless but one is clearly identified as St John the Baptist by the lamb that he is holding. By inference the second figure, which is more damaged but holding a palm, may be St John the Evangelist, on the model of the Swansea altarpiece. The Baptist figure has been reconstructed from three sections, and there are traces of red and gold paint on the garment. It closely resembles two standing figures of St John the Baptist from the second half of the fifteenth century in the V&A, for example, A.64–1946, which is also gesturing towards the lamb resting on a book.26 The table of the Annunciation is nearly complete although lacking its surface detail (Fig. 6.4). The Virgin is shown kneeling at a prie-dieu and half turned with hands raised, looking towards the bust of God in the upper left corner, which has been reattached. A representation of the Incarnation, as the breath of God with either the Dove or the actual infant Christ, has been broken off from between the figures, leaving a small fragment on the edge of the Virgin’s halo and on the mouth of God. The three fragments on the background are from the lily flowers, and a fourth from the Virgin’s hand. A small figure of the angel occupies the lower left side, with a scroll extended around the lily pot and up between the other figures. The tester over the Virgin’s prie-dieu, that has been reattached, marks the upper edge of the panel. It originally had a background of gilded gesso knobs, and considerable further traces of gilding survive on the bust of God and on the Virgin’s garments and hair. The angel’s wings were painted red and there is green paint on the lily stem. The large halo behind the Virgin’s head has a design picked out in black, and it is noticeable that this is the only Scartho table in which the Virgin is shown with a halo. Depictions of the Annunciation were one of the most popular subjects for alabaster tables with a large number recorded of very similar design to the Scartho example. It conforms to Cheetham’s Type D or E, and only differs in showing the Virgin uncrowned. In Type D a Dove issues from the mouth of God, in Type E it is a tiny figure of the Christchild.27 With this section missing from the Scartho table it is not possible to identify it certainly. The Adoration of the Virgin table is broken above the heads of the figures and has been reconstructed with a demi-figure of an angel in the 26 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 115, and http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/ O70159/st-john-the-baptist-panel-unknown/ (last accessed February 2018). 27 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 162.

FIG. 6.3  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST (?) SCARTHO, CHURCH OF ST GILES

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FIG. 6.4  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE ANNUNCIATION. SCARTHO, CHURCH OF ST GILES

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top right corner (Fig. 6.5). It depicts the vision by St Bridget of Sweden in which the infant Christ, placed on a mandorla and blessing, is shown worshipped by the Virgin, here with her hands crossed on her breast. Behind are the figure of Joseph with his staff and two further female figures, one wearing a fashionable headdress of the mid fifteenth century, who can be identified as the two midwives, Zelemie and Salome, from the Gospel of the Pseudo-Matthew.28 A single animal leans over towards the Christchild. The surface of the panel has been abraded and most of the details lost from faces and drapery but gilding can still be seen in the background. A considerable number of other tables of this scene have been recorded by Cheetham and the table no. A.94–1946 in the V&A, from the fifteenth century, is very similar to the Scartho panel, although there Joseph is also adoring the infant Christ.29 The Magi table has been broken in the same place as the Nativity, and the whole top edge is missing above the heads of the figures (Fig. 6.6). The Virgin is seated holding the infant Christ on her knee who reaches with both hands to grasp the chalice proffered by a kneeling king. The other Magi are standing behind and one holding a navis, or incense ship, points towards the missing upper corner in which the star must have been. On the badly abraded lower right corner the seated figure of Joseph can just be seen, holding the same shaped staff as he holds in the Adoration. In a very similar table from the second half of the fifteenth century in the V&A (no. A.97-1946) the ox and ass occupy Klauck, H.-J., Apocryphal Gospels, transl. B. McNeil (London, 2003), 78–81. Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 179; http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70314/ the-nativity-panel-unknown/ (last accessed February 2018). 28

29

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Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

the space between the seated figure of Joseph and the kneeling king and it is likely that the two lumps next to Joseph on the Scartho table are the worn remains of these beasts.30 Tables of the Magi vary in their composition with the Virgin seated on the left or the right according to the position that the table was intended to occupy in the whole retable. The next table is the most damaged and is only tentatively identified as the Crucifixion. It consists of the lower draped portion of a female figure standing on a base to which a small figure in feathered costume has been attached (Fig. 6.7). The presence of a buckle on the figure’s hip is, however, sufficient to identify this table as that of the Assumption of the Virgin, illustrating the scene from the Golden Legend.31 The scene frequently appears as a subject for alabaster tables, shown on several tables in the V&A, for example, A.115-1946 (Fig. 6.8). The Virgin is shown in a mandorla supported by angels and borne aloft to Heaven at the top of the panel where a single person of the deity is shown with two attendant musician angels. The kneeling figure of St Thomas at the Virgin’s feet receives her girdle, the buckle of which is shown on her hip, as in the Scartho table. There are marked stylistic similarities between these two tables. The fall of drapery at the Virgin’s feet on the base of the Scartho fragment is exactly reproduced in the V&A Assumption, as is the slight trace of the drapery of the lost figure of St Thomas, lower left. The overall form of the figures, with their over-sized hands, rounded faces and prominent eyes represented as simple circles relate the V&A table very closely to the

30 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 186; http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70346/ adoration-of-the-magi-panel-unknown/ (last accessed February 2018). 31 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, transl. W.G. Ryan, with an introduction by E. Duffy (Princeton, 1993), 82.

FIG. 6.5  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE ADORATION OF THE VIRGIN. SCARTHO, CHURCH OF ST GILES

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FIG. 6.6  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. SCARTHO, CHURCH OF ST GILES

Jennifer Alexander

more complete Scartho panels and suggest they may have a common origin.32 Fragments of green paint can be seen on the mound and gilding on the little angel at Scartho and it differs from the V&A version in having a feathered garment. The last Scartho table is also very fragmented and has been reconstructed from several parts (Fig. 6.9). It is identified as the Assumption but in fact depicts the Coronation of the Virgin. The subject was popular with alabaster carvers and fifteenthcentury examples show the seated figure of the Virgin crowned by the persons of the Trinity depicted either as three kings, or as two kings and the Dove of the Holy Spirit. The Trinity are always shown positioned above the Virgin, the kings seated on ledges, and in a number of examples the space beneath is occupied by a small angel, often with a musical instrument, as here. Although the surface detail has mostly been lost some remains in the top right corner and red colouring exists on the angel’s wings in the base while gilding can be found deep in the folds of the draperies of the figures. The panel is closely comparable to V&A A.157-1946 (Fig. 6.10) which has a seated angel musician, playing a similar lute-type instrument.33 Although the crowned figure is badly damaged it is clearly wearing a high-necked gown and cloak and the left arm passing across the body probably held an orb. With the iconography of the panels now established it is possible to suggest a reconstruction of the entire Scartho retable from which five tables and two standing figures survive. Despite the reconstruction 32 The table in the V&A was formerly in the collection of P. Nelson, and before that was owned by F.A. Crisp, its earlier provenance is not recorded. 33 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 216.

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Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire FIG. 6.7  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. SCARTHO, CHURCH OF ST GILES

FIG. 6.8  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

drawing it cannot have resembled the Swansea altarpiece, which depicts the Joys of the Virgin in five scenes, whereas the presence at Scartho of the extra scene at the birth of Christ and the separation of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin establishes that the Scartho retable probably consisted of seven panels. Dr Hildburgh seems to have reached the same conclusion in his brief piece about the Scartho tables, noting that fragments of both an Assumption and a Coronation of the Virgin were present and that examination of the fragments enabled the subjects of four more panels, beyond the three most complete ones, to be discovered, but he did not develop the point.34 Cycles of the Life, or Joys, of the Virgin followed a standard iconographic format and usually consisted of five panels, with single standing figures at either end, and the inclusion of extra scenes on separate tables was not common. Comparanda for the Scartho fragments are therefore hard to find, but a close parallel is the 34

Hildburgh, “Further notes,” 42, note 2.

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FIG. 6.9  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. SCARTHO, CHURCH OF ST GILES FIG. 6.10  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

Jennifer Alexander

nearly complete retable dated to the second half of the fifteenth century in the church of Saint-Michel in Bordeaux (Fig. 6.11).35 It is a seven-panel altarpiece with end figures of St John the Baptist and a standing male saint, and retains the canopies over six of the tables, although the central one has had most of its canopy removed to make it fit the later wooden frame. Like Scartho it has scenes of the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Virgin, the Magi, the Assumption, a separate Coronation, plus two further scenes, the Ascension and a taller centre table of the Resurrection. It is from the East Midlands workshops and, although not by the same hand as the Scartho tables, it shares their iconographic sources closely.36 As a possible alternative, the Scartho central panel may have been a Pietà combined with a second scene. The small church of Kermaria-

LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

35 Published by Biver, P., “Some Examples of English Alabaster Tables in France,” The Archaeological Journal 67 (1910), 66–87. 36 Biver, “Some Examples,” 84–5; see also, Riches, S.J.E., “The La Selle Retable: An English Alabaster Altarpiece in Normandy”, PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 1999, 181ff. The tables from the Bordeaux altarpiece were stolen in 1984 and finally recovered in 2016.

163

Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

en-Isquit, Plouha (Côtes d’Amor), on the north Brittany coast, has an incomplete set of four intact and one damaged table from a seven-panel retable.37 They depict the Annunciation, Magi, Assumption of the Virgin, a separate Coronation, and a Pietà. The Pietà is smaller in scale than the other tables and originally formed the lower half of a larger one, possibly combined with the Crucifixion to make the central table, as in the retable, with its original wooden frame, now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, although this is a Passion series.38 Scenes of the Pietà are uncommon as tables, however, and it is more probable that the missing Scartho central scene followed the Bordeaux example and was of the Resurrection with a further table of the Ascension.39 Their absence from the Scartho tables is probably due to the effects of burial but it is possible that they were not originally buried; their Christ imagery perhaps making them attractive to someone prepared to risk concealing them at the Reformation.

DOCUMENTED EXAMPLES OF ALABASTERS The sixteenth-century churchwardens’ accounts for Leverton, near the south coast of Lincolnshire, detail two projects in which alabaster sculpture 37 Prior and Gardner, An Account, 501, the fifth table was unknown to them. Illustrations of the panels are at: http://www.infobretagne.com/plouha-kermaria-an-iskuit.htm (last accessed February 2018). 38 For the Berlin retable see Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 197. Its earlier history and its possible original home in the abbey of Cluny is discussed by Hildburgh, W.L., “Further Miscellaneous Notes on Medieval English Alabaster Carvings,” The Antiquaries Journal 17 (1937), 181–91. 39 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 197, cites the Berlin retable as the only known example of a Pietà combined with a second subject as he was not aware of the damaged Kermaria table, but these seem to be the only two.

FIG. 6.11  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ALABASTER RETABLE OF THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN. BORDEAUX, CHURCH OF SAINT-MICHEL

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Jennifer Alexander

was created to order in the period leading up to the Reformation. The accounts are summarised and expenditure is listed without any particular order so it is not always possible to assess the sequence of events within the year, or possibly longer period.40 Work on the church started in 1498 and continued until at least 1517. Furnishings were then acquired and in c. 1521 payments were made to John Brooke and his team for making an alabaster retable for the church (‘John Brooke factori tabulo alabastyr in plena solucione p’ eadem tabula, viij li’).41 There was also expenditure of 5d for the churchwardens’ costs for attending a meeting with ‘the alabasterman’, presumably Brooke, to discuss the tables, for which he was paid 12d. Three others are named at Leverton, Amos Lawhton who supplied the oak for the frame, Nicholas ‘Fabro’ who made iron clamps for the alabaster altarpiece, for 2s 8d, and William Myddlbarows, a glazier, who, after payments for glazing was paid 4d for scouring ‘a tabull of alybastyre at saynt thoas auter’.42 This last entry confirms the site, and presumably also the theme of the retable, without giving any further detail although it must have been a considerable piece since John Brooke was paid a total £8 6s 8d for it. He received the further 6s 8d for the ‘vawte’ over it, presumably some sort of canopy. John Bell, the rector of the south part of Leverton, paid £2 13s 4d towards the cost. Also included was payment of 14d to a painter (unnamed) for a painted cloth for a covering for the retable.43 The origins of Brooke are obscure, his surname is not indicative, but his frame-maker, Amos Lawhton, may have derived his name from the village of Laughton near Gainsborough. A few years later, in 1526, a second deal was made with Brook, this time named as Robert, to supply a whole series of figures for the rood loft from a legacy of 46s 8d left by William Franckyshe in 1524, ‘to ye biyng of ymags of alybaster to be set in ye for syde of ye roode loffte.’44 There was a payment for 12d as a deposit before work started, and the entries record, ‘a full payment for xvi of ye imags of alybast that stand in ye for syede of ye rood loft yt wyllyam ffrankysch caussyde to be bought’, of exactly 46s 8d. Brook was also paid separately for a seventeenth image, described as ‘on oy od ymage to be sett in ye same place yt ew’y stage myght be fyld’. This payment was of 3s 4d while the other sixteen had cost 2s 11d each (totalling 46s 8d), which implies that Brooke had made his bargain in the knowledge of the available funds, 1d was also paid for nails and latten (copper alloy) wire. Certainly this set of alabasters was less costly than 40 LAO, Leverton Par, 7/1, ff 18–22, published in part by Peacock, E., “Extracts from the Churchwardens’ Accounts of the Parish of Leverton, in the county of Lincoln,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to Antiquity XLVIII:2 (1868), 333–70. 41 Ibidem, f. 18r, continued on f. 18v. 42 Ibidem, f. 19v. 43 Ibidem, ff 18r and 18v. 44 Ibidem, f. 22, William Frankish’s will of 1524 is quoted on f. 22v. He left money for wax for the light of ‘owr lady of flowr’ for ten years, and it was his wife, Jennet, who made the bequest for the rood-loft alabasters in his name.

Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

the retable of c. 1521 that had cost over £8. Brook seems to have stayed in the village during the work on the retable and the churchwardens’ account shows that the parish was asked to help with the cost of his keep during this time; ‘recevyd ffor chese that was gaderyd in the town for ye alybaster man, 8d’, with the next line, ‘in mony yt was gadyrd in ye town at ye same tyme of them yt gaffe no chesse, 13d’.45 No trace now remains of any of the figures at Leverton, payments were made in 1549 for taking down images, and the rood loft itself was taken down in 1559, or 1562.46 The churchwardens’ account implies that the images for the rood loft were free-standing figures set within canopies above the screen. Belton, in the Isle of Axholme, listed a ‘Rood loft with a tabernacle whearin Imageis stood’, in 1566 which may have been similar, and the neighbouring parish of Wroot’s collection of images of the twelve Apostles, with other figures, although not specified as alabasters, gives some idea of the possible set of figures for Leverton.47 The V&A alabaster collection includes single figures, for example, St Andrew from an Apostles’ Creed series, or St Barbara, which consist of high relief images on vertical panels. In most cases the single figures are taller than those used as the terminal figures for retables but still have fixings for wires on the reverse for attachments to frames and may represent the sort of images installed at Leverton. Alabaster carvings intended for personal devotion appear in a few probate inventories from Lincolnshire of the second quarter of the sixteenth century. In 1536, John Paynson, Vicar of Old Leake, left three unspecified images of alabaster worth a total of 2s, and three other people owned single alabaster tables of a type referred to as St John’s Heads.48 These are depictions of St John the Baptist’s head displayed on a charger which often had other imagery arranged around the edge of the panel in the form of standing saints or an image of the Crucifixion, and many of them were produced or traded in Nottingham as the borough records establish.49 Some were displayed in wooden tabernacles, such as the alabaster head of St John in the Burrell Collection which is housed in a painted wooden hinged casing that allowed it to be opened for devotion. This may explain the difference in the values recorded by Hope for the Ibidem, f. 21. The Leverton churchwardens’ account list a payment of 2s for taking it down in 1562, the entry for the Commissioners Report in 1566 refers to it having happened in the first year of Elizabeth. Peacock, E., English Church Furniture, Ornaments and Decorations, at the Period of the Reformation (London, 1866), 114. 47 See further below. 48 LAO, INV Box 6, f. 11. I am grateful to Dr Brian Hodgkinson for sharing his researches on early sixteenth-century inventories in Lincolnshire with me. 49 St John Hope, W., “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets called St John’s Heads,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to Antiquity LII:2 (1890), 669–708. On this typology of artworks, see also Belyea, T., “Johannes ex disco: Remarks on a late Gothic alabaster head of St. John the Baptist,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47:2–3 (1999), 100–17; and the essay by Claire Blakey, Rachel King, Michaela Zöschg in this volume. 45

46

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Heads which varied between 2d and 5s. In Lincolnshire, Thomas Abe’s St John’s Head, from Tattershall, was valued at 2d in 1537, while that of William Painter, a draper of Boston, was estimated at 12d, and Robert Willerton, a wealthy tanner also of Boston, had a more modest example worth 4d in 1540.50

RECORDS OF DESTRUCTION Some assessment of the extent, and loss, of the contents of a number of churches in Lincolnshire, including works in alabaster, can be made from the responses to the 1566 Commissioners’ Report compiled as part of Elizabethan legislation banning images.51 The entries conform to a pattern since they were answers to specific questions and usually start with the fate of the Rood. Some churchwardens were able to claim that objects had been put to profane use, but were unable to account for other items, and occasionally tried to distance themselves from the event by blaming another. The curate who had left Somerby was held responsible for the removal of a book from the church, as the wardens stated that ‘what became of the said mass book wee knowe not but moste of the p[ar]ishe suspecteth he had it.’52 Clearly there were opportunities for vulnerable items to be spirited away before the commissioners arrived and this may have been the case with the two missing panels from Scartho. Questions were not asked about the materials of the furnishings, with the exception of metal objects, and so alabasters, either tables or figures, are not usually identified separately. There are two exceptions to this. Corringham church near Gainsborough had a single alabaster table that was ‘defacid’ in 1566 by the churchwardens in advance of the visit by the commissioners in April of that year, and the churchwardens of Hacconby, in south Lincolnshire, had similarly burned a ‘greate alter table wt leaves full of Imagies of allablaster’, in 1562.53 Further parishes list items that may have been alabaster. Belton church of All Saints, in the Isle of Axholme, had a considerable number of images at the Reformation and it is seems likely that some of these were alabaster. Objects listed were: a table of images, a ‘pece’ of another table of images, a tabernacle for images (mentioned above), an ‘idoll’ of All Hallows with ‘divers other Idolls’, the distinction in the entry perhaps reflecting different 50 Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 676–7, listing extracts from inventories of 1446 to 1554. LAO INV Box 6, f. 16 and f. 76, INV Box 10, f. 147. 51 Peacock, English Church Furniture; unfortunately there is no entry for Scartho. Further entries from the Commissioners Report were published by Foster, C.W., “English Church Furniture AD 1566,” Lincolnshire Notes and Queries 14 (1916–17), 78–89, 109–16, 144–51, 166–73. For an assessment of the Lincolnshire commission see Aston, M., Broken Idols of the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2016), 164–83. 52 Peacock, English Church Furniture, 140. 53 Ibidem, 62 and 94.

Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

materials in use, with the first two possibly alabaster altarpieces.54 All Saints’ church, Stamford, included ‘certain altar tables’ that may have been alabaster tables in their entry for 1565.55 Although the term ‘altar tables’ could refer to painted retables as well as alabaster tables, a distinction is drawn at Tallington where the opening entry reads ‘…all other Imagies of sup’sticion and all alter tables, painted bordes and masse bookes…’.56 Wealthy guilds, like that of St Mary at Boston, had provided commissions for ‘alabastermen’. The inventory of the Boston guild taken in 1534 includes an alabaster retable depicting ‘the storry of the dome (Doom)’ that measured two and a half yards, (c.   2.25  m) in length that was in the chapel of St Mary’s House, together with, ‘a litill ymage of our lady’, that was also of alabaster.57

ANTIQUARIAN ACCOUNTS AND REDISCOVERED ALABASTERS Alabaster carvings taken out of churches at the Reformation have in some cases reappeared and revealed their fate. The late seventeenth-century diarist, Abraham De la Pryme, reported that dredging a pond in Scotter, sometime in the 1670s, had produced between sixty and eighty, ‘little pretty images about a foot long… delicately cutt of alabaster and other sorts of stones’. The wife of the finder was interviewed by de la Pryme and promised to show him one or two of these images but his diary has no further record of them.58 At Barton-upon-Humber de la Pryme had been told about an image of St Catherine, standing by the saint’s well, that had been broken up in the Commonwealth. He describes it as marble but since he sometimes also refers to alabaster tombs as marble it too may have been an alabaster carving.59 In 1843 or 1844, the landlord of the King’s Head Inn at Epworth, digging in his stockyard, found numerous small alabaster fragments, measuring about 12ins (30 cm) tall. Rev. W.B. Stonehouse (c. 1792–1862), made drawings of several of them which he inserted into his copy of Read’s Isle of Axholme.60 Stonehouse’s drawings, despite the note that these are ‘facsimiles’ require interpretation, but some are evidently pieces of Ibidem, 44–5. Ibidem, 145. 56 Ibidem, 150. 57 Ibidem, 208–09. 58 Entry for 29th March 1696, Diary of Abraham de la Pryme, ed. C. Jackson, Surtees Society 54 (1869), 85. 59 1697, Diary, 142. 60 Read’s History of the Isle of Axholme, ed. T.C. Fletcher (Epworth, 1839), in Lincoln Cathedral Library. Stonehouse’s notes were published together with engravings of four of the fragments in Willis’s Current Notes, ed. G. Willis (London, 1854), 61–2. Attempts to locate the fragments in the 1930s were unsuccessful: Mordaunt Burrows, O., Epworth the Home of the Wesleys (Epworth, 1936), 11. 54 55

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FIG. 6.12  (LEFT) STONEHOUSE, DRAWING OF FRAGMENTS FROM THE CRUCIFIXION

FIG. 6.13  (RIGHT) STONEHOUSE, DRAWING OF FRAGMENTS FROM THE CRUCIFIXION

alabaster tables. He identified three distinct subjects, the Crucifixion, St Andrew and the death of John the Baptist, and these can be compared to complete tables. The fragments of Christ’s torso and a hand, and the swooning Virgin, clearly are from a Crucifixion scene similar to V&A A.105-1946 (Figs 6.12–6.14).61 ‘St Andrew’ can be re-interpreted as an example of the rare image of St Peter crucified, if the figure is inverted and compared with V&A A.60-1926 (Figs 6.15–6.16).62 For the St John the Baptist cycle, the female holding the charger bears a close resemblance to the figure from a late fifteenth-century table in the V&A, A.70-1946 (Figs 6.17–6.18).63 The three subjects clearly do not belong together and it is likely that these formed parts of several retables made up of alabaster tables. Epworth is very close to the site of Melwood Charterhouse and it is possible that they may have come from there, or even from the alabaster tombs mentioned above. It is noticeable however, that the answers given to the commissioners visiting Epworth parish church in 1566 are extremely vague about the precise fate of its furnishings, and it is more likely that the tables were originally in the church, particularly since the find site was very 61 62 63

Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 256. Ibidem, 143. Ibidem, 118.

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FIG. 6.14  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE CRUCIFIXION. LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

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FIG. 6.15  STONEHOUSE, DRAWING OF FRAGMENTS FROM THE CRUCIFIXION OF ST PETER FIG. 6.16  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THE CRUCIFIXION OF ST PETER. LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM

FIG. 6.18  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, FIG. 6.17  STONE-

THE BEHEADING

HOUSE,

OF ST JOHN

DRAWING OF

THE BAPTIST.

THE BEHEADING

LONDON,

OF ST JOHN THE

VICTORIA AND

BAPTIST

ALBERT MUSEUM

Alabaster carvings in late-medieval Lincolnshire

close to it.64 A separate alabaster figure apparently found at Epworth, but not drawn by Stonehouse, is now in the museum collection at Lincoln.65 A small number of fifteenth-century alabaster fragments was found in Lincoln in the nineteenth century when the foundations for the Co-op were dug in Silver Street. Parts of a Coronation of the Virgin, an Ascension, an Assumption of the Virgin and a standing figure of St George, with other unidentified pieces, most probably originated in a parish church close by, either St Swithun’s, or St Lawrence’s or possibly came from the Greyfriars.66

CONCLUSION Plotting the distribution of the alabaster carvings in Lincolnshire reveals two things; the first is that the limited number of alabaster tombs are spread across the county, but not found close to the Lincolnshire Limestone quarries, presumably because the high-quality freestone provided the tomb-carvers with more a suitable material. In contrast, the small-scale carvings are concentrated in two particular areas, the south of the county, in the low lying area around the Wash and the north, especially in the Isle of Axholme to the north-west. The Isle of Axholme sits on a seam of gypsum that extends down through the county following the Trent into Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, which might suggest that it was also a centre of production, but the evidence is that the quarries do not seem to have been capable of providing the high quality alabaster which only occurs in particular parts of the seam.67 As Leland commented in the sixteenth century, the Isle, ‘hath plentiful quarres of alabaster, communely there caullid plaster: but such stones as I saw of it were of no great thiknes and sold for xijd the lode.’68 The considerable nineteenth-century gypsum industry there was not based on alabaster but, as the trade directories show, the material was used for both plaster and manure, to make smooth floors and ceilings, and processed as sulphate of lime for putting on the fields. Since the region is sited on the waterways feeding into the Trent it would have been feasible for blocks of alabaster to have been brought to the Isle for working there, as occurred in York, but the evidence to support this is lacking and it is more likely The King’s Head Inn was sited in Church Street, close to the parish church. The Collection, Lincoln, accession no. LCNCC 1911.465. 66 The pieces are in The Collection at Lincoln, accession nos LCNCC 1908.142; 1908.142a; 1911.464.2; 1990.19 and 1990.20. The churches and Greyfriars are shown on Speed’s map of 1610, and see Hill, J.W.F., Medieval Lincoln (Cambridge, 1965), 130–52. 67 Firman, R.J., “A Geological Approach to the History of English Alabaster,” Mercian Geologist 9:3 (1984), 161–78; see also Idem, “A Tale of Two Excursions: Geological, Historical, and Environmental Aspects of Gypsum in Derbyshire and Staffordshire,” Merchant Geologist 12:1 (1989), 49–55; Idem, “Research in Progress: Alabaster Update,” Merchant Geologist 12:1 (1989), 63–70. 68 Leland’s itinerary, 38. 64 65

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that the altarpieces and other alabasters were traded rather than made there.69 The Isle and the rest of the county of Lincolnshire clearly provided a ready market for small-scale alabaster sculpture and parish churches, such as Leverton or Scartho, had the funds to pay for substantial amounts of sculpture for retables and devotional images. Losses have been very great since destruction of alabasters has been very thorough with no examples left in situ as monuments to iconoclasm in their damaged state. Chance discoveries in the periods since the Reformation allow for the hope that more may yet emerge to extend our knowledge of the patronage of alabaster carvings in the county.

69

Cheetham, Unearthed, 9.

‘TABERNACLES, HOWSYNGES AND OTHER THINGS’. THREE ALABASTERS FROM THE BURRELL COLLECTION IN CONTEXT * CLAIRE BLAKEY, RACHEL KING AND MICHAELA ZÖSCHG

I

f fame were measured in photographs, the Burrell Collection’s Head of St John the Baptist in a Tabernacle would be a celebrity (Inv. 1.34; Pl. X). Few objects have been reproduced as frequently or as generously in treatments of English alabasters or of St John’s severed head. It has increasingly stolen the limelight from all other known examples and all but entirely eclipsed its two Glasgow fellows (Inv. 1.33 and 1.35; Pl. XI and Pl. XII). Yet this Head of St John in a “howsynge”1 has been a reluctant star. Its pre-museum life remains buried in the past. Many of the same ideas have been rehearsed again and again. This chapter sets out the state * We would like to express our thanks to, in Glasgow, Annika Joy, Iona Shepherd, James Robinson, Rosemary Watt, Rebecca Quinton, Stephanie de Roemer, and Sophie Philipps, in Worcester David Morrison and their photographer, in Leicester Mark Evans and Claire Cooper, in Carmarthen Gavin H. Evans, in Reykjavik Nathalie Jacqueminet and Freyja Ómarsdóttir, in Oxford Matthew Winterbottom and Jeremy Warren, as well as to Matthew Champion, Nigel Ramsay and Paul Williamson. We regret that we were unable to consult Woods, K.W., Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions 1330–1530 (London, 2018) prior to submitting this study. 1 Cheetham, F., Unearthed: Nottingham’s Medieval Alabasters (Nottingham, 2004), 8.

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of research to date and looks at Burrell’s trio of tabernacles afresh with a focus both on the central panels and on their wooden cases.

SIR WILLIAM - ST JOHN Though it has usually been stated that Sir William Burrell (1861–1958) acquired his first English alabaster in 1900/1 in Paris, he probably began acquiring them in the 1890s.2 In 1944, he gave twenty-nine examples to Glasgow, complemented by a further nine, in 1948, 1949, 1951, and 1955.3 Burrell was competing with other voracious collectors, such as Walter Leo Hildburgh (1876–1955) and Philip Nelson (1872–1953).4 The tendency has been to see the Burrell Collection as exactly mirroring the collection that the Burrells assembled and enjoyed in their homes. Yet a closer reading of Sir William’s meticulous purchase books begun in 1911 reveals that alabasters were occasionally returned or given to others.5 The tabernacles discussed here were acquired at fairly regularly spaced intervals. The first of the group to be acquired was Inv. 1.34 (Pl. X). Published in 1920 as in Burrell’s collection, this never-before-seen example does not appear in Burrell’s notebooks, suggesting purchase before 1911.6 Philip Nelson clearly states that it goes back to George Grosvenor Thomas (1856–1923), an Australian artist-cum-dealer.7 Grosvenor Thomas was 2 Inv. 1.7, see Marks, R., Burrell: A Portrait of a Collector; Sir William Burrell 1861–1958, revised edition (Glasgow, 1988), 84. 3 On William Burrell and the history of the collection, see most recently Hancock, E., “William Burrell’s Tapestries: Collecting and Display,” in E.A.H. Cleland and L. Karafel (eds), Tapestries from the Burrell Collection (London, 2017), 1–26. The standard works on Burrell’s life are Marks, Burrell: A Portrait and Marks, R., et al., The Burrell Collection, revised edition (London and Glasgow, 1984). Note also the recently completed collaborative doctoral project “Sir William Burrell (1858–1961): The Man and the Collector” undertaken by Isobel MacDonald, University of Glasgow, School of Culture and Creative Arts. From 1911 until the year of his death, Burrell kept records of his acquisitions in notebooks. Thirty-three alabaster pieces feature in his paperwork, with peaks of interest in the years 1925 and 1929. Anderson, W., “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display of English Medieval Alabasters,” Journal of the History of Collections 16:1 (2004), 47–58 proposes that Burrell already had fifty alabasters by 1911. We have been unable to reconstruct this from Burrell’s surviving documentation. 4 Oakes, C., “Dr Hildburgh and the English Medieval Alabaster,” Journal of the History of Collections 18:1 (2006), 71–83. On Hildburgh as a collector, see also the contribution by Nigel Ramsay in this volume. For Hildburgh’s acquisition of Nelson’s alabasters, see Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display”, 53; Rushton, P., “A Liverpool Collector, Dr. Philip Nelson (1872–1953),” Apollo 153:467 (2001), 41–8. 5 Marks, Burrell: A Portrait, 150 on the return of an alabaster altarpiece, in 1928. Documented in GMRC, Burrell Archive, Sir William Burrell’s Purchase Books, 52.1–52.28, 16 January 1928: ‘5 panels alabaster forming an altar English 15th century – returned’. On his gift to the National Gallery in Edinburgh, see Anderson, “Re-discovery,” 53. 6 See note 3. 7 Nelson, P., “Some Unpublished English Medieval Carvings,” The Archaeological Journal LXXVII (1920), 213–15: 213, Pl. II. Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984), 318, no. 35

‘ Tabernacles, howsynges and other things’

based in Glasgow between 1885/6 and 1899. Burrell is likely to have known him through his sales of paintings of the Barbizon and Hague Schools, or through his relationship with the Glasgow Boys. Burrell bought and furnished his first home in Devonshire Gardens around 1891/2. The following decade saw Burrell blossom as a collector. As the century drew to its close, he embarked on three study tours of Northern Europe. A month after his return from the second, the Glasgow Herald announced the sale of Grosvenor Thomas’ effects.8 If the object was in Burrell’s hands by 1901, it was not among the pieces he displayed at the Glasgow International Exhibition. Nor was it loaned to the 1910 Society of Antiquaries’ Alabaster exhibition or mentioned in the later catalogue.9 Burrell was notably reticent about publicising his interest, believing that the best bargains were to be had when operating from a position of stealth.10 Were Burrell to have had the tabernacle by this date, his failure to lend the work is not especially remarkable. Perhaps more notable is that this well-preserved example is not recorded in W.H. St John Hope’s comprehensive list of 1890.11 The object appears to have been completely unknown and must surely go down as one of Burrell’s first collecting coups.12 For despite being well publicised through reproductions,13 prominent loans – the first in 1920 to the V&A,14 and states incorrectly that this object is discussed in Nelson, P., “Some Examples of English Medieval Alabaster Work,” The Archaeological Journal LXXI (1914), 161–66: 164–65, illustrated Pl. V.I.36. Cheetham, F., Alabaster Images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003), 158, no. 16, no illustration, incorrectly discusses BC inv. 1.34 as having been “Once in the possession of Mr. S. Richards”, which provenance actually refers to BC inv. 1.32. 8 Glasgow Herald, Monday 6 November 1899. On Grosvenor Thomas, see Hamilton, V., Millet to Matisse: nineteenth- and twentieth-century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery (New Haven and London, 2002), 205. 9 On this exhibition, see Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display”, 50–1. See also Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of English Medieval Alabaster Works held in the Rooms of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1913). Only one St John’s Head in a tabernacle was shown: no. 49 – Leicester Museum (Inv. 277’1849). Other Heads were shown: four from the Ashmolean Museum (nos. 9, 48, 50 and 67 in a niche), no. 29 leant by Mr Spilsbury (now University of Victoria, Maltwood Museum and Gallery), no. 47 and no. 51 leant by E. Holmes Jewitt (now V&A A.127D-1946 and V&A A.11-1914), no. 89 leant by A.H. Cocks and no. 90 leant by Bishop Amigo (present location unidentified). 10 Hildburgh, W.L., “Miscellaneous Notes Concerning English Alabaster Carvings,” The Archaeological Journal LXXXVIII (1931), 228–46: 242, note 4 is the only text known to mention Burrell in relation to alabaster in his own time. 11 St John Hope, W.H., “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets called St John’s Heads,” Archaeologia: or miscellaneous tracts relating to Antiquity LII:2 (1890), 669–708, lists surviving and documented un-located pieces. 12 Nothing is known of Grosvenor Thomas’ sources. According to Nelson, “Unpublished”, at least one of the 15 Grosvenor items had originated in Spain. Of the items there discussed, one is now in St Paul’s Cathedral, Detroit, Michigan; see Tavender, A.S., “Medieval English Alabasters in American Museums, Part I,” Speculum 30:1 (1955), 64–71: 69. 13 For publications of 1.34 since being given to Glasgow Museums in 1944, see Appendix. 14 Victoria and Albert Museum, Review of the Principal Acquisitions During the Year 1920 (London, 1924), 114, Pl. 38; Victoria and Albert Museum, Exhibition of English Mediaeval Art (London, 1930), no. 676 Catalogue of an Exhibition of British Medieval Art, Exh. Cat.,

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almost permanent display since the Burrell Collection opened in 1983 – no-one has yet linked this work with antiquarian accounts of the nineteenth century or earlier. The second of Burrell’s Heads, Inv. 1.33 (Pl. XI), was also acquired without fanfare, in Winter 1921/22 from the London dealer F. Harding.15 Harding’s source is unknown, and the piece had not been previously publicised. A newspaper cutting affixed to the exterior of the tabernacle’s left door hints at a history. It reads: From the Ipswich Journal of the 26th of September 1789. Last week, some workmen employed in taking down an old house adjoining the New Bank Buildings in this town, found, secreted under one of the floors, a precious relick of the Romish Church. Four figures curiously cut in Alabaster – in the centre is represented the head of the Deity; immediately under, a half length of the Saviour; on the right side, a full length of the Pope; and on the left, that of St Peter. The whole is fastened in a plain wainscot box, of about a foot square, and is in fine preservation.

Burrell does not appear to have questioned whether the account and the artefact truly belonged together. While the clipping may identify the object as the piece in the report, it may also have been affixed to contextualise it, or to increase its price. Though it refers to the Ipswich Journal, the source of the clipping is

London, Burlington Fine Arts Club (London, 1939). Pevsner, N., “An Exhibition of British Medieval Art,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 75:436 (1939), 13–15, 17, at p. 14 writes ‘The two little private alabaster altars, Nos. 70 and 79, are notable especially because they have been completely preserved in their wooden housings with shutter doors.’ The examples Pevsner saw were Burrell’s and Leicester’s. The catalogue numbers and the display numbers do not correspond. Exhibitions since are Jacob, J., English Medieval Alabaster Carvings, Exh. Cat., York, City of York Art Gallery (York, 1954) no. 88; Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Museum, 1959, no catalogue; Tudor-Craig, P., Richard III, Exh. Cat., London, National Portrait Gallery (London, 1973), no. 21 (London, National Gallery); The Burrell Collection: Medieval Tapestries, Sculpture, Stained glass with Paintings, Alabasters, Ivories and Metalwork; Arts Council of Great Britain (London, 1977) no. 176; Late Gothic Art from the Burrell Collection: A Selection of Tapestries and Sculpture, Exh. Cat., Edinburgh, The Scottish Arts Council Gallery (Edinburgh, 1979), n.p., no. 22; Marks, R. and Williamson, P. (eds), Gothic: Art for England, 1400–1547, Exh. Cat., London, Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 2003), no. 219 (London, Victoria and Albert Museum). 15 F. Harding, 18 St James Square, was the source of several of Burrell’s alabasters. Hildburgh enumerates the Heads known to him in “Miscellaneous Notes”. He knew of examples in Oxford, Leicester and in the Croft-Lyon’s Collection, an example reproduced in St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” Pl. XXIV (actually Leicester’s example), one owned by William Burrell (now known to be 1.34) and one formerly in the possession of Messrs. Harding. The latter suggests that Hildburgh did not know that Burrell had also acquired this nearly a decade before. Given to Glasgow Museums in 1944, 1.33 has been published in: Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 158, no. 14 (Fig. 16), indicating that this item has not been published previously; and Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display”, 49. This item was on view at St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, Glasgow, from 1993 to c. 2009.

‘ Tabernacles, howsynges and other things’

yet to be found. Notably, it does not cite the full original entry,16 which explained that the artefact was now in the ‘Bank of Messrs. Crickett and Co’. ‘The Ipswich Town and County Bank of Messrs. Crickitt, Truelove and Kerridge’ had opened three years before at the beginning of 1786,17 and was in Tavern Street.18 This central location in a hotbed of radical Protestant sympathies fell within the parish of the Church of St Laurence, formerly part of the Augustinian priory of Holy Trinity, in the sixteenth century.19 Nearly forty years later, in August 1826, what appears to be the same object is mentioned in notices of an upcoming auction of the Crickett ancestral home: Smyth’s Hall, Blackmore, Ingatestone, Essex.20 A ‘curious and very ancient alabaster altar’ is summarily described in announcements carried in Ipswich, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds and London-based newspapers. What happened after this is unknown. There is likely to have been some interest. The Gentleman’s Magazine had recently carried a number of letters discussing St John’s Heads.21 Like 1.34, 1.33 is neither listed in 1890, nor loaned in 1910. It represents another triumph for Burrell, who now had two rare tabernacles. Most discussions of English alabasters note the end of the production of panels by the time of the Reformation. They were removed, defaced, buried, dumped, sold abroad, and destroyed thanks to the iconoclasm of 1548 and the 1550 ‘Act for abolishing and putting away divers Books and Images.’22 Cases of their ‘wilful concealment’ beneath the floors and in the The Ipswich Journal (Saturday 26 September 1789), no. 3088. “Crickitt, Charles Alexander (1736–1803), of Smith’s Hall, Chipping Ongar, Essex,” in Namier, L. and Brooke, J. (eds), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754–1790 (London, 1964) [electronic edition: www.historyofparliamentonline.org/ volume/1754–1790/member/crickitt-charles-alexander-1736–1803] (last accessed 4 April 2018). 18 Jones, A.G.E., “Early Banking in Ipswich,” Notes and Queries CXCVI (1951), 402–5. 19 MacCulloch, D. and Blatchly, J., “Pastoral Provision in the Parishes of Tudor Ipswich,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 22:3 (1991), 457–74: 470. 20 The Suffolk Chronicle; or Ipswich General Advertiser & County Express (Saturday 26 August 1826); Bury and Norwich Post (Wednesday 23 August 1826); and London Morning Chronicle (Monday 21 August 1826). 21 Stukeley, W., Palæographia Britannica: or, Discourses on Antiquities in Britain, 3 vols (London, 1743–1752), vol. 2 (1745), 53, Fig. 5 is the first to discuss the pieces as showing St John on the basis of the piece having come from a chapel dedicated to the saint. For the first letter, see the writer signing as J.B.N. in The Gentleman’s Magazine (May 1824), 397–8. See also Duke, E., “Alabaster Sculpture Representing the Personification of the Holy Trinity,” The Gentleman’s Magazine (September 1824), 209–13: 209. This episode is discussed by Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display,” 49–50. Unidentified by St John Hope, an appeal for the whereabouts of this panel was made in Nelson, P., “Medieval Alabaster Panel,” Notes and Queries 12 S.I. (27 May 1916), 428. 22 See Cannan, F., “Alabaster Representations of the Holy Spirit and Allegations of Lollard Vandalism,” The Sculpture Journal 15 (2006), 92–7; Duffy, E., “The Reformation and the Alabastermen,” in P. Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion. Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Exh. Cat., Palm Beach, FL, Society of the Four Arts, and five other institutions, with contributions by F. Cannan, E. Duffy and S. Perkinson (Alexandria, 2010), 54–65; Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting 16 17

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grounds of churches and monastic houses were known in the sixteenth century, with a spate of findings in the later eighteenth century.23 Since then secreted pieces have been found in Kent, Norfolk, Derbyshire, Nottingham and York. The V&A houses a fifteenth-century panel mounted in a later case inscribed ‘[…] found in ye Ruines of An house att [space] near Yorke, Procur’d & Beautified by William Richardson of Northbierley 1689.’24 This treatment, like the language describing the preservation and presentation of the Ipswich ‘relick’ and ‘curiosity’ says something of the understanding of these objects in history. Such examples highlight concealment as one of the main reasons for the preservation of alabasters, which may explain their sudden market appearance and lack of provenance. Another twenty years would pass before Burrell would buy the third of his tabernacles (Inv. 1.35; Pl. XII), from his trusted dealer John Hunt, in August 1938.25 Its presence in the photograph of Hunt’s stand at the inaugural Antique Dealer’s Fair gives 1934 as the latest possible date of its acquisition by Hunt.26 A label reading ‘Lent by Mrs Lumley-Holland’ is affixed to the case – this refers to its loan, in 1923, to the V&A.27 The widow of Major General Lumley-Holland, Caroline [Carrie] Roper of Lynsted Park, Kent, died in 1929. This suggests that Hunt could have acquired it as early as 1930. In 1989, John Cherry identified the Lumley-Holland example as the tabernacle Lieutenant Colonel George Babington Croft Lyons (1855–1926) exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries in December 1912.28 A committee member for the Society’s 1910 Alabaster exhibition, Croft Lyons only contributed one item, a Resurrection. The tabernacle had clearly only recently come into his possession. Drawings dated June 1828 in the archive of the same Society show that the panel was then in the soon to be restructured Church of St John the Baptist in Bristol.29 This piece was presumably removed, and is registered lost in 1890.30 The 1828 account and Display,” and Cheetham, Unearthed, 16. See also Aston, M., Broken Idols of the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2016), passim, but 173, 240 (on the alabasters in the pond at Scotter) and Marks, R., Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Stroud, 2004), especially Chapter 10 “Deface and Destroy.” 23 Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display,” 48–9. 24 V&A A.112-1946. 25 Since being given to Glasgow Museums in 1944, 1.35 has been published in Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 158, no. 15 (Fig. 17). 26 O’Connell, B., John Hunt: The Man, The Medievalist, The Connoisseur (Dublin, 2013), 43. 27 Victoria and Albert Museum, Review of the Principal Acquisitions during the Year 1923 (London, 1926), 98. 28 John Cherry, Correspondence in Object File 1.35, and Croft-Lyons at the Meeting of Tuesday 12 December 1912, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries 2nd series XXV (1912), 17–18. 29 London, Society of Antiquaries, Red Portfolio, Somerset, fol. 10. Ja J. Holland FSA Bristol 1828. On the church, see “Church of St John the Baptist and St John’s Gate”, Historic England, no. 1202022 [digital resource: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/ the-list/list-entry/1202022] (last accessed 8 April 2018). 30 St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 690, no. 12. See also the public

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makes no mention of a wooden framework, but does suggest that the panel is mounted on, rather than set into the Church’s west wall.31 The incidental details it records clarify that the drawing is of the Croft Lyons/ Lumley-Holland/Burrell table.32 There is no evidence that Burrell was aware of this history, but it is also impossible to say that he and Hunt knew absolutely nothing of it.

THE TABERNACLES IN CONTEXT These three St John’s Heads in Tabernacles were patiently-made purchases. Only seven such tabernacles are known worldwide – the others are kept in Worcester (containing a Virgin and Child), Reykjavik, Leicester and Carmarthen (St John’s Heads).33 The acquisition of the Burrell examples reflects an approach which has yet to be fully understood. Why did Burrell so often buy more than one version of the same type of object, sometimes, as is true of this small group, adding lesser rather than better quality pieces? He did not record St John Hope’s taxonomy alongside the appeal for information in Idem, “Alabaster Panels with St. John’s Head,” The Athanaeum 3234 (19 October 1889), 528. 31 Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display,” 49, recounting the discovery of a panel which had been reversed and set into the wall as a stone facing. 32 It is worth noting that the drawing shows the canopy upright beneath the panel, rather than above it. 33 On all occasions dated to the second half of the fifteenth century and described as being in contemporary wooden housing. Bibliography for the Reykjavik tabernacle: Nelson: “Unpublished,” 197, Fig. IV. no. 1; Rafnsson, S., Frásögur um fornaldarleifar 1817–1823 (Reykjavík, 1983), 407–9; Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 20, 29, Fig. 16; Nordal, B., “Alabastur fyrir altari,” Storð (1985), 39–44: 42–4; Idem, “Skrá um enskar alabastursmyndir frå miðöldum sem varóveist hafa a Islandi,” Árbók hins íslenzka fornleifafélags 82 (1985), 85–128; Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 151. Bibliography for the Leicester tabernacle (Inv. 277’1849, believed to be from the collection of Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, est. 1835): St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 692–93, Pl. XXIV; Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition, no. 134; Jacob, English Medieval Carvings, no. 88; Pitman, C.F., “Reflections on Nottingham Alabaster Carving,” Connoisseur 133 (1954), 217–28: 220, no. VI; Cheetham, F., “Export Art of The Middle Ages: English Alabasters,” Country Life, January (1970), 36–8: 38, Fig. 6; Tudor-Craig, Richard III, 16, no. 27; MacGregor, A., Tradescant’s Rarities: Essays on the Foundation of the Ashmolean Museum 1683 with a Catalogue of the Surviving Early Collections, Durham theses, Durham University, 1983 [electronic edition: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10281/] (last accessed 9 April 2018), 279–80; Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 7, Fig. 5; Flavigny, L. and Jablonski-Chauveau, C. (eds), D’Angleterre en Normandie: Sculptures d’albâtre du Moyen Age, Exh. Cat. 1998, Rouen, Musée Départemental des Antiquités and Evreux, Musée de l’Ancien Evêché (Rouen, 1997), 124, no. 60; Cheetham, Unearthed, 62. Bibliography for the Carmarthen tabernacle: Hildburgh, “Miscellaneous Notes,” 242–3, pl. X, A; Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 158, no. 17, Fig. 18, without housing. Bibliography for the Worcester Cathedral tabernacle (given 1913 by Lady Hornby, Pleasington Hall, having been bought at Blackburn, with the attached story that it had come from the Convent of the White Ladies, Worcester): St John Hope, W.H., (?) “Notice of the Exhibition of an Alabaster Image of Our Lady and Child, by W.H. St John Hope,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (27 February 1918), 1–5; Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, Fig. 17, and Idem, Alabaster Images, 90.

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descriptions in his purchase books.34 He did not encourage the external study or publication of the objects. Their differing degrees of preservation has meant that the group has never been shown together, though they have shared a spread in Cheetham’s concordances.35 Skip forward to the pages illustrating his lists, and you will see that each alabaster panel appears neatly cropped and separated from its wooden container.36 Not only has St John been beheaded, but the object itself has been effectively disembodied. With the exception of the much-reproduced 1.34, scholars’ concentration on the alabaster panels has increasingly meant the denial of the objects as a whole.37 In the second half of this chapter, we will draw back. What were the physical and emotional structures which materially enclosed and devotionally embraced them?38

THE CENTRAL PANELS All three Burrell tabernacles contain alabaster panels which have the plated head of St John the Baptist as their central motif. In all three, the severed head is flanked by the standing figures of St Peter to the left and of a Bishop Saint to the right. Underneath there is an image of the Man of Sorrows.39 A large number of surviving panels share this same combination, sometimes substituting the Man of Sorrows with the Agnus Dei.40 Divorced from its biblical narrative context (Matthew 14:1–12; Mark 6:14–29), the Head of St John was a widely venerated image in fifteenthcentury Europe and was reproduced in many materials and forms.41 34 St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets” classifies the Heads alphabetically. 1.35, for example, is designated B. This system taken up and expanded by Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 317–18. All Burrell Heads are designated F. in Cheetham, Alabaster Images. 35 Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 158. 36 Cheetham, Alabaster Images, unpaginated “Heads of St John the Baptist” Figs 15, 17 and 18 (no. 13, 14 and 15 respectively. The same treatment is given to the example in Carmarthen, Fig. 18 (no. 18). 37 See Baert, B., Caput Johannis in Disco: Essay on a Man’s Head (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 91–98, for an unusual holistic approach to 1.34. 38 Here, we ask similar questions as Susan Ward in the context of an alabaster panel now in Brooklyn, depicting the Mass of Saint Gregory: Ward, S.L., “Who Sees Christ? An Alabaster Panel of the Mass of St. Gregory,” in S. Blick and L.D. Gelfand (eds), Push me, Pull you. Volume 1. Imaginative and Emotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 347–84. 39 St Peter can be securely identified through his key. For the difficulty in identifying the Bishop Saint, often referred to as an archbishop because of his cross-staff, see below. 40 Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 156–60, lists 45 panels as ‘Type F. With Our Lord’s Pity Flanked by Standing Saints,’ and a further 20 as ‘Type E. With Agnus Dei, Flanked by Saints’ (also listing alabaster panels showing the Head of St John the Baptist with other combinations). In Cheetham, Unearthed, at p. 61, he states that ‘out of a recorded total of 97 there are 20 Agnus Dei types and 45 Jesus Pity types.’ 41 The literature on the iconography of St John’s Head on the Platter is vast. In respect of

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Its popularity reflects the increasing cult surrounding the saint’s relics. More than a dozen different places claimed to possess his skull, most famously Amiens Cathedral.42 The relic housed there was believed to possess healing powers and to cure epilepsy, melancholy and headaches among other ailments. Streams of pilgrims came from all over Europe and purchased badges showing St John’s Head, further contributing to the dissemination of his cult and image.43 The skull at Amiens has a gash above the left eye socket which is not accounted for in the Bible but, according to legend, represents a postmortem wound.44 Many of the English alabaster panels depicting St John’s Head, including two of the Burrell examples, reference the relic by reproducing this wound,45 imbuing the object with some of the power inherent in the original.46 While the elaborate tabernacle 1.34 (Pl. X) shows it as a deep cleft, on 1.35 (Pl. XII) only a slightly raised pale outline still echoes the wound’s former presence. The miraculous nature of the copied image was further enhanced by other details of the rendering. Originally shown swimming in a pool of blood, the Burrell heads stare the viewer in the eye and address her or him through slightly opened lips.47 Beheaded and bleeding, yet living, seeing and speaking, the motif of St John’s Head recalls the Vera Icon. The this study, we would like to highlight: Stuebe, I.C., “The Johannisschüssel: From Narrative to Reliquary to Andachtsbild,” Marsyas 14 (1968–69), 1–16; Arndt, H. and Kroos, R., “Zur Ikonographie der Johannesschüsseln,” Aachener Kunstblätter 38 (1969), 243–328; Belyea, T., “Johannes ex disco: Remarks on a late Gothic alabaster head of St. John the Baptist,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 47:2–3 (1999), 100–17; Cherry, J., “The Dish of the Head of St John the Baptist of Genoa Cathedral,” in A.R. Calderoni Masetti, et al. (eds), Tessuti, oreficerie, miniature in Liguria XIII–XV secolo: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi; Genova Bordighera, 22–25 maggio 1997 (Bordighera, 1999), 135–48; Carr, A.W., “The Face Relics of John the Baptist in Byzantium and the West,” Gesta 46:2 (2007), 159-77; Baert, B., Caput Johannis in Disco: Essay on a Man’s Head (Leiden and Boston, 2012); Eadem, “The Blaffer Foundation St John’s Head: The Johannesschüssel Phenomenon,” in J. Clifton and M. Kervandjian (eds), A Golden Age of European Art: Celebrating Fifty Years of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation (Houston, 2016), 115-29; Little, C. (ed.), Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, Exh. Cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven and London, 2006), 191–5. 42 The history of the Amiens relic is concisely summarised in Arndt and Kroos, “Zur Ikonographie der Johannesschüssel,” 244–8; Cherry, “The Dish of the Head of St John,” 145–7; Carr, “The Face Relics,” 166–96. 43 The pilgrim badges of St John’s Head are briefly discussed in Cherry, “The Dish of the Head of St John”, 145–7, Figs 6–9. 44 Stuebe, “The Johannisschüssel,” 5. 45 Of the twenty-one St John’s Heads reproduced in Cheetham, Alabaster Images, n. p., nine clearly show an incision; in others the wound may have been painted. The link between the English alabaster panels and the Amiens relic was first really highlighted by Currier, J.A., “True to God and King: Alabaster Heads of St. John in Late Medieval England,” MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1994, 131, albeit with perhaps too strong an emphasis on medieval drama. See also Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 24. 46 Still fundamental for this relationship between icon and image: Belting, H., Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich, 1990). 47 This relationship between speech and sight has been studied in Baert, B., “Vox clamantis in deserto: John’s Head on the Silent Platter,” in B. Baert and S. Rochmes (eds),

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print of Christ’s face on the veil directly connects with the viewer through his gaze.48 In the fifteenth century, John’s role as precursor of Christ was theologically grounded. Each episode in John’s vita was interpreted in light of the biography of Christ. John’s decapitation was seen as presaging Christ’s Crucifixion, and his beheading at Herod’s banquet as a precursor of the Last Supper and of the Eucharistic bread and wine.49 On Burrell’s alabaster panels, the Eucharistic link is underlined by the presence of the Man of Sorrows.50 This iconography showing Christ standing, naked above the waist, wearing the Crown of Thorns and displaying the wounds of his Passion, visualises his sacrifice, repeated in the Eucharistic rite, and humankind’s salvation.51 On 1.33, Christ points with his right hand to his side wound, his left revealing the nail wound and gesturing upwards towards St John’s decapitated head. A late-fifteenth-century breviary following the use of York puts this into words: ‘Saint John’s head on the dish signifies the body of Christ which feeds us on the holy altar.’52 As this passage seems to be unique to York, alabaster panels with St John’s Head and the Man of Sorrows have traditionally been linked to this city. Some scholars have also interpreted

Decapitation and Sacrifice: Saint John’s Head in Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Text, Object, Medium, Art & Religion, 6 (Leuven, 2017), 63-92. 48 However, Baert, “Vox clamantis in deserto,” 78–9 distinguishes between the all-seeing Veronica and St John’s Head whom she describes as possessing an ‘absorbing gaze,’ which functions as a medium between the viewer and the divine. For the Vera Icon, see Kuryluk, E., Veronica and her Cloth: History, Symbolism, and Structure of a “True” Image (Cambridge, MA, and Oxford, 1991); Kessler, H.L. and Wolf, G. (eds), The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation: Papers from a Colloquium held at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome and the Villa Spelman, Florence, 1996 (Bologna, 1998). 49 Barb, A.A., “Mens Sacra: The Round Table and the Holy Grail,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 19:1–2 (1956), 40–67: 46–7. For the relationship between St John’s Head on a Platter and the Eucharist, see also Stuebe, “The Johannisschüssel,” 6; Rubin, M., Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1991), 315–16; Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven and London, 2005), 142; Masciandaro, N., “’Non potest hoc corpus decollari’: Beheading and the Impossible,” in L. Tracy and J. Massey (eds), Heads Will Roll: Decapitation in the Medieval and Early Modern Imagination (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 15–36: 21–2. 50 The classic studies on this iconographic type are Panofsky, E., “Imago Pietatis: Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des ‘Schmerzensmanns’ und der ‘Maria Mediatrix’,” in Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage (Leipzig, 1927), 261–308; Berliner, R., “Arma Christi,” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 6 (1955), 35–152; Belting, H., Das Bild und sein Publikum im Mittelalter: Form und Funktion früher Bildtafeln der Passion (Berlin, 1981), passim. See now also the contributions in Puglisi, C.R. and Barcham, W.L. (eds), New Perspectives on the Man of Sorrows (Kalamazoo, MI, 2013). 51 This link between the Man of Sorrows and the Eucharist is most evident in the Mass of St Gregory. Meier, E., Die Gregorsmesse: Funktionen eines spätmittelalterlichen Bildtypus (Cologne, 2006). For this iconography specifically in the context of English alabasters, see Ward,“Who Sees Christ?” 52 “Caput johannis in disco: signat corpus Christi: quo pascimur in sancto altari.” Breviarium Ad Usum Insignis Ecclesie Eboracensis, printed by Johannes Hamman (Venice, 1493), ed. S.W. Lawley for the Surtees Society (Durham, 1880–1883), vol. 2, col. 517. St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 705, appears to have been the first to establish a link between this passage and English Alabaster panels of this type.

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the two accompanying saints in terms of a specific Yorkist iconography. St Peter, represented to the left of the head, is the patron of York Minster, home to the shrine of St William, Bishop of York (d. 1154).53 Scholars therefore identify the figure to the right with St William.54 Though appealing, the visual evidence provided by the panels is ambiguous at best. The depicted figure is generally rendered in generic episcopal dress and insignia. An equally plausible, and more likely, candidate is St Thomas Becket, Bishop of Canterbury,55 who was venerated not only in York, but throughout England and Europe.56 That at least some medieval viewers identified the bishop with this saint is illustrated by the will of the widow Agas Herte of Bury St Edmunds. In 1522, Agas left ‘a Seynt Joh[ann]is hede of alabast[er] w[ith] Seynt Pet[er] and Seynt Thomas and the fygur of Cryst, w[ith] a choche of red sarsnet and grene ffrengyd’ to her son Richard Jaxson.57

THE CASES Agas may have been looking at a tabernacle like the example in the Burrell Collection (1.34, Pl.  XI), the wings of which bear inscriptions directly naming several of the saints shown on the central panel.58 Here, four further figures are inserted behind St Peter and the Bishop Saint. St James and St Catherine of Alexandria are signposted on the left wing, St Anthony and St Margaret on the right. No other surviving tabernacle has this interactive

Norton, C., St William of York (Woodbridge, 2006). Nelson, “Some Examples,” 164–5; Idem, “Some Further Examples of English Medieval Alabaster Tables,” The Archaeological Journal LXXIV (1917), 106–21: 111; Idem, “Unpublished,” 213–15; Mitchell, H.C., “St John’s Heads,” Tamworth Herald (Saturday 26 March 1927), 3. Cheetham lists the known examples of alabasters depicting St William of York, all housed at the Yorkshire Museum, YORM: 2003.254,255,256,258, and showing the stages of his life. In the context of her presentation of BC inv. 1.34, Tudor-Craig, Richard III, 15, no. 21, opts for William of York, but does also not exclude Thomas Becket, but in her analysis of the Leicester tabernacle in the same volume, 16–15, no. 27, opts for the comparatively obscure Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York. Among more recent scholars, Baert, Caput Johannis in Disco, 92, returned to William of York. 55 St John Hope usually identifies the saint as Thomas Becket, apart from 1891, where he proposes St William of York as a possibility: St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 705–6. Also the Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition, passim, identifies the bishop as Thomas Becket, as does Hildburgh, W.L., “Folk-Life Recorded in Medieval English Alabaster Carvings,” Folk-Lore 60:2 (1949), 249–65: 262. For a more recent discussion of this possibility, centred on the Head of St John the Baptist at the Ashmolean Museum, see Warren, J., Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum. Volume 2. Sculptures in Stone, Clay, Ivory, Bone and Wood (Oxford, 2014), 624, no. 195. 56 See, for example, Cipollaro, C. and Decker, V., “Shaping a Saint’s Identity: The Imagery of Thomas Becket in Medieval Italy,” in A. Bovey (ed.), Medieval Art, Architecture & Archaeology at Canterbury, Conference Transactions of the British Archaeological Association, 35 (Leeds, 2013), 116–38. 57 St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 678. 58 Cheetham, Unearthed, 60–1. It is rarely stated that the Worcester and Reykjavik tabernacles have been cut down. 53

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labelling. It may be that a “minimum” standard iconography of St John’s Head, Christ as Man of Sorrows, Peter and the Bishop Saint could be made to meet individual needs and preferences.59 The high artistic quality of the carving and painting of 1.34 in comparison to 1.33 (Pl. X) and 1.35 (Pl.  XII), as well as to other surviving examples, suggests that the piece was particularly special. The legal action brought by ‘imagemaker’ Nicholas Hill suggests that consumers probably acquired tabernacle and panel as a unit. Money was owed to Hill for 58 Heads which had been transported with, if not within, tabernacles and niches.60 The use of ‘carver’ and ‘painter’ to describe the same individual suggests that the sculptor of the panels may also have painted them. But did this extend to the wooden housings?61 And who produced these? Richard Marks has asserted that these painted boxes sat at the ‘bottom end of the (altarpiece) market,’ noting the generally low value of St John’s Head panels, and decrying their craftsmanship as ‘crude.’62 Sophie Philipps’ contribution in this volume discusses their construction in detail, showing, among other things, at what stage in their production the boxes were painted, how guidelines were used, and that unseen portions were given coats of colour. Sources like Hill suggest that panels and containers were produced in large numbers. Across the seven surviving tabernacles and the Warkleigh pyx box, an object believed to recycle a dismantled tabernacle, the use of standard iconography and stock motifs is evident.63 Each case comprises an angled niche enclosed by two doors which open as if wings. The interior of each wing is decorated with a design of three fields, with the uppermost and lowermost reserves mirroring one another’s form in a cross. These fields are contained within a painted frame. They contain a shape drawn in tracery. The tracery in 1.34 (Pl. XI) assumes a sextafoil form with three white dots at each of the cusps. In 1.33 (Pl. X) it is a quatrefoil with yellow dots. Arrow-like, the cusps draw attention to motifs at their centres, sunbursts atop rosettes balanced by white roses atop a black-and-white hatching, all ringed by hoops punctuated by raised bosses. On 1.34 these are spiked with alternating feathered dashes of red and white. On 1.35 (Pl. XII), the upper and lower reserves also appear to

59 Compare 1.34 for example to the Heads of St John the Baptist illustrated in Cheetham, Alabaster Images, n.p. 60 Cheetham, Unearthed, 11, citing Records of Borough of Nottingham, Vol. III, 18. 61 A question already proposed by Park, D., “The Polychromy of English Medieval Sculpture,” in S. Boldrick, D. Park and P. Williamson (eds), Wonder: Painted Sculpture from Medieval England, Exh. Cat., Leeds, Henry Moore Institute (Leeds, 2002), 31-55 at p. 36. 62 Marks, Image and Devotion, 240, 252. 63 For a survey discussion of larger alabaster altarpieces, Nelson, P., “The Woodwork of English Alabaster Retables,” Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 72 (1920), 50–60. On the Warkleigh pyx box, see Cherry, J., “Exhibits at Ballots. 3. The Warkleigh Pyx Box,” The Antiquaries Journal LXIX:II (1989), 318–21.

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have once framed small wheels with feathery spikes containing sunbursts with jagged and writhing rays. The Leicester tabernacle displays similar motifs enclosed within more elaborately shaped red tracery contour, and the Carmarthen tabernacle evidences a similar selection and arrangement of motifs. On all three tabernacles, the upper and lower fields harbour stencilled primroses, which reach into the well of niche on 1.34.64 Traces of primroses can be seen on the Reykjavik housing, but these are heavily overshadowed by the bright central motifs which have been overpainted in uncharacteristic blue. Where, in these tabernacles, leafy flourishes buffer upper and lower fields, these mirror the outline of the quatrefoil tracery, suggesting the use of templates not only for the painted primroses, but also to lay out the reserves. These roses and sunbursts have been interpreted as Yorkist emblems since at least St John Hope and his discussion of the Leicester tabernacle in 1890.65 Henry II (reg. 1154–1189) was the first to use the rose as badge. He favoured the stylised form of a single flower with five petals, seeded at the centre and with the tips of the sepals appearing between them.66 Edward IV (reg. 1471–1483) was the first to use the white rose, frequently rayed by the sun, or en soleil. St John Hope linked the white rose and the blazing sun to York’s Corpus Christi guild.67 The fact that Nottingham was believed to be the centre of alabaster production and that the town belonged to the diocese of York seemed to support this.68 This association has become a standard feature of treatments of the tabernacles.69 When 1.34 was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery’s Richard III exhibition, it was to ‘demonstrate the political allegiances of

64 See the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century lead stencil for rosette patterning reproduced in Rosewell, R., Medieval Wall Paintings in English and Welsh Churches (Woodbridge, 2008), 130, Fig. 143. 65 St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 693, 706. 66 Le Rougetel, H., “The Rose of England,” RSA Journal 136:5386 (1988), 742–4. 67 St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 706. Founded in 1408, the Guild of Corpus Christi in York was, until its abolition in 1547, one of the most important, powerful and influential late medieval institutions of its kind, and particularly known for its elaborate pageants, processions and plays on occasion of the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi; see, for example, Rogerson, M. (ed.), The York Mystery Plays: Performance in the City (Woodbridge, 2011). 68 St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 706 and Beadle, R., “Nicholas Lancaster, Richard of Gloucester and the York Corpus Christi Play,” in M. Rogerson (ed.), The York Mystery Plays: Performance in the City (Woodbridge, 2011), 31–52: 46–7, note 48, also not excluding a connection between the alabasters of St John’s Head and members of the Guild of Corpus Christi. 69 Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain: The Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1972), 216–17 raises the possibility that the heads of St John the Baptist were adopted as emblems by some religious guilds, including the Corpus Christi Guild, and points to their inclusion in the York service book; see note 67. Rubin, Corpus Christi, 315 claims that the Corpus Christi confraternity in York assumed the Head of St John the Baptist as their badge.

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one patron.’ 70 The catalogue presents the Bishop Saint as William of York and takes the link to the Corpus Christi guild a step further, suggesting that such artefacts might have been found in the homes of its members.71 Tudor-Craig’s proposal that Richard is directly linked to the tabernacle by his 1477 induction into the guild72 is echoed by Pollard’s recent claim that 1.34 was ‘possibly commissioned by a member of the royal household.’73 Yet as Nigel Ramsay has stated, these theories surrounding York and the Corpus Christi guild lack concrete evidence.74 The repertoire of motifs available to a craftsman in late-fifteenth-century England was a wide one. Signs and symbols, such as heraldry, monograms, badges, mottos and emblems were a key part of artistic language in the Middle Ages.75 Sunbursts, primroses, and roses, examples of which can be found in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century wall paintings, represent an existing established visual currency. It is inevitable that the ascent of the House of York and its mobilisation of these motifs influenced their reception. How these signs and symbols were understood depended on where they were encountered.76 In the Royal Window at Canterbury, as at the Church of St Mary and All Saints at Fotheringhay, site of the dynastic mausoleum, the motif is clearly linked to the family.77 But standardised sunbursts composed of superimposed wavy and straight stars and stacked stars were also a common feature of contemporary window quarries.78 Indeed parallels can be drawn even within the corpus of surviving alabasters. The sunburst shown on the 70 Tudor-Craig, Richard III. The exhibition Chaucer’s London, London Museum 1972, showed alabaster sculpture in order to demonstrate London’s importance as a centre of trade and industry, linking the distribution of alabasters with the export of textiles to continental Europe in late medieval England. See Anderson, “Re-discovery, Collecting and Display,” 55. 71 Tudor-Craig, Richard III, no. 21. Associations have also been made between the Corpus Christi pageant cycle and the production and consumption of alabasters in the city, using bequests of alabasters to York churches to state that the merchant classes of the city were amongst those who owned them and were likely to have been involved in the annual cycle. Stevenson, J., Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture. Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York (New York, 2010), 80. 72 Tudor-Craig, Richard III, no. 21. 73 Pollard, A.J., Edward IV: The Summer King (London, 2016), caption to Fig. 8. 74 Ramsay, N., “Alabaster,” in J. Blair and N. Ramsay (eds), English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products (London, 1991), 29–40: 34. 75 Morgan, N., “The Monograms, Arms and Badges of the Virgin Mary in Late Medieval England,” in J. Cherry and A. Payne (eds), Signs and Symbols: Proceedings of the 2006 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2009), 53–63: 53. 76 Ibidem, 54. 77 Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, at p. 29 stated ‘it is also of note that the East Anglian, and especially Norwich glass painters commonly decorated their quarries with the Yorkist “rose en soleil”’. Glass showing this motif can be found across a number of locations, see Marks, R., The Medieval Stained Glass of Northamptonshire, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain: Summary Catalogue, vol. 4 (Oxford, 1998), 72–3, 79–109. See the crowned rose of York – BC inv. 45.221. Burrell’s own sunburst quarries (including 45.102.a) are said to have come from Fotheringhay. 78 See BC inv. 45.46, 45.94 and 45.78.

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wings of the Burrell and Leicester tabernacles is as stylistically close to the stars of Bethlehem crowning the stable in alabaster Adorations.79 Many motifs crossed the boundaries of political and personal, public and private. In their homes, people were surrounded by furniture decorated with stars, flowers, rosettes, and circles. On muniment room chests, the same symbols functioned as pictograms distinguishing specific records.80 Like the stars, the ears of corn beneath the canopy on 1.34 recall East Anglian stained glass and the stylised leaves echo conventional architectural ornament.81 These objects are testimony to an all-encompassing network of images which cannot be reduced to single pronouncements. This associative web lies behind one image linking Marian devotion and roses in a fifteenth-century English manuscript.82 In it, Mary, nursing the Christ Child, occupies and forms the centre of a blooming red rose. Red roses were symbolic of her love and charity and the five petals associated with her five sorrows.83 The surrounding hoop of white and gold dots has been interpreted as a stylised rendering of the rosary, with its Hail Marys represented by white dots and its Our Fathers in gold.84 The example is proof that unconsidered approaches to the interpretation of these objects may be possible and that there is work to be done inspired by Barbara Baert’s proposal that the language of these objects is both figurative and abstract at once.85 One way of opening a new angle on these tabernacles would be on a threshold, as mediators between the earthly and the heavenly realm. The final section of this chapter asks: What do we know about how these tabernacles were used, who owned them, and how their specific shape informed this?

See BC inv. 1.7, 1.8 and 1.9. Danbury, E., “Security and Safeguard: Signs and Symbols on Boxes and Chests,” in J. Cherry and A. Payne (eds), Signs and Symbols: Proceedings of the 2006 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2009), 29–41: 36. 81 Tracy, C., English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork (London, 1988), 30–2, no. 1–9. 82 The Virgin and Child in a Red Rose with a Rosary, East Anglia, England, c. 1490, illustrated Vita Christi with devotional supplements, 17.6 × 12.8 cm. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 101 (2008.3), fol. 78v: http://www.getty.edu/art/ collection/objects/244407/unknown-maker-the-virgin-and-child-in-a-red-rose-englishabout-1480–1490/ (last accessed 8 April 2018); see also Keene, B.C. and Kaczenski, A., Sacred Landscapes: Nature in Renaissance Manuscripts, Exh. Cat., Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, 2017), 59–61, Fig. 41. 83 Morgan, “The Monograms,” 54. Baert, Caput Johannis in Disco, 94, footnote 26 suggests that the five petals may refer to Christ’s wounds. 84 Keene and Kaczenski, Sacred Landscapes, 59–61. For the history of the rosary as prayer sequence, see Winston-Allen, A., Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University Park, PA, 1997). 85 Baert, Caput Johannis in Disco, 94–5 suggests that the four disks on BC inv. 1.34 are abstract repetition of the disk at the centre of the shrine, but without noting that shrines bearing this motif do not always contain St John’s Heads. Her larger argument highlights the importance of circles and rotation in the celebration of St John, for example in the use of burning “St John’s wheels” and the association of the motif with the cosmos. 79

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FUNCTION AND USE ‘It is enclosed in a box or tabernacle, with double doors, after the old manner of pictures, the better to preserve it from injury and dust, to be opened and shut occasionally … The middle figure is the head of St John the Baptist on a discus.’86 This description from 1789 is of an alabaster which has since been lost. It highlights the box’s protective function. It also touches briefly on use. In line with other contemporary literature discussing caskets and chests, the tabernacle is described as being at hand. It is ‘ready for use, but not yet given (its) function.’87 But how were the alabaster panels in their ‘howsyinges’ seen in their own time? One fifteenth-century account relates an episode on Palm Sunday 1471. As King Edward IV knelt in prayer: a lytle ymage of Seint Anne, made of allebaster, standynge fixed to the pillar, closed and clasped togethars with 4 bordes, small, payntyd, and gowynge round about the ymage, in manar of a compas … And this ymage was thus shett, closed, and clasped accordynge to the rulles that in all the churchis of England be observyed, all ymages to be hid from Ashe-wensday to Easter in the morninge. And so the sayd ymage had been from Ash-wensday to that tyme. And sodanly, at that season of the service, the bords compassynge the ymage about gave a grat crak, and a little openyd, whiche the kynge well perceyveyd and all the people about hym. And anon, after, the bords drewe and closed togethars agayne, withowt any mans hand or touchinge, and, as thowghe it had bene a thinge done with a violence, with a gretar might, it openyd all abrod, and so the ymage stode, open & discovert, in syght of all the people there beynge.88

The power of images was increased by their covering and uncovering in accordance with the liturgical year. They gained agency by oscillating between visible and invisible.89 In this instance, the image itself (or the heavenly power it channelled), forced its painted wooden container to 86 Schnebbelie, J., The Antiquaries Museum: Illustrating the Ancient Architecture, Painting and Sculpture of Great Britain, from the Time of the Saxons to the Introduction of Grecian and Roman Architecture by Inigo Jones in the Reign of James I (London, 1791), n.p. According to Nichols, J., The history and antiquities of the county of Leicester (Leicester, 1795–1811), vol. 4, pt 2 (1811), 461 this description was communicated to the Society of Antiquaries. See also Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 28; Baert, “The Blaffer Foundation St John’s Head,” 120–1. 87 Stanica, M., “Bundles, Trunks, Magazines: Storage, Aperspectival Description, and the Generation of Narrative,” in M. Fludernik and S. Keen (eds), Interior Spaces and Narrative Perspective Before 1850, special issue of Style 48:4 (2014), 513–28: 516. 88 Nelson, “The Woodwork,” 58–9. See also Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 29–30; Carr, “The Face Relics” 169–70; Marks, Image and Devotion, 243. 89 This subject has been extensively discussed in the context of Northern winged altarpieces. See, with further bibliography, Schlie, H., “Wandlung und Offenbarung: Zur

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open and show its contents. It has been suggested that alabaster panels within such ‘painted wooden cabinets’ were specifically designed ‘to function as devotional aids for more solitary worshipers within the private spaces of their own homes.’90 In other parts of medieval Europe, small altars with doors and wings, or with potential to be manipulated, were indeed often used in more “private” devotional contexts.91 In fourteenth-century Florence standardised painted triptychs are an early example.92 In the fifteenthcentury Netherlands there were small folding diptychs.93 North of the Alps, openable and closeable altarpieces were never confined to the “private realm” as shown by the extant large-scale winged altarpieces of cathedrals, parish and monastery churches. And importantly, sources tell us that St John’s Heads in tabernacles were also in churches.94 Yet whereas the exteriors of Florentine triptychs and Netherlandish diptychs were sophisticatedly decorated,95 the outsides of the Burrell tabernacles bear no traces of paint. When not in use, these would have been unpretentious and unassuming. The little church of St Kerrian in Exeter was home to three alabasters in tabernacles, probably tucked away in chapels where it was possible to come within centimetres of them. In lay homes, they may have been in the sleeping area. In fifteenth-century England, spaces for prayer were rarely Medialität von Klappretabeln“, Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung 9 (2004), 23–43. 90 Perkinson, S., “‘As they learn it by sight of images’: Alabasters and Religious Devotion in Late Medieval England,” in Williamson (ed.), Object of Devotion, 38–53: 51–2. Entries in wills and inventories referring to such pieces testify to their popularity in the private home; Kaper, A., “The Iconography of St John the Baptist in Medieval England, c. 1300– 1550”, MPhil thesis, University of St Andrews, 2015, 43, 83. 91 The study of devotion in the ‘domestic sphere’, and specifically how people used objects and artefacts in their spiritual practice, has received increased attention in recent decades: Os, H.W. van, The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe, 1300–1500, Exh. Cat, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (London, 1994); Webb, D., “Domestic Space and Devotion,” in S. Hamilton and A. Spicer (eds), Defining the Holy: Sacred Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Aldershot, 2005), 27–47; Deane, J.K., “Medieval Domestic Devotion,” History Compass 11:1 (2013), 65–76. 92 Wilkins, D.G., “Opening the Doors to Devotion: Trecento Triptychs and Suggestions Concerning Images and Domestic Practice in Florence,” in V.M. Schmidt (ed.), Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento (New Haven and London, 2002), 370–93; Schmidt, V.M., Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250–1400 (Florence, 2005), passim. 93 Hand, J.O., et al., Prayers and Portraits: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych, Exh. Cat., Washington DC, National Gallery of Art and Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (New Haven and London, 2006), and the contributions in the accompanying volume, Hand, J.O. and Spronk, R. (eds), Essays in Context: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych (New Haven and London, 2006). 94 The 1417 inventory for the Church of St Kerrian, Exeter, suggests that this space accommodated many alabasters, three of which, an image of St Anne and two images of St John, were within tabernacles. Marks, Image and Devotion, 89. 95 For the visual interactions between inside and outside when manipulating such objects, see the various essays in Ganz, D. and Rimmele, M. (eds), Klappeffekte: Faltbare Bildträger in der Vormoderne (Berlin, 2016).

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separated from spaces for other activities.96 One 1492 inventory describes ‘a saint Johns hed of Alabaster in a case […] in the chamber at the Beddis hede.’97 The domestic space was undeniably gendered, and the bed associated with conception and childbirth.98 St John the Baptist, conceived by a barren mother, was associated with charms connected to safe birth.99 Could these tabernacles have held a special meaning for women? Another source describes them as being stored out of sight. Nicholas Wildgoose owned six heads of St John all of which were in a closed coffer. The value given is that of the lot including home storage.100 The panel and painted wing interiors may have been seen simultaneously when open, but such objects may equally have remained closed for long periods of time. More than this, they may largely have been totally out of sight, in which case concealment takes on a subtly different significance. Though narratives of these tabernacles are marked by movement, foremost that of their own wings as they opened and closed, their storage out of sight reminds us that these objects were often, although not always, mobile. Especially in a domestic context, they could be characterised by movement as they were stored, removed, and returned to their place. Their extraction from storage, not the opening of its wings, was the primary action, and, like the Bible to the altar, a stored tabernacle had to be transported to the place of prayer. The object was actively devotional for a delimited length of time in a place made sacred by its presence. The full details of their use remain to be revealed. Where and at what height were they placed? Was it raised on high, like the wafer in the Mass? Whatever is the case, such objects were a store of latent possibilities, not ones whose definition and use is monolithic. Contemporary documents often associate the tabernacles with veils.101 These may have been used to drape them when not in use, or in accordance with the liturgical year. Equally, they may have been used to cover the surface on which they were to stand – if, that is, they stood, and were not hung. When Agas Herte bequeathed her Head to her son in 1522 it was accompanied by a cloth of red sarsenet fringed in green. Another was inscribed ‘Caput Sci Johis Baptiste’ and accompanied by a cloth of gold 96 Deane, “Medieval Domestic Devotion,” 68–9, and Deane, J.K., “Pious Domesticities,” in J.M. Bennett and R.M. Karras (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2013), 262–78: 265. 97 Cannan, F. “Holy Images from England: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture in Ireland,” History Ireland 22:1 (2014), 16–18: 18. See also Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters, 29. 98 On the furnishings of the medieval bedchamber and its central role for the domestic life of medieval people, see, apart from the literature given in note 96, also French, K.L., “Genders and Material Culture,” in J.M. Bennett and R.M. Karras (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2013), 197–212: 207–8. 99 Murray Jones, P. and Olsan, L.T., “Performative Rituals for Conception and Childbirth in England, 900–1500,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 89 (2015), 406–33. 100 Cheetham, Unearthed, 61. 101 Cheetham, Alabaster Images, 4.

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worked with Roman letters in black velvet.102 Some sources specifically refer to these as St John’s Cloths. Many do actually accompany alabasters, like one of unknown colour and fabric belonging to widow Agnes Browne of Greenwich, or another in green satin belonging to Robert Collyns, haberdasher in London. But mercer Robert Stodley’s ‘cloth of sarcenet stained with the image of St John’ had no companion.103 It has yet to be asked what it meant to combine the mass-produced alabaster Heads with costly embroidered cloth of gold. Low original price and mediocre artistic quality clearly did not impact the impulse to care for the objects in ways commensurate with their spiritual significance. If it is correct that the exteriors of the ‘howsynges’ were not painted, their transformation from a closed wooden box into a colourful and glittering open shrine would have made for a particularly impressive devotional experience. Traces of handles are discernible on 1.35. The user did not have to slide their fingers into the crack and risk touching the paintwork or sculpture to open them. Aside from preparing the object physically, the user went on a mental voyage.104 Moving from the smooth oak of the exterior, to the painted sunbursts, roses and foliage, to the carved, painted and gilded alabaster at its heart, the experience would have been similar to that of the late medieval churchgoer crossing the threshold of the sacred space and preparing their person for the prayer therein.105 Such ideas about thresholds and portals go hand in hand with interpretations of the St John’s Head on a Charger and the Man of Sorrows as motifs straddling heaven and earth or life and death. Once open and with the wings in position, angled to match the polygonal bases, the imagery would have wrapped itself around its user creating a devotional space akin to a minute chapel.106 More than containers for alabaster artworks, these cases are an integral part of experiencing the power of the object. They open to encompass a sacred, eternal space and offer their user a performative tool. St John Hope, “On the Sculptured Alabaster Tablets,” 678. On Browne (1539) and Stodley (1536), Foister, S., “Paintings and Other Works of Art in 16th-century English Inventories,” The Burlington Magazine 123:938 (1981), 273–82: 275–6, 280–1. On Collyns (1523), Brewer, J.S. (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII. Volume 3. 1519–1523 (London, 1867) [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol3] (last accessed April 2018). 104 Wilkins, “Opening the Doors to Devotion,” 371. Research on this relationship between the medieval body and foldable objects has gained considerable momentum in recent years. See, apart from the literature given in note 94, Bawden, T., “In Bewegung versetzte Betrachter: Überlegungen zur raumöffnenden Dimension klappbarer Bildmedien im Mittelalter,” in U. Wirth (ed.), Bewegen im Zwischenraum (Berlin, 2012), 297–319. 105 For the importance of images at thresholds, see Gertsman, E. and Stevenson, J. (eds), Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces (Woodbridge, 2012); Bawden, T., Die Schwelle im Mittelalter: Bildmotiv und Bildort (Vienna and Cologne, 2014) and now Jacobs, L.F., Thresholds and Boundaries: Liminality in Netherlandish Art (1385–1530) (New York, 2018). 106 Wilkins, “Opening the Doors to Devotion,” 377 in the context of Florentine Trecento triptychs. 102 103

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CONCLUSION In assembling three encased St Johns Heads, Sir William Burrell created the only permanent concentration of alabaster panels in tabernacles anywhere in the world. In so doing, he silently mounted a private challenge to the power of the major museums, the most rapacious of collectors, and the venerable Society of Antiquaries. While Burrell’s own reasons for collecting them may perhaps forever stay in the past, here our goal has been to explore the wider contexts of these encased St John’s Heads. We have addressed them holistically as active entities. We have considered the contexts of their ownership in the late medieval period, as well as in the early twentieth century. We have revisited the iconography, suggesting that new arguments can be made about imagery which was long held to be understood. We have addressed their making, their consumption, and their use. Divorced from their original contexts and presented, a case within a case, in a museum gallery; disembodied by discussion, our purpose has not been to give definitive answers but to return them to being dynamic cultural artefacts.

APPENDIX Since 1944, 1.34 has been published as follows: Jacob, J., English Medieval Alabaster Carvings, Exh. Cat., York, City of York Art Gallery (York, 1954), no. 88; Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain: The Middle Ages, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1972), 216–17; Tudor-Craig, P., Richard III, Exh. Cat., London, National Portrait Gallery (London, 1973), 15, no. 21 (erroneously giving the provenance connected to BC inv. 1.33); The Burrell Collection: Medieval Tapestries, Sculpture, Stained glass with Paintings, Alabasters, Ivories and Metalwork; Arts Council of Great Britain (London, 1977), no. 176; Chinnery, V., Oak Furniture: The British Tradition. A History of Early Furniture in the British Isles and New England (Woodbridge, 1979), Fig. 2:225 and later editions; Marks, R., et al., The Burrell Collection, revised edition (London and Glasgow, 1984), 117, Fig. 4; Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984), 54, Fig. 33, no. 15; Kenny, A., The Metaphysics of Mind (Oxford, 1989), cover; Park, D., “The Polychromy of English Medieval Sculpture,” in S. Baldrick, D. Park and P. Williamson (eds), Wonder: Painted Sculpture from Medieval England (Leeds, 2002), 31–55: 36, Fig. 9; Marks, R. and Williamson, P. (eds), Gothic: Art for England, 1400 – 1547, Exh. Cat., London, Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 2003), 341, no. 219, Pl. 117 (erroneously giving provenance for 1.33); Cheetham, F., Alabaster Images of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003), 158–94, no. 15; Cheetham, F., Unearthed: Nottingham’s Medieval Alabasters (Nottingham, 2004), 61; Marks, R., Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (Stroud, 2004), 242, Fig. 162; Little, C. (ed.), Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, Exh. Cat., New York, Metropolitan

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Museum of Art (New Haven and London, 2006), 194–95, Fig. 114; Carr, A.W., “The Face Relics of John the Baptist in Byzantium and the West,” Gesta 46:2 (2007), 159–77: 171–2, Fig. 2; Williamson, P. (ed.), Object of Devotion. Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Exh. Cat., Palm Beach, FL, Society of the Four Arts, and five other institutions, with contributions by F. Cannan, E. Duffy and S. Perkinson (Alexandria, 2010), 110, no. 18, Fig. 1; Stevenson, J., Performance, Cognitive Theory, and Devotional Culture. Sensual Piety in Late Medieval York (New York, 2010), 80; Baert, B., Caput Johannis in Disco: Essay on a Man’s Head (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 91–98, Fig. 61; Pérez Suescun, F., “Los alabastros medievales ingleses y la iconografía jacobea:  algunas piezas singulares,” Anales de historia del arte 24 (2014), Núm. Esp. Noviembre, 421–38: 436, Fig. 5; Baert, B., “The Blaffer Foundation St John’s Head: The Johannesschüssel Phenomenon,” in J. Clifton and M. Kervandjian (eds), A Golden Age of European Art: Celebrating Fifty Years of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation (Houston, 2016), 115–29: 117–18, Fig. 5; Pollard, A.J., Edward IV: The Summer King (London, 2016), caption to Fig. 8; Hendrikman, L., The Neutelings Collection. Four Centuries of Medieval Sculpture (Maastricht, 2016), 102–107, Fig. 28.4; Baert, B., “Vox clamantis in deserto: John’s Head on the Silent Platter,” in B. Baert and S. Rochmes (eds), Decapitation and Sacrifice: Saint John’s Head in Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Text, Object, Medium, Art & Religion, 6 (Leuven, 2017), 63–92: 73, Fig. 76; Henderiks, V., et al. (eds), Blut und Tränen: Albrecht Bouts und das Antlitz der Passion, Exh. Cat., Luxembourg City, Musée National d’Histoire d’Art Luxembourg and Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig Museum (Regensburg, 2017), 166–7, Fig. 1.

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CONSERVATION STUDY OF THREE ALABASTER CARVINGS FROM THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS* SOPHIE PHILIPPS WITH STEPHANIE DE ROEMER

T

his contribution presents conservation observations obtained from technical and material investigation of three fifteenth-century alabaster carvings, depicting the head of St John the Baptist in wooden and polychromed cases.1 The study was initiated in contribution to the art historical research into these alabasters from the Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums accession numbers: 1.33 (Pl. XI), 1.34 (Pl. X), 1.35 (Pl. XII).

* I would like to express my thanks to Claire Blakely, Rachel King and Iona Shepherd (The Burrell Collection), Michaela Zöschg (The Victoria and Albert Museum), Chris Caple and Vicky Garlick (Durham University). 1 In addition to specific references which will be provided in the following footnotes, there are several sources that have informed this paper and the research undertaken to write it, including: Larson, J., “The Conservation of Alabaster Monuments in Churches,” The Conservator 2 (1978), 20–5; Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984); Dimes, F.G., Sedimentary rocks, in J. Ashurst and F. Dimes (eds), Conservation of Building & Decorative Stone (Oxford, 2001), 61–134; Larson, J., “The Conservation of Stone Monuments in Churches,” in Ashurst and Dimes (eds), Conservation of Building, 185–96; Boldrick, S., Park, D. and Williamson, P. (eds), Wonder: Painted Sculpture from Medieval England, Exh. Cat., Leeds, Henry Moore Institute (Leeds, 2002); Caple, C., Objects: Reluctant Witnesses to the Past (London, 2006); Theiss, H., “Restoration of the Crucifixion Altar from Rimini,” Liebieghaus Skulpturen Sammlung n.d. (but 2018) [digital resource: http://www.liebieghaus. de/de/einblicke/die-restaurierung-des-kreuzigungsaltars-aus-rimini#tw] (last accessed April 2018).

three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection

Individual objects were examined visually under visible and ultra violet lighting to investigate and record materials, structure, tool marks and construction techniques. This was done prior to microscopic investigation by stereo microscope to identify and record evidence of physical, biological and chemical degradation as part of the overall conservation condition assessment. Analytical investigation through scientific elemental analysis of pigments was carried out to provide initial indicators that may serve further comparative study of similarities and differences in the source and use of paint, polychromy and iconography. Results and observations from this study are presented and assessed within the initial conservation condition description.

1.33 DESCRIPTION The piece consists of one carved alabaster component, depicting the Head of St John the Baptist in the centre of the carved relief. To the left and right are figures, and a Man of Sorrows is depicted below the head. The surfaces display evidence for polychromy and gilding. It was not possible to remove the alabaster from the case, as the attachment points were hidden behind the narrow plank attached to the back. The carving is set inside a wooden box with wings to the left and right allowing the image to be hidden and/or revealed. The mechanism for opening and closing consists of metal wires which hold the separate wings in place through perforated holes. The outside faces of the wooden wings are of plain homogenous colouration, while the inside surfaces show evidence of polychromy. The base is constructed of two pieces which are joined together with a single nail. An ‘X’ is marked into the wood at the bottom. A horizontal piece with angled sections of wood held in place with 3 nails, comprises the frame. A paper label, visible on the left wing panel when closed, records the rediscovery of this object from beneath floor boards of a house adjoining the ‘New Bank Buildings’, citing the Ipswich Journal 1789. This tabernacle has an additional plank of wood and bracket affixed to the back (Fig. 8.1). The bracket is displaying orange and brown coloured surface accretions resembling iron corrosion. The wood is of a different colouration to the back proper. Two small drill holes at the top of the back are out of place from the overall construction and design and are assumed to be later additions.

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OBSERVATION AND CONDITION Alabaster The structure appears sound and stable. No fractures, physical abrasions, chips, losses or cracks have been noted. Polychromy and gilding The polychromy of the alabaster surface appears to be largely intact displaying only minor areas of loss through ‘wear and tear’ from handling and use of the object. The gilded areas on the head of St John display variations in colour, hue, depth and saturation. Tests employing acetone did not dissolve any of the gilding, eliminating the presence of gold and/or bronze paint. The perceived variations of the gilded surface in colour, depth and saturation, may arise from surface preparation through application of bole colours and burnishing, suggesting an intended complex surface finish. Investigation under UV light revealed a pale yellow-green fluorescence over the surface area of the body of the Man of Sorrows and the neck of St John, suggesting the presence of a later-applied medium such as an adhesive and/or coating varnish, the function and quality of which would require further scientific and analytical investigation, employing Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR). Conservation object records note the employment of a wax and Paraloid B72 during the 1980s originating from stabilisation treatments of the polychromy of the wooden case. Wooden Case The overall structure of the case is sound and stable. Splits have been noted on wooden areas surrounding the nails in line with stresses, which over time would have caused the wood to split and change around the metal component. Substantial splitting noted at the top may be intrinsic to the wooden fabric, due to incomplete seasoning of the timber prior to working, natural defects of the piece of wood, and/or existing defects and weaknesses. These may have been exacerbated through unfavourable environmental conditions, such as frequent fluctuations of relative humidity and temperature, causing the wood to expand and contract across its planar sections. It may also be a combination of all of those factors. The top horizontal part has a hole drilled at an angle from the front towards the back. It is not possible to ascertain if it goes straight through the case without dismantling the structure, as the hole is obscured by what appears to be a plank added later and now blocking the hole. A piece of copper wire passing through this hole has been noted; its purpose is unclear.

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FIG. 8.1  DRAWING OF HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE, INV. 1.33 (GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS), WITH THE CASE AND ALABASTER COMPONENT. THE DIAGRAMS SHOWS DAMAGES AND LOSS OF POLYCHROMY ON BOTH THE CASE AND ALABASTER

Polychromy and ground Substantial loss of polychromy has been noted on the inside of both wings of the case, particularly on the upper sections, A and D (Fig. 8.1). The loss reveals a preparatory ground layer (assumed to be gesso). A red coloured band of decoration, framing the imagery on the wings

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appears to have been directly applied onto the wood substrate. The design for sections A, C, D and F all indicate a design of five-petaled flowers. Traces of ground have been noted on sections B and E. In the other four sections loss of ground has been noted, revealing the wood substrate. On the black coloured surface of the inside edges of the case, outlines of a four-petal design can be faintly seen. Loss of polychromy has been noted around the hinges of the right side, likely due to a combination of repeated use of opening and closing of the wings and potential corrosion of the adjacent hinges. The intact covering of the polychromy on the left suggests that the case was first assembled and then painted.

1.34 DESCRIPTION The alabaster image is comprised of two components: A narrow architectural piece (1) at the top above the main figurative panel (2). (1) is almost completely hollow. The alabaster has been reduced from the rear in three sections, showing the distinct tool marks of a straight edged chisel carving device (Fig. 8.2). It depicts a carved canopy with an intricate gothic architectural lattice. (2) also depicts the head of St John the Baptist surrounded by six figures with a Man of Sorrows below and three figures above. It is a solid piece of alabaster with four recesses carved out on the reverse. Like 1.33, the alabaster is set in a wooden box with wings, allowing the image to be hidden or revealed. The same form of metal wire hinges hold the separate wings in place through perforated holes. The outside faces of the wooden wings are of plain homogenous colouration, while the inside surfaces show evidence of polychromy. OBSERVATION AND CONDITION Alabaster The overall structural stability is fair. The decorative front of the intricate lattice carving of gothic architecture displays significant areas of physical and structural damage and evidence of previous remedial interventions. Inspection under UV light revealed green-coloured fluorescence suggesting cellulose nitrate having been employed as an adhesive to the fracture. Re-adhesion of a second fracture of two separated fragments may have occurred at the same time and been caused by the same event that resulted in the loss of the head of the top right-hand figure. The lack of fluorescence of this repair under UV light suggests this occurred at an earlier date; possibly by mechanical means as opposed to adhesion.

three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection

The purpose of a small hole to the left of the tub is unclear. It may evidence a change in the image composition, a mistake by the carver or serve as a ‘slot’ for further embellishments or adornments that have been lost. It corresponds to a reduced area on the back of the piece, which, alongside three additional reduced areas, are thought to decrease the weight of the alabaster carving (Fig. 8.2). The two rings inset in the alabaster, used to attach it to the case, are recent additions as is the lead holding them in place. These ‘holes’ are thought to be original and appear to have been continuously re-used for attachment purposes. Polychromy and gilding The substantial loss of polychromy from the alabaster surface beneath the canopy, and behind the three smaller figures along the top edge of the lower alabaster piece, may signify practices and extent of ‘ritual’ such as ‘touching’ and ‘stroking’ of the carving as part of the spiritual interaction with the image. Polychromy has been noted on surface areas hidden in recessed areas of the carving. WOODEN CASE The top mechanical joints of both wings to the centre structure are recent replacements of the missing original mechanism (conservation record, 1.34, GM) supported by foam to minimise wear and tear of movement. The wires of the bottom hinges, doubled back through the perforated wood, display green-coloured accretions associated with copper corrosion and are thought to be of an earlier date than the top wire. The right panel top hinge has replacement wire visible on the inside. The remains of wire embedded in the wood in lower, now obsolete, perforations in the wood and corresponding loss of polychromy indicate an alteration of positioning of the hinges. An area of loss of 100mm from the bottom to almost the middle on the right panel has been noted as wear and tear through opening and closing the case, indicating regular and substantive use of the object. Small areas of loss at the top unhinged corner, the same colouration as the stained/varnished body, suggests these are earlier breaks, predating the most recent surface treatment (Fig. 8.3). The top of the right side displays splits in the wood around metal nails. The bottom shows two holes indicating position of now missing nails. Two further nails affix the base. Two large splits have been noted across the Tangential Section (TS) of the wood rendering the resulting deformation structurally unstable. The surface area of the hinged edge displays traces of red-coloured

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FIG. 8.2  DRAWING OF THE ALABASTER COMPONENTS OF HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE, INV. 1.34 (GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS). THE DIAGRAM SHOWS TOOL MARKS AND AREAS OF LOSS

residue assumed to be pigment from the adjacent polychrome surface of the edges. Due to differences in texture, thickness and surface colouration, the base is thought to be a recent addition. The wavy patterns present on the wood surface are distinct to the natural markings of oak. Age, wear and tear and unfavourable environmental conditions in temperature and humidity may have exacerbated their visual

three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection

appearance, or this may have been purposely achieved through application of a wood stain or varnish. The purpose of two square holes, which extend through the transverse section of the top piece of wood and line up in correspondence with perforations in the alabaster below, is not clear. It is notable that the wood around the nails is splitting at each end, potentially an ongoing problem as suggested by the presence of a number of nails from different ages, but also indicating a continuous value for the object through repeated repair and maintenance. The back consists of two pieces; an older piece and a more recent, narrower, plank. The more recent piece extends above the main case, displaying areas of loss at the top potentially caused through the mechanical force of the nails. It may also indicate wear and tear due to prolonged stresses exerted on these points through weight pulling down the case if hung (Fig. 8.3). At the back, four holes indicate positions for attachment of the alabaster carving to the case. The bottom right hole is positioned lower than the left hole: this may have been necessitated by the thickness and motif of the decorative front of the alabaster carving, and an attempt to hide the mechanical fixing. A pale green fluorescing line visible under UV light revealed the use of an unidentified adhesive to join the narrow plank and the back. Polychromy and ground Areas of loss of polychromy have been noted all over the decorative surface. Significant areas of loss are noted in the bottom section, F, on the right panel, and the top section, A, on the left panel. Causes for the loss are likely to be loss of adhesive qualities of paint media, ground and substrate layers as a consequence of fluctuating temperature and humidity through inadequate and changing environments over the last 500 years. In addition, scratches noted on the lower part of section E and the right corner of section A resemble physical damage from repeated and excessive handling and use of such objects (Fig. 8.3). On closer inspection, faint lines guiding size and position of the scripture indicate a preparatory stage prior to committing to the polychromy of text. In section E a script line curves up, and out of line with the overall design. This may be an honest mistake or a conscious ‘disruption’ of some sort. It may also be evidence of later restoration of this area. Faint outlines were also noted on the surface of the corners of sections A, C, D and F, resembling an intricate design of the five-petal flower motif, and are just about visible along the inside edge of the main case. The raised dots on the wooden surface appear to consist of dots of gesso with an added layer of paint applied on top. The gesso is visible where the paint layer has been lost. Apart from the top left, significant losses of polychrome and gesso layer

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FIG. 8.3  DRAWING OF THE WOODEN CASE FROM HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE, INV. 1.34 (GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS). THE DIAGRAM FOCUSES ON AREAS OF LOSS, IN PARTICULAR, OF THE POLYCHROMY

around surface areas of the hinges are typical for wear and tear associated with the opening and closing of the wings. The holes where wires appear pressed back into the wood do not feature in the more recent repairs and are assumed to be earlier, if not original. The area beneath the architectural canopy structure displays remnants

three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection

of red colouration, discernible through the cut-out alabaster structure. Beneath the lower alabaster piece, sparse and random patches of green and red colouration have been noted. The losses of polychromy and ground layer are typical of objects of this age which have played a functional and/or ritual role to an individual or group in expression of held values and belief systems. The multiple and diverse interventions and alterations noted on the artefact support frequent, and interactive use of the object, requiring equal measures of care, maintenance and repair.2 The fractures and areas of physical loss of the carved alabaster suggest that the object was subjected to environments and conditions that left it vulnerable and exposed to physical damage and deterioration, with the possibility of it being purposefully ‘damaged’ or ‘desecrated’.

1.35 DESCRIPTION There are two pieces of alabaster consisting of a smaller architectural canopy (1), hollowed out, which is above a larger, figural piece carved from one component (2), depicting the head of St John flanked by two figures and a Man of Sorrows below. The reverse has been carved out along the base, presumably to lighten the weight (Fig. 8.4). The case is wooden with hinged wings to the left and right. The mechanism for opening and closing consists of metal wires which hold the wings in place. Unlike the other two cases, the base consists of only one piece of wood. The outside faces of the wings are of plain homogenous colouration, while the inside surfaces have polychromy. OBSERVATION AND CONDITION Alabaster (1) is comprised of one piece of alabaster. The rear shows the hollowing out to reduce weight with clearly distinguishable tool marks. Reduction of the alabaster may also facilitate a degree of luminescence. Carving 2 De Roemer, S., “Conservation study of materials and construction techniques of Medieval and Renaissance sculpture as a strategy for the Burrell sculpture collection re-display,” in K. Seymour (ed.), Polychrome Sculpture: Tool marks, Construction Techniques, Decorative Practice and Artistic Tradition. Proceedings of three Interim Meetings of ICOM-CC Working Group Sculpture, Polychromy, and Architectural Decoration, Vol. 2 (ICOM Committee for Conservation, 2017), 7–14 [digital resource: http://www. icom-cc.org/144/Polychrome%20Sculpture:%20Tool%20Marks,%20Construction%20 Techniques,%20Decorative%20Practice%20and%20Artistic%20Tradition/#.Wxa_ zqm-knU] (last accessed April 2018).

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guidelines can be seen on the back, below the three gaps and running through where the starting holes would have been and extending past on each end. The top left corner displays surface abrasions in the alabaster and ‘N.A. 1470’, is carved along the side on the piece. Below the middle and left gaps, a mark identical to the mark on the back of the lower piece (Fig. 8.4) may be a maker’s mark. A long scratch, 50mm, from the middle of the upper edge to the left side on lower edge has been noted. The two wires to attach the piece are held in lead filled holes, assumed to be original to the construction. The left hole opens into the hollow cavity area, visible when illuminated under light. The surfaces of the top and sides of the piece are less refined in their finishes than the front, suggesting that the enclosure was part of the original design intention. On the front of (2) a substantial area of loss has been noted along the top left edge in the middle, in addition to smaller losses to the left and right. The arm of the Man of Sorrows has previously broken off and been re-adhered rather than replaced. Also, behind the figure’s head to the right is a small hole about 3mm deep that has been painted over. It is unclear whether this was part of the design or a later alteration. The bottom edge of the back has been reduced through chiselling and the right corner displays a previous repair with small losses along all the edges. A red/brown coloured mark has been noted. Across the top is the same maker’s mark as on the upper piece and there is a large ‘X’ across the middle of the piece (Fig. 8.3). Like the other pieces there are lead filled holes with copper alloy wires for attaching the alabasters, however, these are uncut and still form loops. Polychromy and Gilding On (1) evidence of polychromy has been noted in the grooves of the trellis and other undercut and hidden areas. The red, yellow/gold and white coloured pattern on the underside of the canopy looks to have been applied in that order. Minor losses have been noted where the yellow reveals the underlying red. The colouration resembles a typical surface of red bole followed by yellow bole in preparation for gilding. The background of (2) displays a design of flowers composed of dots, comprised of a ground layer and paint. Some of the ‘dot’ decoration has been lost. The pigment in the yellow paint appears coarser than the consistency of the other colours. The central plate/head shows traces of gilding in the background with the droplet pattern added in red. Some areas of this pattern are only discernible through faint outline remnants. The surface of the hair displays three varying tones of gilding; a patchy metallic gold around the front and on the locks, darker brown band running across hair just behind that and a yellow gold, matt paint at the back. The beard has similar variations in colour.

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three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection

FIG. 8.4  DRAWING OF THE ALABASTER COMPONENTS OF HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE, INV. 1.35 (GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS). THE DIAGRAM SHOWS TOOL MARKS AND AREAS OF LOSS

The slight raised outlines suggest that the eyes, pupils and eyebrows were originally coloured, however, no visible colours remain. There is also an outline for where the forehead gash was likely originally painted on. There is evidence of brown pigment on the hair, around the edges. The figures surrounding St John’s head all have lost polychrome on their exposed and raised surfaces. Wooden Case The homogenous colouration of the wood surfaces suggests an applied stain or varnish similar to 1.33 and 1.34. The distinct grain pattern identifies the wood as oak. The back of the case consists of three pieces, of which the middle one

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is a later repair. Evidence for an adhesive used to join the pieces is visible as pale green fluorescence under UV light. Four main holes to attach the alabaster have been noted, with three further holes clustered together over a small surface area in the top left. A smaller hole is visible left of the centre. The back is held to the sides using a variety of nails. The replacement piece has different nails. There are two steel wire twists at the top of each side, possibly to hang the case. Small losses along the exposed edges and the top left corner of each of the wings are evidence for wear and tear from the repeated opening and closing of the case. The top left hinge appears to be fully intact and that there is no evidence of alterations or repairs indicates that this is an early mechanism. This is in contrast to the lower hinge, which displays a copper hinge in the side panel, an iron wire hinge further down and another (more delicate) iron repair, indicating a minimum of three interventions and alterations having taken place. There is an added piece attached to the base by a nail, which has caused the wood to split. The crisp and clean edges of this piece in comparison to the rounded and worn edges of the case suggest this to be a more recent addition. Both sides of the case display splitting in the wood around the iron nails and it appears that repeated repairs through nails have resulted in a number of these fixings accumulating in this area, decreasing the wood’s integrity and stability. The top piece contains corroded remains of two iron pins and there is slight splitting visible around the nails attaching the left side piece. A mark of in the shape of an ‘X’ is scratched onto the surface. The red pigment continues along the top edge again, as well as a gesso layer. Polychromy and Ground The surface area above the lower hinges displays loss of polychromy from repeated use. There are also circular holes, identified as flight holes, increasing the overall weakness of the structural integrity of the wood matrix (Fig. 8.5). Both wings display evidence of a ground layer followed by a layer of paint. Only minor traces of polychromy remain on the surface of the bottom sections (C and F). Noted traces suggest a symmetry in the design between sections C and E and sections F and A. Horizontal brush strokes, visible by eye, can be identified between the panels. Loss of the yellow, black and red polychromy along the edges of the wood reveal layers of a ground layer.

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three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection

FIG. 8.5  DRAWING OF THE WOODEN CASE FROM HEAD OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST IN A TABERNACLE, INV. 1.35 (GLASGOW, THE BURRELL COLLECTION, GLASGOW MUSEUMS). THE DIAGRAM FOCUSES ON AREAS OF LOSS, IN PARTICULAR, OF POLYCHROMY

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Sophie Philipps with Stephanie De Roemer

SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS All three tabernacles consist of carved alabaster with traces of polychromy and gilding noted on surface areas of crevices. The head of St John the Baptist is centred and surrounded by figures to the right and left and positioned above a Man of Sorrows. The carved alabaster image is set inside an angled wooden case with trapeze-shaped wooden wings which cover or reveal the central image according to their position. All cases follow the same basic construction; plain on the outside when closed, and decorated on the inside, visible when opened. Each contains polychrome stylised floral motifs and scripture on the inside of the wings. The basic design of the cases consists of five planks of wood that create a canted, butt-jointed box, held together with nails. Two further pieces of wood are affixed on top with wire hinges to form the opening wing panels. These pieces of wood are all relatively thin, the wings are no more than 4mm thick and the sides no more than 6mm. The hinges are created using interlocking twists of wire that are recessed into notches in the wood and anchored much like staples. The fact that the hinges are recessed into the wood is what allows the pieces to lie flat and open smoothly. The abrasion of the wire on the wood through repeated closing and opening of the wings is a mechanical weak point in the structure of the cases and the present metal fixings are primarily recent, twentieth-century replacements. Purpose-made holes visible at the back of the cases suggest that the alabaster carvings inside their cases were attached or displayed against a wall using wire and rings as a hanging mechanism. Despite the broad similarities of the three examples in the collection, each piece is unique and varies in size, detail and condition.

SCIENTIFIC AND ANALYTICAL INVESTIGATION In order to investigate and compare potential similarities and variations of media and condition across the specific pieces, further investigation employing a stereo microscope to investigate microscopic detail in the present media, and elemental analysis of samples of surface decoration through Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) was carried out. Samples were taken and examined using an SEM before multiple spectra were generated for each sample, to provide the most accurate reading possible. 1.33 The pigment samples analysed produced similar elemental compositions on both the alabaster and the case and were comparable to the other two

three alabaster carvings from the Burrell Collection

pieces (Table 8.1). There was lead present in the red and green samples, which suggests that a red lead oxide was used.3 The high proportion of copper present could indicate several green pigments;4 however, as only elemental composition could be determined, this does not provide much certainty or detailed information. The EDXRF detected significant amounts of lead in the white pigment, which would suggest lead white.5 1.34 Pigment samples were analysed from the main areas on both the alabaster and the case, which determined that the elemental composition of the pigments for the corresponding areas was similar (Table 8.2). Lead was the predominant element for the red pigment, suggesting a lead oxide,6 whereas copper was present in the green samples. Unfortunately, this could be multiple green pigments.7 There was mercury in the red trim of the robes carved in the alabaster, which could suggest vermillion was used.8 However, access to Raman Spectroscopy or FTIR could have provided more concrete answers.9 All the samples contained some degree of lead which has likely contributed to the pigments darkening.10 1.35 As with 1.34 the pigment samples analysed from both the case and the alabaster had similar elemental composition (Table 8.3). The interesting thing to note was that there was arsenic and sulphur in the yellow pigment which could suggest that orpiment was used.11 This hypothesis is supported 3 Mayer, R., The Artist’s Handbook, 4th edn (London, 1975), 65. A range of different lead oxides have been used as pigments. 4 Ibidem, 41, 54, 58, 88. Copper is present in multiple different pigments a carbonate and an acetate. 5 Gettens, R., Kühn H. and Chase, W.T., “Lead White,” in R. Ashok (ed.), Artists’ Pigments. A handbook of Their History and Characteristics, vol. 2 (New York, 1993), 74. 6 Mayer, The Artist’s, 65. 7 Gettens, R. and Stout, G., Painting Materials. A Short Encyclopedia (New York, 1946) 47. See also footnote 3. 8 Gettens, R., Kühn H. and Chase, W.T., “Vermillion and Cinnabar,” in Ashok, Artists’ Pigments, 168. Vermillion is also prone to darkening when exposed to light, which would fit with this example. 9 Castro, K., et al., “Multianalytical approach to the analysis of English polychromed alabaster sculptures: μRaman, μEDXRF, and FTIR spectroscopies,” Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry 392:4 (2008), 755–63:756. All three analytical techniques were used to great effect on a range of medieval, polychrome alabasters. 10 Saunders, D. and Kirby, J., “The Effect of Relative Humidity on Artists’ Pigments,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 25 (2004), 62–72: 68. The lead containing pigments discussed darkened with exposure to both light and increased humidity levels. 11 West Fitzhugh, E., “Orpiment and Realgar,” in E. West Fitzhugh (ed.), Artist’s Pigments. A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, vol. 3 (New York, 1997), 47–80: 47.

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by the fact that the pigment fluoresced pale yellow under UV, which can also indicate orpiment.12 A sample of the ground layer was also analysed and contained significant amounts of calcium and sulphur, which is the right composition for gesso.13 Also, there were particles of the ground layer in the pigment samples, which could explain the presence of both sulphur and calcium in many of the spectra generated.

12 Measday, D., “A Summary of Ultra-Violet Fluorescent Materials Relevant to Conservation,” The Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (14 March 2017) [digital resource: https://aiccm.org.au/national-news/summary-ultra-violetfluorescent-materials-relevant-conservation] (last accessed April 2018). Orpiment is described as fluorescing pale yellow. 13 Gottsegen, M., The Painter’s Handbook: A Complete Reference, rev. edn (New York, 2006), 321.

Element Carbon Oxygen Silicon Sulfur Potassium Calcium Lead

Element Carbon Oxygen Aluminum Silicon Sulfur Chlorine Potassium Calcium Lead

Weight % 40.963 35.853 0.237 7.143 1.135 13.857 0.813

Ground layer

White on the case

Weight % 38.988 37.273 0.149 0.132 3.085 0.333 0.189 8.389 11.462

7

6

Weight % Element 32.039 Carbon 42.727 Oxygen 0.140 Sodium 0.234 Aluminum 0.373 Silicon 0.403 Phosphorus 0.367 Sulfur 21.376 Chlorine 2.342 Potassium Calcium Iron Lead

Weight % 48.830 28.584 0.347 0.381 1.244 0.246 0.668 0.671 0.533 2.034 5.166 11.297

Element Carbon Oxygen Sodium Aluminum Silicon Sulfur Chlorine Potassium Calcium Iron Arsenic Lead

Weight % 35.740 27.003 0.288 0.755 9.647 0.752 0.883 12.471 0.981 0.598 10.881

Red on the alabaster

5

Weight % Element 50.973 Carbon 26.409 Oxygen 0.276 Sodium 0.234 Silicon 0.782 Sulfur 0.982 Chlorine 1.701 Potassium 0.856 Calcium 1.524 Arsenic 0.449 Bromine 0.051 Lead 15.763

Element Carbon Oxygen Magnesium Aluminum Silicon Sulfur Chlorine Calcium Copper

Element Carbon Oxxygen Calcium Copper Bromine Lead

Weight % 33.483 20.225 2.809 1.346 0.282 41.857

Green on the alabaster gilding on the alabaster Red on the case

4

Green on the case

3

2

1

TABLE 8.1. EDXRF SPECTRA FOR PIGMENT SAMPLES FROM 1.33

Sample number Sample location EDXRF results

Sample number Sample location EDXRF results

APPENDIX

2 Green background on the case Element Weight % Carbon 59.623 Oxygen 22.163 Aluminium 0.088 Sulphur 0.255 Chlorine 0.200 Calcium 0.636 Copper 15.486 Lead 1.549

1

Green background on alabaster Element Weight % Carbon 57.723 Oxygen 26.973 Magnesium 0.180 Aluminium 0.203 Silicon 0.264 Phosphorus 0.295 Sulphur 2.513 Chlorine 0.437 Potassium 1.867 Calcium 3.966 Copper 2.954 Lead 2.625

TABLE 8.2. EDXRF SPECTRA FOR PIGMENT SAMPLES FROM 1.34

Sample number Sample location EDXRF results Red on the case

4

5

Green/black case Element Weight % Element Weight % Element Carbon 34.312 Carbon 54.118 Carbon Oxygen 33.975 Oxygen 12.350 Oxygen Aluminium 0.162 Aluminium 0.322 Magnesium Silicon 0.213 Chlorine 0.530 Aluminium Sulphur 11.051 Calcium 1.067 Silicon Potassium 0.144 Lead 31.613 Sulphur Calcium 10.414 Calcium Iron 0.386 Lead Mercury 9.344

Red on the alabaster

3

Weight % 46.547 16.617 0.201 0.912 35.724

White on the case Weight % Element 40.725 Carbon 36.975 Oxygen 0.247 Aluminium 0.274 Calcium 0.484 Lead 1.174 16.083 4.039

on the

6

Yellow in the case

Red on the case

3

4

5

6

Carbon Oxygen Sulphur Potassium Calcium Bromine Mercury

30.015 7.185 9.656 0.196 0.784 0.398 51.765

Red on lower alabaster (2) Element Weight %

Ground layer on the White on the case Black on the box panel Element Weight % Element Weight % Element Weight % Carbon 43.570 Carbon 34.692 Carbon 49.854 Oxygen 29.897 Oxygen 18.659 Oxygen 28.191 Aluminium 0.207 Sodium 0.290 Sodium 0.466 Silicon 0.221 Aluminium 0.233 Magnesium 0.285 Sulphur 8.063 Chlorine 1.332 Aluminium 0.473 Potassium 0.291 Potassium 0.451 Silicon 1.181 Calcium 17.751 Calcium 1.154 Phosphorus 2.444 Arsenic 0.099 Sulphur 1.196 Lead 43.090 Chlorine 0.749 Potassium 1.120 Calcium 4.479 Iron 0.703 Lead 8.861

Carbon Oxygen Sodium Aluminium Silicon Sulphur Chlorine Potassium Calcium Iron

51.931 27.126 0.244 0.312 0.426 0.438 0.514 0.377 1.708 7.216

gilding on the alabaster Element Weight %

Yellow on the Green on the case Green on the Red on upper alabaster alabaster alabaster (1) Element Weight % Element Weight % Element Weight % Element Weight % Element Weight % Element Weight % Carbon 52.232 Carbon 58.111 Carbon 54.749 Carbon 57.376 Carbon 49.636 Carbon 46.812 Oxygen 20.139 Oxygen 14.677 Oxygen 25.781 Oxygen 22.902 Oxygen 24.280 Oxygen 28.821 Sodium 0.228 Aluminium 0.448 Sodium 0.404 Aluminium 0.231 Aluminium 0.107 Silicon 0.255 Aluminium 0.199 Silicon 0.563 Aluminium 0.253 Sulphur 0.493 Sulphur 0.527 Sulphur 5.529 Silicon 0.538 Sulphur 12.362 Silicon 0.520 Chlorine 0.959 Chlorine 0.502 Chlorine 0.373 Phosphorus 0.284 Calcium 2.396 Phosphorus 0.294 Calcium 1.164 Potassium 0.222 Potassium 0.337 Sulphur 1.004 Arsenic 11.444 Sulphur 4.499 Copper 13.867 Calcium 0.243 Calcium 5.276 Chlorine 0.608 Potassium 0.620 Lead 3.007 Copper 21.917 Arsenic 0.262 Potassium 1.018 Calcium 5.788 Lead 2.567 Bromine 0.287 Calcium 1.312 Iron 1.286 Lead 12.047 Lead 22.438 Arsenic 4.083 Lead 1.722 7 8 10 11 G

2

1

TABLE 8.3. EDXRF SPECTRA FOR PIGMENT SAMPLES FROM 1.35

Sample number Sample location EDXRF results

Sample number Sample location EDXRF results

9

‘SMOOTH AS MONUMENTAL ALABASTER’. THE ALABASTER TOMB INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND, 1550–1660 JON BAYLISS

W

hen Othello described Desdemona as possessing ‘that whiter skin of hers than Snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster’, Shakespeare was referring to the Elizabethan and Jacobean predilection for a white and smooth female complexion that could be represented on a monumental effigy by well-chosen white alabaster.1 However the alabaster available to English sculptors working between 1550 and 1660 did not always allow them to use the ideal pure white material and some deliberately exploited differences in colour in the architectural elements of their work. The introduction of Carrara marble early in the seventeenth century for the monuments of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots was the initial move away from alabaster as the primary material for monuments, a move that was largely complete by the end of the century although alabaster held primacy until 1660 and did so longer outside London. By the fifteenth century, alabaster tomb production was concentrated in the alabaster-producing areas of the Midlands and run by Englishmen. Such tombs were only very occasionally carved in London and York.

1 William Shakespeare, Othello, V.2.3–5, cf. Sabatier, A., Shakespeare and Visual Culture. A Dictionary (Bloomsbury, 2017), 17.

The alabaster tomb industry in England, 1550–1660

London-made alabaster tombs of the first half of the sixteenth century are very few, but the picture changed after 1550 – gradually at first, but gathering speed by the 1570s. The influx of Netherlandish refugees in the late 1560s and beyond led to the establishment of tomb workshops in Southwark and London.2 William Cure, a Dutchman, was brought to England to work on Henry VIII’s palace of Nonsuch. We still do not know what work Cure did after Nonsuch but both the Marblers’ and Masons’ Companies in London were interested in his activities, suggesting that he was concentrating on producing monumental brasses and alabaster tombs. His son Cornelius was made a freeman of the Marblers’ Company in 1574 and moved to the Masons’ when that company subsumed the marblers in 1585. As master mason to James I he made the monument to Mary Queen of Scots, thus helping to begin the trend to replace alabaster with Italian marble. A series of alabaster tombs has been linked to him convincingly. For instance, a payment in 1584 by the Earl of Leicester may link him to that at St Mary’s, Warwick, for Leicester’s small son who died that year (Fig. 9.1). Cornelius was in turn succeeded by his son, another William, whose work is better documented, with three alabaster tombs at Chenies, Buckinghamshire, for Francis Russell, Lord of Thornaugh, who had to resort to the law in 1619 to get William to finish them. William Cure also partnered Nicholas Johnson to produce the tomb of Bishop Montagu in Bath Abbey in 1618–19. Nicholas Johnson was the eldest English-born son of Garret Johnson, who had arrived in 1567 and had been born in Amsterdam. Little documentation relating to his work has come to light since Katherine Esdaile’s time but his documented monuments have enabled firm attributions of a substantial number. Nicholas was working with his father by the 1590s but the only documented work undertaken by him alone after his father’s death in 1611 was the monument to Roger Manners, the fifth earl of Rutland, at Bottesford, Leicestershire, complementing those by his father to the previous two earls. His younger brother, Garret, is credited with the monument at Stratford-upon-Avon to William Shakespeare but is otherwise a shadowy figure. Another immigrant to arrive in 1567, the German-speaking Richard Stevens, ‘came over for religion’, but the only addition to his work to come to light – other than his monument to the three earls of Essex at Boreham, Essex, now lacking its canopy – is the completion of the inscription to Sir Nicholas Bacon, in St Paul’s 2 For sculptors based in London, see their respective entries in White, A., “A Biographical Dictionary of London Tomb Sculptors c. 1560 – c. 1660,” Walpole Society 61 (1999), 1–162 and Idem, “A Biographical Dictionary of London Tomb Sculptors c. 1560 – c. 1660: Addenda and Corrigenda,” Walpole Society 71 (2009), 325–55. Esdaile, K.A., “The Inter-Action of English and Low Country Sculpture in the 16th Century,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943), 80–8, surveyed tomb sculpture over much the same period as covered here and, given the ubiquity of alabaster at this time, mainly concentrated on sculptors whose work was primarily in alabaster.

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FIG. 9.1  CORNELIUS CURE, MONUMENT TO ROBERT DUDLEY (D. 1584). WARWICK, CHURCH OF ST MARY

Cathedral, London, following Bacon’s death in 1579.3 Bacon’s blackened and fire-damaged alabaster effigy in the crypt of St Paul is the only part of the monument to survive the fire of 1666 and is insufficient to indicate whether Stevens was author of the whole. Immigrant sculptors continued to arrive in England over the rest of the century. Gilles de Witte and the elder John Colt arrived in 1585. De Witte had fled Bruges after the collapse of the Protestant reformation there and settled in the liberty of the Blackfriars in London. His monument to Jan de Schietere, executed in 1576–7, survives in Sint3 Smith, A.H. and Baker, G.M. (eds), The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey, Volume II, 1578–1585, Norfolk Record Society, 49 (Norfolk, 1983), 32.

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Salvatorskathedraal, Bruges. He is documented as in the employ of Lord Cobham in 1601, and some of the architecture of Cobham Hall, Kent, is in his style, including the alabaster and black marble chimneypieces, two of them dated (1587 and 1599). Two monuments to members of Lord Cobham’s family who both died in 1594 (John Brook at Newington and Jane, Lady Fitzjames at West Malling, both in Kent) are in a style that is closer to that of Cornelis Floris than is usually found in England. John Colt is likely to be the sculptor of the monuments for which entries are recorded as paid for by Mr Colt in The Booke of Monuments, an attempt by the heralds to help regulate the painting of arms on monuments, begun in 1619 but quickly abandoned. He also made the monument to Sir John Cavendish at Chesham in 1618–19. In 1595 John’s brother Maximilian arrived in England. Both brothers were born in Arras, then in the Spanish Netherlands but now in France. Maximilian rose to become sculptor to James I and was employed on Elizabeth I’s large marble monument and the small alabaster monuments of two of James I’s daughters, all in Westminster Abbey. In 1627–28 Maximilian contracted for the separate monument to the husband and wife, Sir George and Elizabeth, Lady Savile, in churches in Yorkshire. Lady Savile’s at Horbury was destroyed but Sir George’s remains at Thornhill. The signed design drawings for the Savile monuments survive with the contract.4 The influx of Scots to the English court after 1603 led to an expanded market for London sculptors, Colt’s monument to David, Lord Scone, erected by 29 February 1618/19 at Scone, near Perth, being one example. His later output shows a conservative approach, typified by the tomb of Sir Lewis Mansel at Margam Abbey (payments made in 1639–41).5 At the Restoration in 1660 his nephew, John Colt the younger, unsuccessfully petitioned to succeed him. John’s single signed monument (to Dorcas Smyth, died 1633, Toppesfield, Essex) has recently been joined by the documented alabaster figures of Moses and Aaron from a destroyed Laudian decalogue table made for the Charterhouse in London.6 By the early seventeenth century a number of Englishmen had joined the ranks of tomb-makers. Bartholomew Atye and Epiphanius Evesham were recorded as servants of the former marbler John Bowstred at his death in 1593.7 Evesham signed a couple of small alabaster tablets at the end of the decade before leaving for France by 1600, working there for over fifteen years before returning for a few years – he was described as a

4 Reproduced in Harris, J., A Catalogue of British Drawings for Architecture, Decoration, Sculpture and Landscape Gardening 1550–1900 in American Collections (London, 1971), 77–8. 5 Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Penrice and Margam Estate Records, MS 2191, unfol. 6 Porter, S. and White, A., “John Colt and the Charterhouse Chapel,” Architectural History 44 (2001), 228–36. 7 London, The National Archives, PROB 11/82.

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stranger, i.e., foreigner, in 1621 and is last documented in 1624. While using alabaster in all his signed works, he used other material for the effigies of some of them. Many others have been ascribed to him but very few attributions stand up to scrutiny. A recent addition to his signed work is the small tablet commemorating Edward Games, died 1623, at Scarning, Norfolk (Fig. 9.2).8 The last evidence of Evesham is an entry in the diary of the earl of Cork noting that he had previously had to pay to redeem an unfinished tablet which Evesham had pawned, so that it could be completed by James White. It was erected by October 1628 at Deptford, Kent.9 Around 1600 Atye was in partnership with Isaac James, a sculptor of Dutch descent. James was responsible for the important monument of Henry, Lord Norris, erected around 1611 in Westminster Abbey. Alexander Hills of Holborn was persuaded to move to Ireland by the earl of Cork, whose monument at Youghal has his signature. Although not of alabaster, it gives a good indication that Hills was practised in turning out monuments in a style compatible with alabaster tomb production. John Key and William Wright contracted in 1608 to make the large alabaster monument of Sir William Paston at North Walsham, Norfolk.10 Key died ten years later but Wright went on to become a major, if idiosyncratic, tomb sculptor for whom a number of contracts and other documents survive. He lived at Charing Cross, outside the city of London but well placed to attract business from both London and Westminster. He had a career lasting into the 1650s. Wright’s petition to the Court of Requests in 1641 not only establishes his authorship of the monument at Tilehurst, Berkshire, of Sir Peter Vanlore, died 1627, but also that it was modelled on the earlier Dacre monument at Chelsea.11 He had had to pay to store the monument for ten years after he was stopped from erecting it. William White is known for a single accomplished monument erected in 1614 at Harefield, Middlesex, commemorating Sir John Newdigate, died 1610 (Fig. 9.3), while James White was employed again by the earl of Cork in the late 1620s on a substantial monument at Preston-next-Faversham, Kent, for the earl’s parents. Jan Janssen, perhaps an immigrant, contracted to erect a monument at Stowlangtoft, Suffolk, to Paul Dewes in 1624. Janssen lived in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, as did Thomas Ashby, who made the large monument in St Mary’s at Warwick commemorating Sir Fulke Greville in 1618 but died a couple of years later. Much has been written about the career of Nicholas Stone, another 8 Bayliss, J., “Epiphanius Evesham: a ‘new’ discovery,” Church Monuments XXVIII (2013), 133–8. 9 Grosart, A.B. (ed.), The Lismore papers of Richard Boyle, First and “Great” Earl of Cork, 10 vols (London, 1886–1888), vol. 2 (1886), 283. 10 Ketton-Cremer, R.W., “The Founder’s Tomb,” in idem, Forty Norfolk Essays (Norwich, 1961), 11–13. 11 London, The National Archives, REQ 1/37/217.

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FIG. 9.2  EPIPHANIUS EVESHAM, TABLET COMMEMORATING EDWARD GAMES (D. 1623). SCARNING, NORFOLK

inhabitant of St Martin-in-the-Fields. He had been apprenticed to Isaac James and then to Hendryk de Keyser in Amsterdam. A significant proportion of his tomb production was in alabaster, often supplemented with rance (red Belgian marble) and touch. However he used white marble from the beginning, and his use of it increased later. Stone was the most significant English sculptor of this period. The publication of his notebook and account book in 191912 should by no means be thought the last word on his career, as further documentation has continued to 12 Spiers, W.L., The Note-Book and Account Book of Nicholas Stone, Walpole Society, 7 (Oxford, 1919).

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FIG. 9.3  WILLIAM WHITE, MONUMENT TO SIR JOHN NEWDIGATE, 1614. HAREFIELD, MIDDLESEX

Jon Bayliss

The alabaster tomb industry in England, 1550–1660

emerge. His account books are particularly helpful in demonstrating how a large workshop operated. Craftsmen working for Stone, directly or as subcontractors, also produced monuments under their own names, more usually in marble than alabaster. However, the alabaster monument at Greenford, Middlesex, commemorating Bridget Coston, died 1637, is signed by Humphrey Moyer, who did much of the work on one of Stone’s most well-known memorials, that of John Donne, which survived the destruction of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1666. Moyer lived in the city of London, unlike Stone and most of the sculptors associated with him, who inhabited the new suburbs west of the city. Also inhabitants of the city were Stone’s direct contemporary, Francis Grigs, and Edward Marshall, active from the 1620s. Both signed a number of their monuments, as did the brothers John and Mathias Christmas, members of the London Joiners company: all worked in both alabaster and white marble. The Christmas brothers had succeeded their father Garrett, author of the documented alabaster monument at Chilton, Suffolk, to Sir Robert Crane and his two wives, for which he contracted in 1626. Garrett died in 1633–4 and is well-documented for his other activities as Carver to the Navy and for designing, with the help of various dramatists, and making the sets and decorations for the annual Lord Mayor’s pageants, but nothing else in alabaster can be assigned to him with any confidence. His sons also worked for the Navy and on the Lord Mayor’s pageants. While their signed monuments are joint works, John Christmas also undertook work on his own account.13 The younger sculptors, Thomas Stanton and Thomas Burman, also worked in both alabaster and marble, in careers extending past 1660, like Edward Marshall’s. Marshall outlived his former apprentice Henry Boughton, who signed the alabaster tablet to Anthony Abdy and his wife, both died 1640, in the church of St Andrew Undershaft in London. Less documentation survives for alabaster monuments made outside London, but the tombs are also much easier to separate into discrete stylistic groups as the sculptors did not generally work in close geographical proximity. These groups encompass the majority of provincial alabaster monuments, and most workshops that used alabaster did so extensively. They were competing against London workshops but – especially in the alabaster producing areas – they enjoyed a cost advantage. In the Midlands, production was concentrated in Burton-upon-Trent, with Richard Parker and father and son Richard and Gabriel Royley increasingly busy after the slack period immediately following the Reformation but working largely in pre-Reformation styles.14 Parker died in 1570 with orders still Longsatffe-Gowan, T. and Knox, T., “One Rare Piece of Novelty,” Apollo 164:533 (2006), 48–56. 14 Bayliss, J., “Richard Parker ‘The Alabasterman’,” Church Monuments V (1990), 39–56; 13

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on his books but no successor. From this time, alabaster tomb-making spread into areas on the periphery of Parker’s wide distribution. Once the Royleys faced new local competition in the 1580s they increasingly produced bulkier effigies that required less cutting away of the block of alabaster, until ceasing production around 1600. In the Severn Valley, John Tarbook of Bewdley, Worcestershire, signed or initialled two accomplished incised slabs at Pitchley, Shropshire, in 1587.15 The parish register entry made of the burial of Walter Hancock in 1599 at Much Wenlock, Shropshire, recorded among his skills ‘ingravinge in ale blaster and other stone’ and among his works ‘most stately tombes’.16 A number of alabaster monuments can be associated with that at Montgomery commemorating Sir Richard Herbert for which there is some documentary evidence but which was completed in 1600 after Hancock’s death by other hands.17 The large monument of the same design at Ashley, Staffordshire, identified as commemorating Sir Gilbert Gerard, died 1592, and his family is eminently comparable to the Herbert tomb and, among others, the monument ascribed to Thomas Scriven, died 1587, at Condover, Shropshire. A series of alabaster monuments in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire with a distribution centred on Olney, Buckinghamshire, close to the head of navigation of the Great Ouse, dates between the 1570s and the early years of the next century, and was perhaps produced by two generations of masons whose major occupation was probably the building of houses for local nobles, gentry and merchants.18 The monuments at Turvey, Bedfordshire, for the first and second Lords Mordaunt, died 1562 and 1571 respectively, both seem to have been erected some years after their deaths. The tablet for John Lingard and his wife, erected in 1570 at Wellingborough, is, like the earlier Turvey tomb, a product of the first generation, while three early seventeenth-century monuments with flat canopies carried by columns are simpler versions of the second generation tomb at Turvey. The initials ‘R C’ at Kinlet, Shropshire, on the large tomb of Sir George Idem, “Richard and Gabriel Royley of Burton-upon-Trent, Tombmakers,” Church Monuments VI (1991), 21–41. 15 Greenhill, F.A., Incised Effigial Slabs. A Study of Engraved Stone Memorials in Latin Christendom, c. 1100 to c. 1700, vol. 1 (London, 1976), 22. 16 Anon., “Extracts from the registers of the parish of Much Wenlock, with notes,” Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society 11 (1888), 15. 17 Lloyd, J.D.K., “The Architect of the Herbert Tomb at Montgomery,” The Montgomeryshire Collections 59 (1965–66), 138–140. 18 Although Jonathan Edis (“Beyond Thomas Kirkby: monuments of the Mordaunt family and their circle, 1567–1618,” Church Monuments XVI (2001), 30–43) associates the alabaster tombs of this series with a wider group in the same area, Sofia Matich and Jennifer Alexander (“Creating and recreating the Yorkist tombs in Fotheringhay church (Northamptonshire),” Church Monuments XXVI (2011), 82–103) see only a slight connection with that wider group. Both draw attention to the influence of Cornelis Floris on the monuments.

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Blount, erected 1584, identify its maker as Robert Coxe, as is confirmed by the use of carved representations of his mason’s mark. He had been appointed master mason of Kenilworth Castle in 1551 and was engaged on making an alabaster chimney-piece there in 1571.19 The chimney-piece now in the gatehouse of the castle bears the same date and is a clear stylistic match for the Kinlet tomb with its distinctive mix of gothic and contemporary motifs. Little other work in alabaster can be assigned to him. The invitation to Henry Kinder of Newark to advise on the placement of the tombs of the third and fourth earls of Rutland at Bottesford, Leicestershire, in 1591 alongside the tomb-maker of Burton-uponTrent strongly suggests that Kinder was the author of the extraordinary monument of the second earl.20 The earl and his countess lie beneath an alabaster table on which their offspring kneel. A few other tombs in the area can also be attributed to Kinder, who is documented as a Newark woodworker in 1584.21 That at Snarford, Lincolnshire, to Sir Thomas St Pol, died 1582, is similar to the second earl’s while those of a different design to Richard Whalley, erected 1584 at Screveton, and to Bishop Burnell, erected 1590, at Sibthorpe (both in Nottinghamshire) and commissioned by Barbara, widow of both men, form a pair clearly by the same hand. The recumbent effigy of Archbishop Edwin Sandys, died 1588, on a tombchest in Southwell Minster has been considerably ‘improved’ by Victorian restorers but also looks like Kinder’s work. In view of the prominence of the subjects of some of his work, the tombs are surprisingly few in number. A contract for a lost monument at Breadsall, Derbyshire, identifies William Hargrave of Bilborough, Nottinghamshire, as a tomb-maker. The 1616 contract records that the tomb of John Harpur was to be of the same form and fashion as the ‘plott’ that Hargrave had previously made for Sir Andrew Nowell and Sir John Manners.22 The lower half of a kneeling alabaster man in armour was photographed outside Breadsall Park and was presumably Harpur’s effigy following its removal from the church, where the whole figure had previously been drawn.23 Comparison with the armoured effigies of Nowell at Old Dalby, Leicestershire, and Manners 19 Morris, R.K., “‘I was never more in love with an olde howse nor never newe worke coulde be better bestowed’: The Earl of Leicester’s remodelling of Kenilworth Castle for Queen Elizabeth I,” The Antiquaries Journal 89 (2009), 241–305: 294–5 and Fig. 28 (the alabaster fireplace). 20 Carrington, W.A., “The Early Lords of Belvoir,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 8 (1902), 17–38: 28. Of the various publications presenting the documentary evidence for the monuments of the earls of Rutland at Bottesford, this appears to offer the most complete view. 21 Hodgkinson, R.F.B., “Extracts from the Act Books,” Transactions of the Thoroton Society 29 (1926), 19–67: 57. 22 Matlock, Derbyshire Record Office, D2375 M/204/2. There was formerly an online transcription at www.keele.ac.uk/depts/hi/resources/reformation/ElizabethanparishF.pdf 23 Cox, J.C., “The History of Breadsall Priory,” Derbyshire Archaeological Journal 27 (1905), 138–150: 149.

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FIG. 9.4  WILLIAM HARGRAVE, MONUMENT TO SIR JOHN MANNERS (D. 1611). BAKEWELL, DERBYSHIRE

at Bakewell, Derbyshire (Fig. 9.4), points to Hargrave as the maker of a substantial number of alabaster monuments between the mid-1580s and the late 1610s. The early ones have evident input from Robert Smythson, designer of Wollaton Hall, which was then under construction, and where the accounts name Hargrave as one of the joiners.24 He lived in the neighbouring parish of Bilborough. The pattern used along the chamfered edges of the cover slabs of the tombs of Ralph Gell, died 1583, at Wirksworth, Derbyshire, Edward Brudenell, died 1590, at Stonton Wyville, 24

Airs, M., The Making of the English Country House, 1500–1640 (London, 1975), 142.

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Leicestershire, and John Helwys, died 1599, at Saundby, Nottinghamshire, is the same as that on the corbels supporting the false hammerbeam roof at Wollaton Hall, the remaining major piece of original woodwork there.25 Hargrave’s later work relies much less on Smythson but his effigy style links to the earlier work. The signature of John Greenway of Derby on the alabaster tablet of Francis Whitstones, erected in 1612, at Barnack, Northamptonshire, belongs to a man probably identifiable as the head joiner at Wollaton. It is an attempt to echo the Vredeman de Vries-derived Smythson style of the 1580s, but this was outmoded by the 1610s and it has poorly carved effigies. The tablet of William Bainbrigge erected in 1614 at Lockington, Leicestershire, is a similar work and evidently from the same hand, but little else can be identified that is likely to be Greenway’s work. A few works in the Derby area, such as the pair of similar monuments at Wilne, erected in 1622 under the terms of the will of Sir John Willoughby, and Elvaston, for Sir John Stanhope, died 1610/11, are far more competent and contemporary in style. Jasper Hollemans of Burton-upon-Trent is first documented in a payment made to him in London for work done by his father, Garrett, in Worcestershire in 1593.26 The same documentary source allows Garrett to be identified as the sculptor of a freestone tomb at Bockleton, Worcestershire, in the following year. A lost contract for a monument which ‘Garret and Jasper Hollman’ agreed with Sir George Shirley in 1596, following the death of his first wife, specified a different church for its erection than Breedon-on-the-Hill where the large alabaster monument was put up in 1598 (Fig. 9.5). It commemorates Sir George, his wife and family and its style links with the impressive Foljambe monuments of the 1590s at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, and other Midlands monuments dated from 1584 onwards, in both alabaster and freestone. In 1612 Jasper was referred to as serving Sir George Shirley in a letter from Robert Lord Spencer that was sent in reply to a request for the name of the sculptor of his father’s monument.27 Jasper’s relationship with Shirley can further be borne out stylistically by two other monuments. Shirley’s second wife was the widow of Sir Henry Unton, died 1596. Her alabaster kneeling effigy at Faringdon, Berkshire, the major remnant of the destroyed Unton monument, has distinctive pleats on the edge of her wheel farthingale which are paralleled

Marshall, P., Wollaton Hall: An Archaeological Survey (Nottingham, 1996), Pl. 10. Bayliss, J., “A Dutch carver: Garrett Hollemans I in England,” Church Monuments VIII (1993), 45–56. 27 O’F[lynn], G., “Jasper Hollemans: Alabaster Worker,” Notes & Queries 148 (9 May 1925), 332, connects Hollemans’ work to the wrong Spencer family but gives a transcript of the part of the letter that was only summarised in the source used by Esdaile in 1943, which missed the important link with Sir George Shirley and gave Jasper’s name incorrectly as Joseph. 25

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FIG. 9.5  GARRAT AND JASPER HOLLEMANS, MONUMENT TO SIR GEORGE AND FRANCES SHIRLEY (D. 1595). BREEDON-ONTHE-HILL

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by the same feature on Robert Lord Spencer’s own monument at Great Brington, Northamptonshire, and on the effigies of the daughters of Sir George Fermor, died 1612, at Easton Neston, in the same county. Shirley was overseer of Fermor’s will.28 The strong sense of pattern, typified by the honeycomb sleeves noted by Esdaile that occur on Jasper Hollemans’s documented 1599 Spencer monuments at Great Brington, also appear on a few male civilian effigies, as at Shrewsbury Abbey (William Jones, died 1612, and wife Eleanor, died 1623).29 A further addition is the insertion of metal mouldings as decoration on clothes and armour on some effigies, as on those of Sir Edward Blount, died 1630, and his two wives at Kidderminster, Worcestershire. The burial of ‘Jasperus Holomants’ is recorded in the parish register of Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, on 17 February 1635/6. The London, The National Archives, PROB 11/121/453. Esdaile, “The Inter-Action,” 85–7. Two of the monuments attributed to Hollemans by Esdaile, to Robert Dudley, died 1584, at Warwick and one at Gedney, Lincolnshire, are London work. Jasper Hollemans was not well served by articles by S.A. Jeavons on the monuments of Staffordshire (“The Monumental Effigies of Staffordshire, part 3,” Transactions of the Birmingham Archaeological Society 71 (1953), 1–35), and Derbyshire (“The Church Monuments of Derbyshire,” Derbyshire Archaeological Journal 84 (1964), 52–80) which attribute work to him purely on the grounds of size. In particular, the large stone monument at Sandon, Staffordshire, commemorating the historian Sampson Erdeswicke, died 1601, belongs stylistically to a small group of monuments from a workshop probably in north Staffordshire that never used alabaster, whereas most of the many monuments that can be identified stylistically as Jasper’s work are of alabaster.

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monument of Mathias Taylor, died 2 February 1633/4, in the chancel at Wisbech, is also in Hollemans’ style. Jasper’s son Garrat, born 1608, was contracted on 30 October 1634 to make the effigy of Sir Thomas Skrymsher in alabaster, leaving it uncoloured.30 The effigy of Lady Skrymsher was already in place in the church of Forton, Staffordshire, and Garrat was to take the black colour off it and leave it in the natural colour of alabaster. It is not clear why the two effigies were not made at the same time. Garrat was to receive £6 for the work. Presumably he had already been paid for the stone tombchest and the kneeling alabaster effigies of the children. Sir Thomas had died in 1633 but Lady Skrymsher was to live until 1656. Garrat too was still living in 1656 but the considerable extent of the fighting at Burton in the Civil Wars must have affected his business badly. A few alabaster tablets of the 1660s suggest he survived some years more. His work is both distinct from, but also derived from that of his father. The large monument commemorating Sir Edward Littleton, died 1630, his wife and parents at Penkridge, Staffordshire, is a particularly good example but a smaller one at Brewood in the same county to Edward Moreton, his wife Margaret, died 1633, son Matthew and his wife Sarah, all with disproportionately long legs, demonstrate this common failing of his more than most. The effigies of Sir Nicholas Longford and his wife Margaret at Longford, Derbyshire, are striking because of view of the two overlapping parts of which Sir Nicholas’s effigy is made and the severe red discolouration of the alabaster of Margaret’s face, which presumably was somehow acceptable to the monument’s patron. A puzzling aspect of the work of the Hollemans family is the existence of a small but distinct series of monuments that appear to be connected to the Cavendish family, their relations and clients, dating from 1630–5. Their designs appear to emanate from John Smythson, son of Robert, but despite some Hollemans characteristics they differ in style from the series of monuments that were produced by either Jasper or Garrat. Perhaps Jasper was co-operating on these monuments with his younger son Richard, born 1611. The best-known of them is the monument that fills a chapel in the church at Blore, Staffordshire, commemorating William Bassett and his family. The verse epitaph was written by William Cavendish, then earl of Newcastle, Smythson’s employer, and second husband of William Bassett’s daughter. The effigies are clearly by the same hand as those at Selston, Nottinghamshire, commemorating William Willoughby, died 1630, and his wife. Probably a little younger than Jasper Hollemans was Hugh Hall. Charging £150, Hall made the large alabaster monument of Sir Thomas Smith of the Hough, died 1614, once at Wybunbury and now at Nantwich,

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Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, MS D(W)1788/P45/B2.

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FIG. 9.6  HUGH HALL, MONUMENT TO SIR THOMAS SMITH (D. 1614). NANTWICH, CHESHIRE

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Cheshire (Fig. 9.6).31 Hall was based at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, and active from around 1610. The burial of ‘Hughe Hall picture maker’ is recorded in the Ashby parish register on 8 December 1643. As at Nantwich, many of the alabaster monuments that can be ascribed to Hall incorporate ‘jewels’ of cockleshell marble, a material found on the Derbyshire lands of the Cavendish family and first used on the tomb of the dynasty’s founding matriarch, Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick), in Derby Cathedral. The Smythson (Robert or John) design has ‘Iron stone marbell’ written on one of the panels of this material.32 Her tomb possibly represents Hall’s first involvement in tomb-making. It was finished but not yet set up in 1601.33 Another Smythson design was used by Hall for the tomb of Bess’s son-in-law, Sir Henry Pierrepont, died 1612, at Holme Pierrepont, Nottinghamshire, which set the pattern for future monuments

31 Spotted in a 1636 diary entry of the earl of Huntingdon by Mark Girouard in Bickley, F. (ed.), Report on the Manuscripts of the late Reginal Rawdon Hastings, Esq. of the Manor House, Ashby de la Zouche, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 78, vol. IV (London, 1947), 339. 32 Girouard, M. (ed.), “The Smythson Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects,” Architectural History 5:I/6 (1962), 69. 33 Ibidem, 30.

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to similar designs clearly carved by Hall throughout the Midlands.34 Such designs were used, alongside his own, by Richard Hall of Nottingham, Hugh’s son, baptised at Ashby on 12 October 1615, who was active from around 1640 into the 1670s.35 A number of Richard’s works of the 1660s are documented by the letters he wrote as deputy to Sir William Dugdale on the heraldic visitations of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and he mentioned in one that he had made the monument for Francis Cavendish at Doveridge, Derbyshire – presumably set up a little after the death of Cavendish’s widow in 1658.36 A small group of alabaster monuments in Cheshire, Lancashire and North Wales are closely related to those of Hugh Hall and may represent the work of someone who trained under him before setting up in Chester. That alabaster blocks were available in Chester is confirmed by the Earl of Cork recording that his tomb-maker Edmond Tingham was lent £15 there in 1631 to buy alabaster for the effigies for the Earl’s wife’s monument in Christ Church cathedral, Dublin.37 Nicholas Stone’s brother-in-law, Hendrick de Keyser junior, lived for a few years in Nottingham after marrying in 1639 at Newstead, where he had been working for Stone.38 He returned to the Netherlands in 1646–7 and it should be considered as a possibility that he was author of a few alabaster tombs in the Midlands. They include the effigial monuments of Ellis and Gervase Markham, died 1637, at Laneham and to Gervase Tevery, died 1639, and family at Stapleford, both in Nottinghamshire. Cleaving more closely to London models and standards than to any other provincial workshop at this time is the work of Samuel Baldwin.39 Starting out in nearby Stroud, he moved to Gloucester itself in the early 1620s. The quality of an early signed monument falls far short of the numerous examples of his mature work, all identified stylistically by comparison with the documented tomb of Henry, Lord Berkeley, at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, erected in 1615.40 He used alabaster extensively and was carving monuments until the Civil War, dying in 1645. His use of

Ibidem, 140. Roscoe, I., Hardy, E. and Sullivan, M.G., A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660–1851 (New Haven and London, 2009), 567. 36 Squibb, G.D. (ed.), Dugdale’s Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Visitation Papers, Harleian Society ns, 6 (London, 1987), 39. 37 Grosart (ed.), The Lismore papers, vol. 2 (1886), 122. 38 Spence, R.T., Londesborough House and its Community, East Yorkshire Local History Society, 53 (Yorkshire [?], 2005). 39 Broome, J., “Samuel Baldwin: Carver of Gloucester,” Church Monuments X (1995), 37–54. Broome’s extensive list, even allowing for the inclusion of the odd London-made work, is large enough to suggest that not every example may have originated from Baldwin’s workshop, let alone his own hand. 40 Gray, I, “A ‘Forgotten Sculptor’ of Stroud,” Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 83 (1964), 148–9. 34 35

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some gothic architectural designs on the underside of canopies gives his later work a touch of conscious archaism.1 Most of his work is in alabaster. In York, a small number of locally made monuments of the early part of the seventeenth century use alabaster to a greater or lesser extent. Morrell grouped together a number of monuments that shared the motif of a dove in foliage, and there are some that include caryatids and standing and seated figures personifying virtues such as Charity that overlap with Morrell’s group.2 The minster houses most of these. The varying amount of alabaster that was used suggests that supplies were less easy to come by than had been the case even for the small number of locally made alabaster monuments in the medieval period. Firman quotes George Vertue, who wrote early in the eighteenth century that occasional blocks of alabaster of two or three tons were dug at Fairburn near Leeds, accessible by water from York, and that the finest were used for monuments.3 In East Anglia there is little evidence of the use of alabaster by the locally based masons in the sixteenth century other than the monument of John Caius in the chapel of Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge, carved by Theodore Haveus shortly after Caius’s death in 1573. The picture changes a little early in the next century with the use of alabaster for a six-poster monument to Sir Thomas Lovell, died 1604, and his wife at East Harling, Norfolk, by a Cambridge workshop that normally used chalk.4 Sometime after 1620, a carver evidently trained in a London shop moved to Ipswich and began to produce mural tablets in alabaster including some with effigies. His major work commemorates Jeffrey Pitman, died 1627, and family at Woodbridge, Suffolk, where the fluctuation in the standard of carving of the heads of the five kneeling effigies is evident. The sculptor appears to have retired or died at the beginning of the 1660s.5 In the late 1650s a substantial workshop came into production in Norwich, probably as a side-effect of private efforts to repair the cathedral after the ravages of the 1640s. In 1659 this shop produced the alabaster tomb-chest and tablet above it commemorating Sir Francis Bacon, died 1657 (St Gregory, Norwich). Production continued into the 1690s. Probably the major surprise that modern research has thrown up in this area is the existence of a large number of monuments in the southwest of England made of a form of alabaster so different from the East Midlands deposits that it was not usually previously identified as alabaster.

Broome, “Samuel Baldwin.” Morrell, J.B., York Monuments (London, [1944]), 17. 3 Firman, R.J., “A Geological Approach to the History of English Alabaster,” Mercian Geologist 9:3 (1984), 161–78. 4 Many of these monuments have detail relating to the fountain erected at Trinity College, Cambridge, erected between 1601 and 1615 and rebuilt in 1715 retaining most of the original features. 5 He was probably William Rogers, who made ledger slabs commemorating the Blois family at Grundisburgh in 1652. 1

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The alabaster tomb industry in England, 1550–1660

There is a contemporary (1633) account by Thomas Gerard of the original discovery of the source and the different colours available: Att this place [Minehead, Somerset] in our tyme a Duch man hath found out Mynes of excellent Alabaster, which they use much for Tombes and Chimney pieces. Its somewhat harder than ye Darbishir Alabaster, but for variety of mixtures and Colours it passeth any I dare say of this Kingdome, if not others, for here shall you have some pure white, others white spotted with redd, white spotted with blacke, redd spotted with white, and a perfect black spotted with white.6

The place named Minehead was further along the coast than Blue Anchor Bay close to Watchet, Somerset, where these deposits are now found. The great storm of 1703 removed hundreds of metres of the alabaster cliffs, although by then the heyday of its exploitation for alabaster rather than gypsum for plaster was already over. The immediate hinterland was not particularly suitable for the establishment of an alabaster tomb industry and it is likely that the material was shipped at minimal cost along the coat to the more populous area around Barnstaple, Devon. The one name associated with the industry is a Mr Wellar, who sculpted the monument erected in 1634 at Wolborough, Devon, commemorating Sir Richard Reynell. Was Wellar the Dutchman named by Gerard? The Cure workshop in Southwark was employing a German named Hans Weller as its head workman at the beginning of the century.7 The Reynell monument is one of the more impressive and ambitious examples. Thanks to the different colours of alabaster that were available, the sculptors were able to deploy them to contrast with each other, as with the black alabaster columns, pale effigies and red tomb-chest at Wolborough.8 Another good example of contrasting colours is the tablet to Martin Pringe, died 1626, at St Stephen, Bristol, where small red pieces of alabaster are set at the cardinal points around the oval inscription panel between pieces of the usual light colour and flanked by black alabaster pilasters (Fig. 9.7). Fonts were also made of this alabaster, of which a couple survive. The alabaster deposits that outcrop near Watchet run under the Bristol Channel and can also be found on the coast of South Wales around Penarth. They were also exploited at the same time but initially by a single family, the Mansells of Margam. Four substantial memorials 6 Bates, E.H. (ed.), A Particular Description of the County of Somerset drawn up by Thomas Gerard of Trent, 1633, Somerset Record Society, XV (Somerset, 1900), 12. 7 White, A., “A Biographical Dictionary,” 140; Idem, “A Biographical Dictionary… Addenda,” 349. 8 Chris Faunch (“Constructing the Dead: Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century Effigy Sculpture in Devon,” Church Monuments XIV [1999], 41–63) and Paul Cockerham (Continuity and Change: Memorialisation and the Cornish Funeral Monument Industry, British Archaeological Reports British Series, 412 [Oxford, 2006]), deal with the monuments of Somerset alabaster in Devon and Cornwall respectively.

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FIG. 9.7  SOMERSET ALABASTER WORKSHOP, TABLET COMMEMORATING MARTIN PRINGE (D. 1617). BRISTOL, CHURCH OF ST STEPHEN

survive at Margam Abbey and another to an in-law at Cowbridge, both in Glamorgan. The Mansell house also had examples of this alabaster but around 1640 the family employed Maximilian Colt for a final large alabaster monument at Margam Abbey – the alabaster this time being of the East Midlands variety. As only a few very minor later tablets survive in the area that are of South Welsh alabaster, it may be that the death of the Mansells’ own master mason accounts for the small scale of exploitation in South Wales.9 9

Statham, M., Penarth Alabaster (London, 2017), 7–10.

The alabaster tomb industry in England, 1550–1660

QUARRIES AND TRANSPORT Little is known of the organisation of the English alabaster industry, especially concerning the transport of the raw material from quarry to workshop. At the start of the period, it is likely that the bulk of alabaster for tombs was quarried at Fauld in Staffordshire, near Burton, although Chellaston near Derby was still producing smaller blocks for religious carvings around 1530. In 1592, the inhabitants of Derby complained that a weir on the River Trent near Nottingham was stopping them using the river for transporting commodities including alabaster, which points to renewed quarrying. The watermen of Derby and Newark also petitioned against the weir.10 The head of the navigation of the Trent, at Wilden Ferry, was close to Chellaston but it is most doubtful that the Trent beyond the ferry was navigable by smaller vessels all year round and the use of Derby watermen may point to the exploitation of quarries at Bellington Hill, near Ambaston in the parish of Elvaston, that were closed before 1789.11 Much English alabaster was exported and carried on the Trent to transfer to sea-going vessels at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Burton, on Ryknield Street, was better sited for road transport using the Roman roads that still formed the basis of the English road network. For much of the year it is likely that blocks of alabaster suitable for full-size effigies and weighing two or three tons could have been carried by water along the Trent, but low water levels in the summer would have meant that road transport would have been used at that time of year. Maximilian Colt paid for carriage of alabaster from Islington, then just north of London, to his house in London in the period 1609–11, probably indicating that it been transported to Islington by road.12 The bulk of the evidence for the transport of locally carved alabaster indicates that road transport was favoured both during the medieval and 10 Sharpe, R.B., The Real War of the Theaters. Shakespeare’s Fellows in Rivalry with the Admiral’s Men, 1594–1603. Repertories, Devices, and Types (Baltimore, 1935), 74–9, gives the background to this dispute, which went to the Star Chamber in 1593. Whether there was much disruption to navigation is unclear. 11 Pilkington, J., A View of the Present State of Derbyshire, vol. I (London, 1798), 147. Firman, “A Geological Approach,” could find no documentary evidence of Chellaston producing alabaster in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries but William Woolley recorded that it was producing alabaster and plaster in 1712. Woolley, a lead merchant, had practical experience of transport on the Trent, commenting that even after the improvements of 1700 of the stretch to Burton-upon-Trent, the river was not always navigable in summer and could be forded at “Wiln” Ferry, which he wrote would ‘more properly be called Shardlow ferry,’ thus making clear to which ferry he was referring. Like many before and since, Woolley confused Wilden Ferry and Wilne Ferry. Both were near Wilne but the latter was on the River Derwent. He recorded that barges capable of carrying twenty tons could reach Wilden Ferry from Gainsborough. He also wrote that at Ambaston there was ‘a very good quarry of alabaster with blue veins’ which was very hard. Glover, C. and Riden, P. (eds), William Woolley’s History of Derbyshire, Derbyshire Record Society, 6 (Chesterfield, 1981), 57–8, 137. 12 Auerbach, E. and Adams, C.K., Paintings and Sculpture at Hatfield House. A Catalogue (London, 1971), nos. 121, 110.

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early modern periods. The Shirley tomb was taken by cart from Burton to Breedon-on-the-Hill in 1585.13 For work produced in London, the usual procedure was to ship to a port on the coast rather than an inland one. The monuments of three Earls of Rutland were shipped from London to Boston before transfer to cart for a two-day journey to Bottesford. However, in 1577, the large monument of the Lords Paget by the Bruges sculptor Jan Carlier was taken from Bruges to London, transshipped to another vessel, and thence to Gainsborough on the Trent, transshipped to smaller boats and landed at Nottingham before transfer to wains. It then travelled to Sawley on the Trent, where it was ferried across the river and on to other wains and thence by road to Lichfield via Burton. As it was marble it may have been less risky to handle it so often.14 The Account Book of Nicholas Stone provides a number of examples where tombs were sent to ports to be collected by those who had ordered them and taken overland to the final destinations, a procedure that is specified in various contracts for monuments with Stone and his contemporaries. Stone’s Notebook records that he made a tomb for Mr Cornwallis of Suffolk in 1622 and ‘it was set up by Jepthe’.15 In this instance the wording indicates that he did not personally set it up, as he would usually have done, and he is specifying the destination port, Ipswich, rather than Cretingham, 16 km distant, where the alabaster tablet of John Cornwallis, died 1615, is to be found. Stone’s Account Book sheds no light on the transport of alabaster blocks other than in exchange with the Dutch relatives in 1634.16 It is clear from historical sources that alabaster was also quarried in places in the East Midlands other than those normally mentioned. The appearance of tombmakers at new locations in the Midlands probably indicates that new quarries were established during this period. William Hargrave at Bilborough was within 8 km of Trent Bridge and Richard Hall, in Nottingham itself, much closer. The medieval records of Nottingham indicate that cart loads of gypsum plaster were coming from Thrumpton on the other bank of the Trent.17 Quarries there were producing alabaster for chimney-pieces in the eighteenth century, but it is not known how long before 1770 exploitation of the neighbouring deposits at Red Hill at the junction of the Trent and the Soar had begun. Hugh Hall at Ashbyde-la-Zouch was based not far from the gypsum outcrop at Whitwick.18 Quarrying of alabaster there would also explain the presence of a later Leicester, Leicestershire Record Office, 26 D 53/2571. Harrison, C., “The Paget Tomb,” Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society 29 (1985), 124–36. 15 Spiers, The Note-Book, 52. 16 Ibidem, 93. 17 Ibidem, 93. 18 Firman, “A Geological Approach,” 169. 13

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The alabaster tomb industry in England, 1550–1660

alabaster ornament industry in the surrounding villages. Henry Kinder of Newark presumably used locally quarried material, perhaps from Beacon Hill in Newark, which was later the source of alabaster for chimney-pieces.19 New quarries were opened in Fauld in the seventeenth century.20 The major alabaster tomb industry at Gloucester probably used Fauld alabaster, transported there by road and the River Severn. There is little evidence for much exploitation of Leicestershire alabaster quarries at Beaumanor and Burton-on-the-Wolds, although they certainly were active in this period, the latter supplying alabaster in the nineteenth century for the plaster floors in nearby Loughborough and no doubt also for the town’s alabaster ornament industry.

19 Farey, J., General view of the agriculture and minerals of Derbyshire, vol. 3 (London, 1817), 423. 20 Tringham, N.J. (ed.), A History of the County of Stafford. Volume X. Tutbury and Needwood Forest, Victoria History of the Counties of England (London, 2007), 132.

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MERCHANTS’ TOMBS IN ALABASTER* KIM WOODS

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rom the 1330s, alabaster was a material of status used to commemorate the elite of England. It was used initially for royal tombs (Edward II, John of Eltham, William of Hatfield, the dowager Queen Isabella and Philippa of Hainaut), bishops (John Stratford, William Eddington, Ralph of Shrewsbury, Thomas Hatfield and others) and the nobility. During the second half of the fourteenth century it became the conventional material for knights’ tombs and was occasionally also used for members of the legal profession.1 By and large, the merchant classes seem to have been excluded from this elite form of commemoration. Very few had effigial tombs, whether of alabaster or other any material, though some, like the merchants of Northleach, had floor brasses.2 A tiny group of alabaster merchants’ tombs also survives, virtually unstudied to date, so the aim here is to redress this omission. Why only those few select merchants were commemorated in alabaster is a question difficult to answer, as we shall see. In the late medieval period social status and wealth did not necessarily go together. The average English merchant was significantly wealthier than the average knight and sometimes the nobility, but a stigma was attached to that wealth.3 According to the chivalric code, it was acceptable to make money through warfare, advantageous marriage or activities at * I would particularly like to thank Caroline Barron and Christian Steer for their help with this article. Thanks are also due to Julian Luxford, Zuleika Murat, Paul Sibley, Christian Steer, Geoffrey White and Roy York. 1 See Woods, K., Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions, 1330–1530 (Turnhout, 2018), chapters 5 and 6; Badham, S., “The Rise of Popularity of Alabaster for Memorialisation in England,” Church Monuments XXXI (2016), 11–67. 2 Saul, N., “The Wool Merchants and their Brasses,” Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society 17:4 (2006), 315–35. 3 Simon Thurley Gresham lecture Dec 2017, Museum of London. Please note that only England is being considered here, not Scotland, Wales or Ireland.

Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

court but not through commerce.4 Merchants and their families were in theory tainted by virtue of their activity. How much this actually mattered in practice to dowry-seeking social superiors is debatable, and not all merchants necessarily hungered after gentle status.5 They did behave increasingly like their social superiors, however, building stone houses, endowing religious institutions and, if sumptuary laws can be taken to arise out of actual behaviours that needed to be curbed, dressing grandly. The sumptuary laws of 1363 required merchants to have goods worth £500 in order to claim the privileges of squires and gentlemen worth only £100.6 The desire for distinctive commemoration after death would seem on the face of it to be consistent with the alleged social ambitions of the merchant class. Yet only a small number of merchants were commemorated in alabaster like the landed classes. The only alabaster merchant’s tomb that has received detailed scholarly attention is that of Grocer John Crosby (d. 1476) and his first wife Annys (Fig. 10.1) in St Helen’s, Bishopsgate in London.7 His effigy, famously, presents him not as a merchant, alderman or mayor but as an armoured knight.8 His 1471 will was made some five years before he died, in the same year that he received his knighthood for the defence that he, as sheriff of London, mounted against the Lancastrian pretender Thomas Fauconberg.9 In it, Crosby left his second wife Anne (d. 1487) over £2000 in cash and bequests worth £3200, aside from the properties he owned. He also specified an ‘honest tomb of marble’, by which he would have meant Purbeck marble, with ‘scriptures and images’ of himself, his first wife and children.10 While this clearly suggests inscriptions and portraits, it does 4 Nightingale, P., “Knights and Merchants: Trade, Politics and the Gentry in Late Medieval England,” Past and Present 169 (2000), 36–62. Nightingale points out that in practice boundaries were more permeable than codes might suggest, and knights and nobles occasionally dabbled in trade. 5 Thrupp, S., The Merchants Class of Medieval London (Ann Arbor, MI, 1962), chapter 7. 6 O’Connor, S., “Adam Fraunceys and John Pyle: Perceptions of Status among Merchants in Fourteenth Century London,” in D.J. Clayton, R.G. Davies and P. McNiven (eds), Trade, Devotion and Governance: Papers in Later Medieval History (Stroud, 1994), 17–35:18. 7 See Royal Commission on Historical monuments: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London. Volume IV. The City (London, 1929), 19. 8 Steer, C., “The Tomb, the Palace and a Touch of Shakespeare: the Memory of Sir John Crosby,” The Ricardian XVI (2006), 84–94; Nightingale, P., “Crosby, Sir John (d. 1476), merchant and diplomat,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [electronic edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-6785] (last accessed May 2018). See also lecture by Simon Thurley 17 Jan 2018 available online at https://www.gresham. ac.uk/lectures-and-events/london-merchants-and-their-residences. 9 Norman, P. and Caroe, W.D., “Appendix 2: The Will of Sir John Crosby,” in Survey of London, Monograph 9, Crosby Place (London, 1908), 69–84. [Electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/bk9/pp69–84] (last accessed January 2018). For the life of Crosby see Nightingale, “Crosby.” See also Gresham lecture by Simon Thurley 17 Jan 2018. 10 Geological knowledge was limited during the fifteenth century. White lustrous marble and alabaster were elided in northern Europe and called alabaster, while the term

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FIG. 10.1  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF JOHN CROSBY (D. 1476) AND HIS FIRST WIFE ANNYS (D. 1466). ALABASTER AND STONE. LONDON, ST HELEN’S BISHOPSGATE

Kim Woods

not necessarily mean three-dimensional effigies, still less alabaster, which is never mentioned. There was plenty of time in the five years between making his will and his death for him to consider in more detail the kind of tomb he wanted and instruct his executors or second wife accordingly. It is impossible to be certain whether the tomb we see today represents his revised wishes, but it seems reasonable to suppose that it might. As more than one commentator has pointed out, most recently Simon Thurley, the lost inscription on his tomb stressed his status, not as a fabulously wealthy grocer but as knight, mayor of Calais and alderman of London.11 There was no more effective way of identifying him with the class of knights than through an alabaster knightly effigy, complete with a helm under his head and griffin under his feet with a tail in the shape of a fleur de lis, perhaps a visual pun on Crosby’s status as former mayor of the Calais staple in 1472.12 Coats of arms, now barely visible, are placed within Westminster-style octofoils along the tomb chest, which speak to the status and London site of the tomb. The tomb chest itself is prestigious in having a shallow lower tier, now below ground level (Fig.  10.2). Most knights’ tombs had only a simple pedestal. Crosby was an important Yorkist supporter, and wears the livery collar of Edward IV with a badge marble was used to indicate coloured materials taking a polish such as Purbeck marble, touchstone or Dinant marble. See Woods, Cut in Alabaster, chapter 1. 11 Gresham lecture by Simon Thurley 17 Jan 2018. 12 For mayors of the staple see www.merchantsofthestapleofengland.co.uk

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hanging from it, perhaps the white lion of March, another knightly signifier. The fragment of what we should probably assume was a sword, or perhaps dagger, lies where we would expect it to be in a knight’s tomb: at his right knee.13 He is presented flatteringly as a much younger man than he can have been at death, but curiously, the inner side of his face is more lined than the outer side. The tomb is known to have been ‘refreshed’ during the nineteenth century, but this discrepancy might be the relic of streamlined workshop carving practices whereby two different craftsmen might collaborate on a single effigy.14 Annys (d.  1466) is presented by two angels holding the cushion on which her head rests – a classic knightly formula that may be traced back to the effigies of the French royal family. Curiously, her eyes are closed, which is unusual in English alabaster effigies, and is not obviously a later modification. Annys is a version of Agnes, a name that recurs with great frequency among the wives of merchants, presumably because St Agnes’s attribute was a sheep. She wears a deceptively simple headdress which in fact has carefully-described fancy lacing inside the top, and an extremely impressive rose necklace which evokes expensive, bespoke goldsmith’s work and serves as a signifier of fabulous wealth (Fig. 10.2). English alabaster tombs were conventionally partially polychromed, and fragments of red survive in the lowest tier of the east end of the chest and in the robe around Annys’s ankles. Scratch marks suggest the polychromy has been deliberately removed here, presumably when the tomb was ‘renovated’ during the restoration of St Helens 1865–8.15 Crosby effectively climbed out of one social class into another, and this is precisely what his tomb demonstrates. Through this visual culture, his mercantile activities were effectively erased. Yet so far as we know he is

13 Thurley identified it as a dagger. As neither the top nor the tip survive it is difficult to be sure. 14 Wilson, C., “The Medieval Monuments,” in P. Collinson, N. Ramsay, M. Sparks (eds), A History of Canterbury Cathedral (Oxford, 1995), 453–510: 502. 15 Cox, J.E., The Annals of St Helens Bishopsgate (London, 1976), 378.

FIG. 10.2  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF JOHN CROSBY (D. 1476) AND HIS FIRST WIFE ANNYS (D. 1466), DETAIL. LONDON, ST HELEN’S BISHOPSGATE

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alone in his knightly transformation.16 The other merchants with alabaster tombs are represented as the merchants they really were. The London fishmonger and mayor of the Westminster Staple William Walworth (d.  1386) was knighted for killing the leader of the Peasant’s Rebellion, Watt Tyler, in defence of the city of London in 1381. Walworth was buried in the chapel north of the choir in St Michael’s, Crooked Lane, which was destroyed in the Fire of London, but his tomb was defaced earlier during the reign of Edward VI and neither the material nor its original appearance are known. Walworth was almost certainly responsible for overseeing the making of the tomb of his mentor and fellow fishmonger John Lovekyn (d. 1368), which is known to have been of alabaster. This tomb is long lost, but as Lovekyn was never knighted, we can be relatively sure that his effigy would have been that of a merchant or civic office holder. If Lovekyn’s tomb was made soon after his death (and given that Walworth was his executor and married Lovekyn’s widow there seems no particular reason for delay) it may have been made c. 1370, when the convention of alabaster knight’s tombs was still in its infancy. For a merchant to be commemorated in this way must indeed have been exceptional. In his Survey of London, John Stow (1525–1605) describes Lovekyn’s tomb as ‘a faire tombe with the Images of him and his wife in Alabaster’.17 Stow also reports that the tomb had been ‘removed’ and instead ‘a flat stone of gray Marble garnished with plates of copper’ laid over Lovekyn’s grave, which was still there when he did his survey. It is unlikely that Stow would have known about, still less mentioned, an alabaster tomb that had been removed long ago, let alone described it as ‘faire’, and far more likely that it was removed recently enough for Stow, a Londoner, to have seen it earlier in his life. Weever, writing a few decades later, mentions the muchmutilated tomb of Walworth, but Lovekin’s was by then forgotten and he is credited only with the brass epitaph.18 Another brass epitaph to Lovekyn was used as a palimpsest in the church of Walkern, Herts, for a man dying in 1581.19 Although the script is late Gothic, the shape of the brass is quite wrong to have come from such an early alabaster tomb, where conventionally the brass dedication runs around the rim of the tomb chest. Nigel Saul points out that 16 The rather later tomb of wool merchant William Willington (d. 1555) in Barcheston near Stratford is also of alabaster and he is also dressed as a knight. For Willington see Dyer, C., A Country Merchant 1495–1520: Trading and Farming at the end of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2012), 22 and passim. 17 Stow, J., Survey of London, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1971), 219. Stow is also the source for Walworth’s tomb. 18 Weever, J., Ancient Funeral Monuments within the United Monarchie of Great Britain (London, 1631, facsimile ed. Amsterdam, 1979), 410. 19 Saul, N., “What an epitaph can tell us: recovering the world of John Lovekin,” in S. Badham (ed.), One Thousand Years of English Church Monuments, special edition of Ecclesiology Today 43 (2010), 61–7.

Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

Lovekyn’s Walkern inscription also gets the death date wrong, which precludes it coming from the original alabaster tomb. If it was from elsewhere in St Michael’s (though there is nothing to prove that it was), it may be an indication that late Gothic furnishings were being cleared out prior to 1581. Walworth financed the rebuilding of a new choir and side chapel at St Michael’s and founded a chantry and accompanying college, but it was Lovekyn who had financed the previous rebuilding of the church.20 Both Lovekyn and Walworth were interred in side chapels in their respective chantries and neither occupied the grander donor position before the high altar.21 Perhaps, as merchants, their grand monuments were better tucked away, or perhaps the very combination of (private) chantry chapel and effigial monument laid claim to the very knightly culture that this superwealthy merchant class aspired to. Lovekyn was a pepperer (grocer), draper and fishmonger, and also an alderman, sheriff in 1342, an MP in the 1440s, and Mayor in 1348, 1358, 1365 and 1366.22 His house in Thames Street near St Michael’s, Crooked Lane was taken over after his death by Walworth, and later became the hall of the Fishmonger’s Company. Whereas Walworth himself, as a knight and hero, might have justified an alabaster tomb there is nothing in Lovekyn’s biography that obviously accounts for this stretching of the unwritten sumptuary laws of memorialisation. Walworth may have been unusually dedicated to his master’s memory or conceivably wished to visualise the legitimacy of his own status as executor, heir and successor to the Lovekyn fortune by constructing the tomb. The alabaster effigies reputed to be of John de Oteswich and his wife, now in the church of St Helen’s Bishopsgate, were originally from St Martin’s Oteswich (or Outwich) on Threadneedle Street, a short distance from Crooked Lane (Fig. 10.3). The original tomb chest is lost and no record of it survives, which means that there is also no reliable record of the identities of effigies. They have always been assumed to be from the tomb of John de Oteswich, one of the four alleged founders of the church, and his wife which, according to Stow, was on the south side ‘under a fayre

20 “Colleges: Walworth’s College in St Michael Crooked Lane,” in Page, W. (ed.), A History of the County of London. Volume 1. London Within the Bars, Westminster and Southwark (London, 1909), 577–8 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www. british-history.ac.uk/vch/london/vol1/pp577–578] (last accessed January 2018). 21 See “Wills: 42 Edward III (1368–9),” in Sharpe, R.R. (ed.), Calendar of Wills Proved and Enrolled in the Court of Husting, London. Part II. 1358–1688 (London, 1890), 105–23 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/court-hustingwills/vol2/pp.117–18] (last accessed January 2018). 22 London letter book f.  233r, 1358–9; see Barron, C., London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People 1200–1500 (Oxford, 2004), 331 note 260. Welch, C., “Lovekyn, John (d. 1368),” rev. R.L. Axworthy, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [electronic edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17051] (last accessed November 2016).

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FIG. 10.3  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGY OF JOHN CHIRCHEMAN (D. 1413) AND WIFE EMMA (D. C. 1405). ALABASTER. LONDON, ST HELEN’S BISHOPSGATE

Kim Woods

monument’.23 The inscription on the modern tomb chest on which they lie, ‘John de Oteswich and Mary, his wife, temp[us] Henry IV’, introduces the contradiction inherent in this identification: the effigies appear to date from the time of Henry IV whereas Stowe’s John de Oteswich is heard of only at the very start of Edward III’s reign (see below). An engraved ground plan of the church from 1797 marks it at the east end of the south wall.24 In the current arrangement John takes the left side of the tomb, which would place him nearest the altar if placed on the south side of the church. A residue of polychromy at the base of the head end of the male has smeared into the plaster attaching it to the base which, although no guarantee that the two have been placed on their original arrangement, does at least show that they remain as installed in St Helen’s. Angels mark the corners of the tomb at the head end in a manner perhaps more appropriate for a free-standing tomb, or perhaps semi-free-standing: the rough undercutting of the lion at the feet of the male effigy suggests that this section at least was hacked out from whatever was adjacent to it, perhaps a niche but equally possibly a column. There is no such damage on the dogs at the feet of the woman, who is in any case rather shorter. The original late Gothic church appears to have been a two-aisle church like St Helens.25 It survived the Fire of London and remained in See Stow, Survey, 180–1. Wilkins, R., Antique Remains from the Parish Church of St Martin Outwich (London, 1787), copy kindly supplied by Christian Steer. 25 Reproduced in Weinreb, B. and Hibbert, C. (eds), The London Encyclopaedia (London, 1983), 734; here the date is incorrectly said to be 1403. 23

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use until 1796.26 It was re-built in 1797–99 only to be demolished in 1874 shortly after the parishes of St Helen’s Bishopsgate and St Martin’s were combined.27 The effigies may have been moved into St Helen’s a little earlier, for the ‘Oteswich’ tomb was purportedly ‘cleansed and revived by Mr Poole’ during the 1865–68 restoration.28 As the last burial at St Martin’s was in 1852 and the last marriage in 1869 it seems clear the church was being wound down some time before its demolition. The restoration by Mr Poole may have involved some re-carving, for the face of the male effigy now looks worryingly like portraits of Charles I, though it was doubtless always bearded. The chief clue to the identity of the effigies is in their dress and representation, which give an indication of station in life and date (Fig.  10.4). The male effigy wears civilian dress: a distinctive, long robe with the buttoned collar extending right up to the jaw line, pleated into the natural waist and open from the knees downwards for ease of movement. 26 Births, marriages and deaths continued to be recorded in the church annually up until then. See Bannerman, B., Registers of St Martin’s Outwich 1670–1873, Harleian Society, 32 (London, 1905). 27 See “Memorials of the Institutions: CXIV, St Helen’s Bishopsgate with St Martin’s Outwich,” in Clode C.M., (ed.), Memorials of the Guild of Merchant Taylors of the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist in the City of London (London, 1875), 337–44 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/taylors-guildlondon/pp337–344] (last accessed February 2018). 28 Cox, The Annals of St Helens, 378.

FIG. 10.4  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGY OF JOHN CHIRCHEMAN (D. 1413) AND WIFE EMMA (D. C. 1405), DETAIL. LONDON, ST HELEN’S BISHOPSGATE

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This is a form of the houppelande, a gown associated with the years around 1400. The donor portrait in the Beaufort Hours wears a similar robe.29 In the French Dialogues de Pierre Salmon (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, 1409), the miniature of Salmon conversing with Charles VI has the courtiers still dressed in high-necked, waisted robes rather like the London effigy.30 The alabaster effigy reputed to be of Judge Sir Richard Willoughby (d.  1362) in Willoughby-in-the-Wolds, Notts, wears a similar high-necked robe, but this is not necessarily an indication that the date can be pushed decades earlier, for there seems to be a question mark over the identification as well as the date of this effigy. Gardner judged it looked ‘rather later’, perhaps partly because of his robe.31 The Christological inscription on the sword is also something found in early-fifteenth-century alabaster knight’s tombs such as the effigies of William (d. 1414) and John (d. 1421) Rous now in Bottesford church, Leicestershire. Plausibly, the long robe of the male effigy is the costume of a wealthy merchant. The female effigy at St Helens wears a surcote ouverte, suggesting that she laid claim to being a lady, but impossible to date with any precision.32 More promising are the inner sleeves, which are fastened by myriad buttons and cover the backs of the hands, a feature shared by the male effigy. This is a fashionable costume feature found in the alabaster female ancestor holding a monkey, semi-hidden on the choir-facing north east corner of the 1366 tomb chest of Philippa of Hainaut in Westminster Abbey.33 The much later effigy of Annys Crosby also has sleeves that extend over the backs of her hands, however, which suggests caution is necessary in using this costume feature a precise indicator of date. The ancestor figure from Queen Philippa’s tomb wears a simple floppy square headdress arranged over a horned hairstyle, rather similar to the St Martin’s lady, who also has her hair arranged in horns above the ears. Scott identifies the square headdress as peculiarly English: this headdress, the horned hairstyle and the buttoned sleeves are still found in manuscript illuminations from the end of the century.34 The tooling on the headdress suggests the surface texture of coarse wool, which is a detail found in alabasters of the turn of the fifteenth century.35 At her feet lie two dogs wearing fancy collars with 29 Thomas, M., The Golden Age: Manuscript Painting at the Time of Jean de Berry (London, 1979), 114. 30 Taburet-Delahaye, E., Paris c.1400: les Arts sous Charles VI (Paris, 2004), 122. 31 Gardner, A., Alabaster Tombs of the Pre-Reformation Period in England (Cambridge, 1940), 54, 96, Pl. 166. 32 Scott, M., Medieval Dress and Fashion (London, 2007), 101. 33 Devon, F., Issues of the Exchequer: Being a Collection of Payments Made out of His Majesty’s Revenue, from King Henry III to King Henry VI Inclusive (London, 1837), 189. For the correct dating of this document see Ormrod, W.M., “Queenship, Death and Agency: the Commemorations of Isabella of France and Philippa of Hainaut,” in C.M. Barron and C. Burgess (eds), Memory and Commemoration in Medieval England: proceedings of the 2008 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2010), 87–103: 96. 34 For a square headdress from the 1390s, see Scott, Medieval Dress, 120, Fig. 71. 35 See Woods, Cut in Alabaster, chapter 9.

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bells, which resemble the dogs in Bishop Simon Langham’s 1394 tomb in Westminster abbey, another possible indicator of date. The range of individuals who might be represented in an alabaster effigy wearing a rich civilian houppelande is very limited. Courtiers were invariably commemorated as knights not as civilians. A merchant might wear rich, civilian clothes, however. The earliest of the Northleach brasses commemorates a wool merchant with his feet on a wool sack and he wears a similar, long houppelande with buttoned sleeves extending over the backs of his hands.36 This provides evidence that the Oteswich effigy could be a merchant and, if the tentative identification of the Northleach brass as the wool merchant Thomas Adynet (d.  1409) is correct, also an indication of possible date to around 1410. Tellingly, at his right hip the Oteswich effigy wears a large and prominent purse with an impressive wheel-like motif. This is most unlikely simply to be an attribute of wealth. Purses, on the rare occasions that they appear in effigies, portraits or buildings, usually relate to the activities of the person represented. The fireplace of Tattersall Castle is decorated with purses, which serve as an attribute of its owner Ralph, Lord Cromwell (c. 1456), who was treasurer. At Northleach, merchant John Taylor (d. 1490) wears a purse in his commemorative brass, and purses or scrips are common attributes in alabaster merchants’ tombs, as we shall see. Although the costume evidence is not straightforward, the distinctive gown of the male effigy suggests a dating of c. 1400–1410. This does not fit the profile of John de Oteswich, who is documented only in the very early years of Edward III’s reign. He served as witness to a merchant trade debt in 1328; in 1331 he provided five marks a year in rent to establish a chantry for his father William de Oteswiche, John himself and their relatives and benefactors.37 This chantry was still operating in 1527.38 The subsidy role for 1332 reveals that William was a surgeon, and had died the previous year.39 A charter of 1377 mentions property in the parish of St Martin’s Oteswich belonging to ‘Master William Oteswiche, citizen and surgeon of London’, suggesting his memory was alive long afterwards, but not necessarily that of his son John.40 John vanishes from the records after 1332 and must have been long dead by 1375, when Walter Tuddenham mentioned in his will tenements entrusted to him for sale towards the chantry of William de 36 Badham, S., “Thomas Adynet and his Brass at Northleach, Gloucestershire,” Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society 17:4 (2006), 347–53. 37 Calendar of the Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office. Edward III. Volume II. A.D. 1330–1334 (London, 1893), 230 (December 28 1331) [electronic edition: https:// babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015023267001;view=1up;seq=7] (last accessed January 2018). 38 Nicholas, J., Illustrations of the Manners and Experiences of Ancient Times in England in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries (London, 1793, repr. 1923), 270–4. 39 Ekwall, E., Two Early London Subsidy Rolls (London, 1951), 222–7. 40 Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office. Richard II. Volume I. A.D. 1377–1381 (London, 1895), 242 (April 1 1377) [electronic edition: https://babel. hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015009337620;view=1up;seq=5] (last accessed January 2018).

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Oteswych.41 The tomb does fit the profile of merchant John Chircheman (d.  1413), whom Stow notes was also buried in the church, and his wife Emma (d. c. 1405), and who augmented the Oteswich chantry. John Chircheman was a grocer. He served as alderman, sheriff in 1385 and mayor of the staple of Calais in 1389, but he is renowned first and foremost for purchasing and setting up the wool wharf, the central customs house where merchants went to have their wool weighed and the customs payable calculated. This property was then rented to the king, and became the customs house for the whole of London.42 Chircheman was churchwarden of St Martin’s Oteswych by 1377, and held tenements in the parish.43 He was alderman of Bishopsgate ward in 1381 and held tenements of the St Helen’s nuns in 1392.44 The rector of St Martin’s ventured into land transactions in Chircheman’s original Norfolk home of Necton in 1393, suggesting a strong connection with John, who by then owned the advowson of the church.45 In 1405 he granted the advowson along with property in the parishes of St Martin Oteswich and St Michael’s, Crooked Lane to the Merchant Tailor’s company in return for an annual income for himself of £10 for life, 5 marks a year to finance a chantry chaplain for himself, and 5 marks a year to the Oteswich chaplain. 46 His chantry was valued at £30 6s 8d a year.47 As Stow records, the bequest generated funds 41 Sharpe, R.R. (ed.), Calendar of Wills Proved and Enrolled in the Court of Husting, London. Part I. 1258–1385 (London, 1889), 177. 42 Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages, 52–3. 43 See “Roll A 22: 1376–77”, in Thomas, A.H. (ed.), Calendar of the Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London. Volume 2. 1364–1381 (London, 1929), 231–44 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/plea-memoranda-rolls/ vol2/pp231–244] (last accessed February 2018]; “Roll A 29: 1388–89,” in Thomas, A.H. (ed.), Calendar of the Plea and Memoranda Rolls of the City of London. Volume 3. 1381–1412 (London, 1932), 148–69 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www. british-history.ac.uk/plea-memoranda-rolls/vol3/pp148–169] (last accessed January 2018). 44 See “Folios cxxxi – cxl: March 1380–1 -,” in Sharpe, R.R. (ed.), Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London: H, 1375–1399 (London, 1907), 161–79 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-letter-books/volh/pp161–179] (last accessed January 2018). McHardy, A.K., “Ecclesiastical Property in the City of London, 1392: Bishopsgate Ward,” in The Church in London, 1375–1392 (London, 1977), 54–6 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/londonrecord-soc/vol13/pp54–56] (last accessed January 2018). 45 See “Close Rolls, Richard II: May 1393,” in Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed.), Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II. Volume 5. 1392–1396 (London, 1925), 139–54 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/ric2/vol5/pp139–154] (last accessed January 2018). John reputedly acquired the advowson of the church in 1387, but the documentary evidence for this is elusive; Northwick, J., A New History of London Including Westminster and Southwark (London, 1773), Book 2, 566–76. 46 “Memorial XVII: Payments for Superstitious Uses, 1547,” in Clode, C.M. (ed.), Memorials of the Guild of Merchant Taylors of the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist in the City of London (London, 1875), 100–9 [electronic edition, British History Online: http:// www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/taylors-guild-london/pp100–109] (last accessed January 2018); Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Henry IV. Volume III. A.D. 1405–1408 (London, 1907), 56 [electronic edition: https://babel.hathitrust. org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031079588;view=1up;seq=5] (last accessed January 2018). 47 “Chantry Certificate, 1548: Corporations and Companies of the City,” in Kitching, C.J.

Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

to establish seven almshouses, the first of their kind.48 As Chircheman’s wife is not provided for in these transactions, she was presumably already dead. He was described as a widower when the Merchant Tailors agreed to maintain two rooms for his use in Billingsgate, for which he paid a nominal annual rent of one red rose on the feast of St John the Baptist.49 It is curious that Chircheman, a grocer, should have turned to the Merchant Tailors rather than his own company, but the Merchant Tailor’s Hall was at a short distance from his home in Threadneedle Street. Whereas the grocers had more political clout, the Tailors’ confraternity of St John the Baptist had a reputation for spirituality and possessed social kudos by virtue of the membership of several nobles and (later) Henry V.50 This was a good company for an upwardly mobile grocer. It also established for him a similar link to that of Lovekyn, Walworth and the Fishmongers, which is of great significance, for it raises the possibility of a look-alike alabaster tomb. In 1383, Chircheman became one of the wardens of the Grocer’s company, as Lovekyn had been in 1368.51 Whereas Lovekyn is considered ‘one of London’s biggest wool exporters in the 1360s’, Chircheman established the wool wharf.52 Chircheman would have known of Walworth and Lovekyn’s foundations at St Michael’s, Crooked Lane, not least because some of the property he bequeathed to the Tailors was in that parish. His brother Robert was also a fishmonger. Crucially, Chircheman’s significance for the Tailors also provides a motive for the preservation of his tomb, just as Stow describes the Fishmongers attempting to repair Walworth’s.53 It seems far more likely that the alabaster effigies now at St Helen’s Bishopsgate are those of Chircheman and his wife Emma rather than the much earlier and otherwise obscure John de Oteswich and his completely unrecorded wife. Chircheman’s will does not survive, but it makes sense to conjecture that the effigies were made after Emma’s death and around 1405, when Chircheman wrapped up his affairs and retired to his two rooms in Billingsgate. When Walworth founded his own chantry it involved supressing seven existing chantries, and the names of their founders were then wrapped up into his own.54 The money allocated to the Oteswich (ed.), London and Middlesex Chantry Certificate, 1548 (London, 1980), 81–95 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol16/ pp81–95] (last accessed February 2018). 48 Stow, Survey of London, 181. 49 Rexroth, F., Deviance and Power in Late Medieval London (London, 2007), 228–9. 50 Thrupp, Merchant Class, 30; Nightingale, P., A Medieval Mercantile Community (New Haven and London, 1995), 293. 51 List of the Wardens of the Grocers’ Company from 1345–1907 (London, 1907). 52 Welch “Lovekyn,”. 53 Interestingly, Chircheman may even have known the tomb-maker Henry Yevele, for they both had tenements in the parish of St Martin Oteswich in 1392. McHardy, “Ecclesiastical Property,” 39–41. 54 “Colleges: Walworth’s college,” 577–8.

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chantry in Chircheman’s bequest suggests that he had done something similar, presumably moving his chantry onto the same site as the earlier chantry of William de Oteswich, set up by John de Oteswich. This is perhaps the reason why Stow mistook the identity of the alabaster effigies. There is one final piece of evidence. A coat of arms is included in Wilkins’s 1797 illustration above the purported Oteswich tomb. The coat of arms itself looks Early Modern, for it includes strap work, and may be a reproduction rather than late medieval. It includes the scallop shell that Sylvia Thrupp states Chircheman incorporated into his arms, and the basic ingredients of those arms, albeit somewhat inaccurately: two bars, in chief two pallets sable.55 Stow mentions three other alabaster merchants tombs in the Charnel Chapel attached to Old St Paul’s: Henry Barton (d.  1435), Robert Barton and Thomas Mirfin (d.  1523).56 Henry Barton and Mirfin were skinners, suggesting that by this date alabaster merchants’ tombs had extended beyond the grocers. The chapel was pulled down in 1549 to build Somerset House, and no record of the tombs’ appearance survives.57 Weever stated that they had metal grates or enclosures, indicating grandeur.58 Henry Barton was furrier first to John of Gaunt and subsequently to the royal household 1405–33.59 He was also a collector of the wool custom and tunnage and poundage, and lent money to the king.60 Like Lovekyn and Chircheman, he held public office, serving as an alderman and twice as mayor, in 1416 and 1428; in his will he left almshouses and made provision for an annual obit but made no mention of the tomb.61 Mirfyn served as alderman, sheriff in 1511–12 and mayor in 1518 and was also a merchant adventurer. Both were wealthy, influential individuals with property and Weever claims that both were knights. This may help to account for the choice of alabaster effigies, though by the mid-fifteenth century alabaster was becoming far more common and its scope wider. Who Robert Barton was is quite unclear; it seems likely that Stowe and Weever mistook his name for another family member. The alabaster effigies of a civilian man and his wife in a niche in the south choir aisle of Holy Trinity, Hull, were identified by Gough as merchant William de la Pole and his wife Katherine de Norwich, who were rough contemporaries of Lovekyn (Fig. 10.5).62 The assumption 55 Thrupp, The Merchant Class, 332; Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages, 252; Wilkins, Antique Remains, Fig.1, Pl. IV. 56 Stowe, Survey of London, 330. 57 Weinreb and Hibbert (eds), The London Encyclopaedia, 795. 58 Weever, Ancient Funeral Monuments, 168–9. 59 Veale, E.M., The Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1966), 206–8. 60 http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386–1421/member/bartonhenry-1435 61 Lambert, J.J., Records of the Skinners of London, Edward I to James I (London, 1933), 120, 171. 62 Gough, R., Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain, vol. 1 (London, 1786–96), 121.

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has been that the effigies were transferred at the Reformation when the Carthusian monastery where William and Katherine were entombed was dissolved. There are many examples of family effigies being relocated from monasteries to parish churches, so this is not unreasonable, but this identification has recently been challenged and an alternative identification proposed: merchant Robert de Selby. A new town founded in 1293, Hull was largely built on the wealth of its merchants. According to Jenny Kermode, most merchants contented themselves with a gravestone rather than an effigial tomb, perhaps in part because space for tombs was limited with only two parish churches.63 Although two friaries, a Charterhouse and a series of hospitals with chapels provided additional possibilities for founder donors, effigial tombs were not the norm in Hull, let alone effigies in alabaster. William de la Pole (d. 1366) was the most eminent of Hull’s merchants by far. He made a fortune initially as a wine merchant supplying the king, then raising loans from other merchants to lend to the king. While the Italian Bardi bank was charging 46% interest, de la Pole charged only 22%.64 As his fortune increased, he branched into wool, buying up sheep estates in Yorkshire and Durham. He founded the ill-fated Wool Company 63 Kermode, J.I., “The Merchants of Three Northern English Towns,” in C.H. Clough (ed.), Profession, Vocation and Culture in Later Medieval England: Essays dedicated to the memory of A.R Myers (Liverpool, 1982), 7–48: 24, 28, 30. 64 Horrocks, R., The de la Poles of Hull, East Yorkshire Local History Society (1983), 11.

FIG. 10.5  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGIES IDENTIFIED AS WILLIAM DE LA POLE (D. 1366) AND KATHERINE DE NORWICH (D. 1381). ALABASTER. HULL, HOLY TRINITY CHURCH

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to finance French wars in 1337, the forerunner of the English wool staple.65 In importance and wealth, de la Pole stood head and shoulders above the other merchants of Hull. William’s fortunes ricocheted. He was made banneret in 1339, the first English merchant to be so honoured, while his son Michael was the first merchant son to be made a peer, first Earl of Suffolk, in 1385.66 He was imprisoned in 1341–2 for misdemeanours related to the Wool Company and faced trial again in the 1350s. Royal debts to William were cancelled after 1354, but he was then granted the huge annuity of 400 marks a year from the customs of Hull.67 William was not initially buried in Holy Trinity Hull, though his brother and erstwhile partner Richard (d. 1345) is known to have been.68 According to his will made in 1365, William left his place of burial up to his executors, but provided £20 a year for the hospital of Maison Dieu which he had founded in 1354, and which he sought to transfer to the Poor Clares.69 His son Michael overruled his father’s wishes and founded a Carthusian monastery adjacent to the hospital in 1377.70 When his mother, Katherine de la Pole, made her will in July 1381, she requested burial in the choir of the Carthusian church which, she claims, her husband William had constructed.71 The wording here is telling: if William was already entombed there, Katherine would surely have requested burial beside him. Sally Badham supplies the proof that the couple were both indeed eventually entombed there, in an account of 1491.72 A tomb seems likely to have been made only after Katherine’s death in 1382, then, but perhaps pretty promptly as by 1385 their son Michael was thoroughly in disgrace and in no position to fulfil family obligations. This suggests a fairly precise dating to the early 1380s. This is the very date assigned to the effigies by Badham who, however, identifies them as Robert de Selby and his wife. Badham rightly pointed out that according to Leland’s Itineraries, merchant Robert de Selby and his wife were buried in the south aisle near the choir and suggested the elegantly simple solution that the effigies remain 65 Fryde, E.B., “Pole, Sir William de la (d. 1366),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [electronic edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-22460?rskey=PXjrxB&result=1] (last accessed October 2016). 66 Fryde, E.B., The Wool Accounts of William de la Pole: A Study of Some Aspects of the English Wool Trade at the Start of the Hundred Years War (York, 1964), 4. 67 Horrocks The de la Poles, 24. 68 Salter Harvey, A., The de la Pole Family of Kingston upon Hull, Hull Local History Society (Hull, 1957), 56. 69 Raine, J. (ed.), Testamenta Eboracensia, vol. I, Surtees Society, 4 (1836), 76–7. 70 “Close Rolls, Richard II: February 1379,” in Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed.), Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II. Volume 1. 1377–1381 (London, 1914), 228–9 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/ric2/vol1/pp228–229] (last accessed December 2016). 71 Raine (ed.), Testamenta, 119. 72 Badham, S., “Medieval Monuments to the De La Pole and Wingfield Families,” in P. Bloore and E. Martin (eds), Wingfield College and its Patrons. Piety and Privilege in Medieval Suffolk (Woodbridge, 2015), 135–76: 146.

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FIG. 10.6  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGIES IDENTIFIED AS WILLIAM DE LA POLE (D. 1366) AND KATHERINE DE NORWICH (D. 1381), DETAIL. HULL, HOLY TRINITY CHURCH

in their original position in the church and are Selby and his wife.73 Leland did not state Selby’s tomb to be of alabaster, nor was he entirely accurately informed: he claims Michael de la Pole was apprenticed to Rotenhering when it was his father William who was apprenticed, for example. Back in 1976, Pauline Routh pointed out that hanging from the belt of the effigy is an item identified as a wool probe (Fig. 10.6).74 This appears to identify the effigy as a wool merchant. Badham points out that this may not be how the upwardly mobile de la Poles would have wished their founder member to be represented, justifying the alternative identification with Selby. De la Pole had a negative reputation as corrupt moneylender, so memorialising him as a wool merchant may have been effective rehabilitation. He was also a banneret, however, so might plausibly be expected to have been represented in armour like Crosby rather than as a merchant. Robert Selby had a parallel though less exalted career to William de la Pole. He began as a vintner, trading wine in Gascony in 1364, grain to Scotland 1378–9, sold wine to Durham Priory in 1380, was prosecuted in 1382, seized a ship in the 1380s and reputedly founded the Selby hospital for twelve poor men in Hull in conjunction with his supposed brotherin-law Richard Ravenser, Archdeacon of Lincoln.75 Although his relative 73 Ibidem, 147; Toulmin Smith L. (ed.), The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the Years 1535–1543, 5 vols (London, 1906–1910), vol. 1 (1907), 50. 74 Routh, P.E., Medieval Effigial Alabaster Tombs in Yorkshire (London, 1976), 74. 75 Kermode, J.I., Medieval Merchants: York, Beverley and Hull in the later Middle Ages, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought (Cambridge, 1998), 59, 177, 185, 187, 216. See “Hospitals: Hull,” in Page, W. (ed.), A History of the County of York. Volume 3 (London, 1974), 310–13 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/vch/yorks/vol3/pp310–313] (last accessed February 2018); “Religious houses,”

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Henry Selby entered a partnership to trade wool as well as wine in 1364, there is nothing to connect Robert with the wool trade. True, in 1394 a Robert Selby was King’s clerk and treasurer at Calais, but if this is the same man, he is mentioned shipping victuals, not wool.76 There does not seem anything to connect Robert specifically with the wool trade, though it is likely that he dabbled in it as many merchants did. The alabaster effigy is emphatically presented as a wool merchant, which seems a strange identification for Robert de Selby. The male effigy wears the anklelength robe suitable for a merchant, what appears to be a hooded outer robe and leather boots with ankle straps (Fig.  10.7).77 His robe is buttoned down the front, with the front open from the knees downwards like the Chirchiman effigy but does not have the fashionable, deep pleating into the waist. In addition to the bale hook hanging from his belt over his left hip, there is also a slightly convex object like a rounded cross or blunt four pointed star hanging from a short chain over to his right. What this might be is very unclear: perhaps a seal or metal tally.78 His wife has buttoned

IDENTIFIED AS WILLIAM DE LA POLE (D. 1366) AND KATHERINE DE NORWICH (D. 1381), DETAIL. HULL, HOLY TRINITY CHURCH

in Allison, K.J. (ed.), A History of the County of York: East Riding. Volume 1. the City of Kingston Upon Hull (London, 1969), 333–5 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/east/vol1/pp333–335] (last accessed February 2018). Dugdale, W., Monasticon Anglicanum or, The history of the ancient abbies, and other monasteries, hospitals, cathedral and collegiate churches, in England and Wales, new ed., vol. 6 (London, 1846), 275, no.xxxiv, 761; Memoirs Illustrative of the History and Antiquities of Lincoln (London, 1850), 311–22. 76 “Close Rolls, Richard II: February 1394,” in Maxwell Lyte, (ed.), Calendar, 191–207. Badham, “Medieval Monuments,” 148 states that Selby died in 1390 but without citing a source, and Cook claims Selby was one of the witnesses to Michael de la Pole’s 1394 charter for the hospital of God’s House (Maison Dieu). Cook, J.T., The History of God’s House of Hull commonly called The Charterhouse (Hull, 1882), 39. 77 For merchant dress see Bridgeman, J., “‘A Merchant in Mottlee’: the Dress of some Medieval and Early Modern Merchants trading in Italy and Flanders,” in C.M. Barron and A.F. Sutton (eds), The Medieval Merchant: Proceedings of the 2012 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2014), 378–91. 78 I have consulted some experts in the field and we have all drawn a blank. The possibly

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sleeves that extend over the backs of her hands, like the St Martin’s Oteswich image, and a similar cloth headdress, but more emphatically square and akin to the mourner on the tomb of Philippa of Hainaut. She does not wear a surcote ouvert but instead a loose, diaphanous outer robe with what may be a short over-jacket over a round-necked underdress. Her neck has a ribbed appearance that may signal what was originally a high collar. A close parallel for the woman’s robe is found in the female effigy of the tomb purportedly of John Gour, an esquire and steward to the Mortimer earls of March, in Pembridge, Hereford. This is provisionally dated c. 1380 because John died in the late 1370s.79 Gour’s own costume is similar to the Hull effigy though only knee length. Neither the identification nor the date of the Pembridge tomb is secure enough to provide firm evidence for the Hull effigies, but the differences from the Oteswich tomb also argue against a date much later than the 1380s. Between the hands is what appears to be a heart, which is not unknown for knightly effigies but most unusual in a civilian woman and difficult to explain.80 The book held by the male, as Badham and Routh point out, is likely to be restoration done since Gough recorded the hands and probe as broken. It is still possible that the restoration was faithful, done on the basis of the remains of a book still visible between the hands though not on Gough’s engraving. Both these details are unusual and bespoke, reflecting, perhaps, the absence of conventions for merchant’s tombs and scope for personalisation. The baroque-looking head of this bearded effigy, with its swept-back hair and fleshy face, is sufficiently different from Gough’s engraving to suggest this also has been restored and re-carved. It is difficult to be sure whether the effigies are in their original location in the church. Tellingly, the single dog at the feet of the female effigy is facing away from the viewer revealing an unfortunate vista of the dog’s tail end. This could simply be lack of forethought on the carver’s part, but it might also suggest that the effigies were planned for a freestanding tomb. The coats of arms below the niche have been scraped clean. The coiled serpent or reptile decorating cusp of the arch above also appears on the now free-standing niche between the south aisle and the chancel identified by Harvey as that of William the younger, William de la Pole’s nephew, so is it possible that the niche the alabaster effigies now occupy may originally have memorialised Richard de la Pole?81 Even by the 1380s, alabaster effigies of civilians were extremely rare. erroneous suggestions of a seal or metal tally are my own. 79 Saul, N., English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages: History and Representation (Oxford, 2009), 245. 80 For examples of knights see Tummers, H.A., Early Secular Effigies in England: the Thirteenth Century (Leiden, 1980), 113. 81 Harvey, A.S., “Notes on Two Heraldic Tombs,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 40 (1959–62), 462–77.

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William de la Pole is overwhelmingly the more likely to have attained that distinction than Selby. His son, Michael de la Pole, first Earl of Suffolk (c. 1330–1389), was a servant of Henry of Lancaster and John of Gaunt, the successive Dukes of Lancaster, who owned the land in which the alabaster quarries of Chellaston and Tutbury lay.82 If the tomb does indeed date from the 1380s, then it makes sense to suppose that Michael commissioned it to honour the founder member of his own controversial but giddily upwardly mobile family. As the hospital survived beyond the Reformation only to be destroyed in the Civil War, it is plausible that the founder effigies from the Charterhouse were moved there before eventually being relocated to the parish church. Indeed it has always been held as a possibility that William was buried in the hospital chapel prior to the building of the Charterhouse, and his bones may never have actually been moved.83 If the effigies are the unremarkable Robert de Selby and his wife, then it seems very likely that they were made in alabaster in emulation of the de la Pole tomb at the Charterhouse, which must surely also have been of alabaster. Mercer John Pyel (c. 1315–82) was a slightly younger contemporary of William de la Pole, also a wool merchant, and also involved in lending money to Edward III as early as 1345.84 He may have known de la Pole, whose name crops up in the cartularies of Pyel’s partner Adam Fraunceys.85 Like de la Pole, he took risks in his business transactions. In 1346 Pyel was being sued for failing to provide safe passage of wool and other goods shipped from the port of London.86 In 1349, he was owed money by Chiriton & Co, the wool company financing the siege of Calais, which he attempted to recoup by dubious means.87 Two years later, in 1351, he was imprisoned for the huge debt to the King of £926, perhaps as part of the fallout of this wool company.88 He owed £300 in 1353/4.89 Between 1369 and 1376, Pyle was again lending money to the king – £10,000 in 1374 Horrocks The de la Poles, 29. Harvey, The de la Pole family, 62–6. 84 Lloyd, T.H., The English Wool Trade in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1977), 202; O’Connor, S., A Calendar of the Cartularies of John Pyle and Adam Fraunceys, Camden Society 5th series, 2 (London, 1993), 26. 85 O’Connor, A Calendar, passim. 86 “Close Rolls, Edward III: November 1346,” in Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed.), Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II. Volume 8. 1346–1349 (London, 1905), 170–3 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/edw3/vol8/pp170– 173] (last accessed February 2018). 87 Fryde, E.B., William de la Pole, Merchant and Kings Banker (d. 1366) (London, 1988), 216. 88 “Close Rolls, Edward III: March 1350,” in Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed.), Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III. Volume 9. 1349–1354 (London, 1906), 208–11 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/edw3/vol9/pp208–211] (last accessed February 2018); Sutton, A.F., The Mercery of London: Trade, Goods and People 1130–1578 (Aldershot, 2005), 141. 89 “Close Rolls, Edward III: March 1353,” in Maxwell Lyte, (ed.), Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III. Volume 9. 585–9 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www. british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/edw3/vol9/pp585–589] (last accessed February 2018). 82 83

Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

in conjunction with a particularly dubious partner, Richard Lyons, who was impeached by the Good Parliament in 1376.90 Pyel not only escaped prosecution but was one of four elected to represent London in the Good Parliament.91 This testifies to his parallel life as a respected London office holder. He was mayor of the staple of London in 1359–61 and 1363–4, MP in 1361 and 1376, sheriff in 1369, alderman in 1369–77 and 1378–79 and mayor in 1372–3.92 John Pyel knew Walworth, who held civic office alongside him, and also Lovekyn, whom Fraunceys certainly knew well.93 Unlike them, he elected to be buried in his place of birth, Irthlingborough in Northampton.94 Tellingly he is recorded exporting wool from the port of Kings Lynn not far from his home town in 1349/50.95 By 1353 he had purchased a manor in Irthlingborough, which O’Connor interprets as Pyel’s aspiration to attain gentlemanly status.96 His will, made in June 1378, specified that all of his London assets should be left to his wife while property elsewhere was to be used to create a college consisting of a dean and five canons in the parish church of St Peter Irthlingborough, behaviour reminiscent of Edward III’s landed knights.97 The early-fifteenth-century alabaster tomb in the church has always been taken to be his (Fig. 10.8). Pyel actually wished to be buried in the porch, a particularly grand part of his building project along with the tower.98 The effigies, extremely dilapidated and truncated at the feet, are now in the later 90 Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed.), Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III. Volume 14. 1374–1379 (London, 1913), 41 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history. ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/edw3/vol14/p472] (last accessed February 2018) ; O’Connor, “Adam Fraunceys and John Pyle,” 33, footnote 18; Sutton, The Mercery of London, 101, 105. 91 “Introduction,” in Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of Letter-Books, i-lvii [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-letter-books/volh/i-lvii] (last accessed February 2018). 92 Sutton, The Mercery of London, 143; Beaven, A.B., “Aldermen in Parliament,” in The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III (London, 1908), 261–97 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/londonaldermen/hen3–1912/pp261–297 (last accessed February 2018); see “Calendar of assize rolls: Roll BB,” in Chew, H.M. (ed.), London Possessory Assizes: A Calendar (London, 1965), 46–72 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/ london-record-soc/vol1/pp46–72] (last accessed February 2018); Thrupp, Merchant Class, 362; Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages, 333. 93 O’Connor, A Calendar, 17–18, 33. 94 For merchants choosing to be buried outside London see Thrupp, Merchant Class, 227. 95 “Close Rolls, Edward III: February 1349,” in Maxwell Lyte (ed.), Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III. Volume 9, 1–12 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www. british-history.ac.uk/cal-close-rolls/edw3/vol9/pp1–12] (last accessed February 2018). 96 “Colleges: Irthlingborough,” in Serjeantson, R.M. and Adkins, W.R.D. (eds), A History of the County of Northampton. Volume 2 (London, 1906), 179–80 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/northants/vol2/pp179–180] (last accessed February 2018); O’Connor, “Adam Fraunceys and John Pyle.” 97 “Wills: 5 Richard II (1381–2),” in Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of Wills, 224–8. 98 Gibbons, A., Early Lincoln Wills 1280–1547 (Lincoln, 1888), 66; “Parishes: Irthlingborough,” in Page, W. (ed.), A History of the County of Northampton. Volume 3 (London, 1930), 207–14 [electronic edition, British History Online: http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/vch/northants/vol3/pp207–214] (last accessed February 2018).

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FIG. 10.8  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF JOHN PYEL (D. 1382) AND WIFE JOAN (D. 1412). ALABASTER. NORTHANTS, IRTHLINGBOROUGH,CHURCH OF ST PETER

Kim Woods

Cheney Chapel on the south side of the church. Enough survives to suggest that they were originally much finer than they appear today, and also brightly coloured, for numerous fragments of pigment still remain. Coats of arms are illusionistically suspended from finely-carved flowers along the tomb chest, while angels holding a coat of arms decorate the short head end. The foot end is blank and the other long side placed against the south wall. The large purse on the right side of the male effigy and what may be assumed before the figure was shortened to have been an ankle length robe recall the Oteswich and de la Pole tombs. An object is suspended from the man’s belt but it is too worn to be identified even tentatively as a bale hook. Although difficult to be sure, these effigies may date to some time after Pyel’s death and even that of his son Nicolas, who was based in Irthlingborough and died in 1406. The battlemented tomb chest recalls that of Henry IV in Canterbury, which postdates 1413, while the angels at the head end of the tomb chest supporting a coat of arms anticipate the Prentice and Sutton shield-bearing angels of the second and third decade of the fifteenth century. The woman’s tall headdress with the sides folded back is quite unlike the square headdresses of the earlier effigies. The man’s robe no longer has a high collar, and his full sleeves are gathered at the wrist, both features found in painting and manuscript illumination as late as c.  1420–1430 (Fig. 10.9).99 A print of 1791 by the topographical 99 Scott, M., Late Gothic Europe, 1400–1500, The History of Dress Series (London, 1980), Fig. 46, c. 1420; Fig. 50, c. 1430.

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engraver Jacob Schnebbelie of Poland Street, London, shows the male wearing a flowerpot-shaped hat.100 It is difficult to be sure how accurate his interpretation of the figure was, but it is a possibility that what is now hair may be re-carved from the original hat. Interestingly the alabaster merchants’ effigies of St Mary’s Nottingham wore tall hats (see below). Pyel’s wife and executor Joan died only in 1412. It was she who ensured that her husband’s college was posthumously established, securing letters patents in 1388, yet her will specifies her wish to be buried not with her husband but in St Helen’s Bishopsgate.101 If she was familiar with St Helen’s, it is inevitable that she would have known the alabaster merchant’s tomb at neighbouring St Martin’s Oteswich, and it might plausibly have been this that prompted her to commission the lookalike alabaster tomb of her own husband. As the tomb is not mentioned in the will, and if it was indeed Joan who was responsible for it, it must have been securely underway before her own death. The Pyels had no male heirs, and there seems no obvious reason why either of their granddaughter’s two husbands would have gone to the lengths of commissioning an alabaster tomb for Pyel unless to chart their own inheritance.102 Unpublished. Kindly sent to me by Roy Young. O’Connor, S., “Joan Pyle (d. 1412),” in C.M. Barron and A.F. Sutton (eds), Medieval London Widows 1300–1500 (London, 1994), 71–75. 102 Hamilton Thompson, A., “The Early History of the College of Irthlingborough,” Reports and Papers of the Northampton and Oakham Architectural and Archaeological Societies 35 (1920), 267–88. 100 101

FIG. 10.9  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF JOHN PYEL (D. 1382) AND WIFE JOAN (D. 1412), DETAIL. NORTHANTS, IRTHLINGBOROUGH,CHURCH OF ST PETER

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FIG. 10.10  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF JOHN SAMON THE ELDER (D. 1395/6) OR THE YOUNGER (D. 1412). ALABASTER EFFIGY, STONE NICHE. NOTTINGHAM, CHURCH OF ST MARY

In the cartutelary of Adam Fraunceys, John Pyle’s business partner, the name of the merchant John Salman or Samon crops up occasionally: they collaborated in the shipment of goods to Newcastle in 1349, for example. John Samon the elder was a prosperous wool merchant based in Nottingham and trading via the port of Hull. As such he and his family would presumably have known of William de la Pole. John held the office of mayor in 1361/2, 1365/6, 1370/2, 1375/6 and 1378/9 and died

Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

late 1395 or 1396 in his seventies – in 1392 he was pardoned by the king for transgressions in wool weights and excused from further public office because he was over 70 years old.103 He is easily confused with his son John, also a merchant and mayor in 1383/4, 1396/7 and 1407/8. John the Younger made his will on the feast day of St Lawrence in 1412, expressing the wish to be buried in St Mary’s church and founding a chantry in a chapel on the south side worth 200 marks for his soul and that of his parents.104 His son Richard was also buried there beneath a floor slab and augmented his father’s chantry. The alabaster effigy still in the south transept has been identified alternatively as John the Elder or John the Younger (Fig. 10.10).105 Helen Lunnon has pointed out that the exterior of the south porch is very similar to the architecture of the Samon tomb, and that the two appear to have been designed and built together.106 The date proposed, c.  1400, would put the potential date of the effigy within the lifetime of John the Younger, a few years after the death of his father, earlier than Pyel’s effigy, but later than the one in Hull. An identification with John the Elder is tempting because of his known association with Pyel and Fraunceys and his familiarity with Hull, but his burial place is unknown. The effigy wears the long robe of a merchant, unbelted, with a high, rolled back collar, finely pleated at the sides and, expensively, buttoned all the way down the front (Fig. 10.11). This is very different from the bulky regular pleating of the Oteswich effigy and indeed from the Irthlingborough male figure, but perhaps closer to the Hull image. Unlike either, there is no purse but a broken dagger is strapped at his left side. The effigy has a pointed beard like the Oteswich merchant, but unusually he wears a conical hat with a strap fastening under the chin. This is rather exotic headgear, resembling the kind of tall hats worn by non-Europeans in artistic representations such as manuscripts of Josephus, History of the

103 John’s wife was referred to as ‘sometime’ wife of John Samon in a document dating September 1395–96: Records of the Borough of Nottingham. Volume I. 1155–1399 (London, 1882), 277 [electronic edition: https://archive.org/details/recordsofborough01nott/page/n1]. For pardon, see Calendar of Patent Rolls 1391–6, 114, July 5 1392. 104 For the wills of John the younger and his son Richard see Wadsworth, A.F., “Notes on the Tombs, Chapels, Images and Lights in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Nottingham,” Transactions of the Thoroton Society XXI (1917), 47–83: 71–5. 105 Wadsworth (“Notes on the Tombs”) opts for John the Younger; Gill favours John Senior; du Boulay Hill and Mellors are ambiguous: Gill, H., “Architectural notes on the church of St Mary the Virgin, Nottingham,” Transactions of the Thoroton Society XX (1916), 62–88; Du Boulay Hill, A., “The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Nottingham,” Transactions of the Thoroton Society XX (1916), 47–61; Mellors, R., Men of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (Nottingham, 1924). The form resembling a fish at the hem of the robe is probably just an accident of breakage of the effigy’s right foot rather than a rebus, though the convincing jaw suggests that the possibility should not yet be entirely ruled out. 106 Lunnon, H., “‘I will have one porch of stone… over my grave’: Medieval Parish Church Porches and Their Function As Tomb Canopies,” Church Monuments XXVI (2012), 53–65.

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FIG. 10.11  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF JOHN SAMON THE ELDER (D. 1395/6) OR THE YOUNGER (D. 1412), DETAIL. NOTTINGHAM, CHURCH OF ST MARY

Jews.107 Conceivably it is one way of expressing a merchant’s wealth and the range of his purchasing power. The effigy is flattened, somewhere between a three-dimensional effigy and an alabaster incised slab. Leland singles out Robert English (d.  1475) and Thomas Thirland (d.  1473/4), both mayors and merchants, as having been buried in St Mary’s, but does not mention either John Samon.108 A coat of arms was noted c. 1620–30 by Dodsworth to be on a tomb in the ‘south choir’: argent, a bend azure with a mullet of six points voided in chief and an annulet in base gules.109 Dodsworth also recorded a second stone tomb to Richard Samon and an inscription in the window exhorting prayer for Richard and his wife Margaret.110 This is at odds with the account of both Deering and Thoroton. Deering noted an ‘ancient tomb’ of a man on the ‘south side’ by implication in the south transept or ‘cross aisle’ close to the wall, with a closely similar description of the coat of arms: argent a bend between a mullet of six points pierced and an annulet gules; the floor slab of Richard Samon was said to be nearby under the pews.111 Deering does not mention 107 Thomas, M., The Golden Age: Manuscript Painting at the Time of Jean, Duc de Berry (London, 1979), Pl. 23. 108 Toulmin Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland, vol. 5, 147. 109 Dodsworth, R., Yorkshire Church Notes 1619–1631, ed. J.W. Clay, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Records Series XXXIV (1904), 199. 110 Richard’s second wife was called Elizabeth, but by 1415 he had a first wife who bore him a daughter called Margaret, perhaps named after her mother. See British Parliamentary History Online. 111 Deering, C., Nottingham Vetus et Nova, or an Historical Account of the Ancient and Present State of the Town of Nottingham (Nottingham, 1751), 28.

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the window inscription, but according to Thoroton it exhorted prayer for John Samon and his wife Agnes, that is John the Younger.112 Confusion is unlikely since both wives are mentioned by name and Dodsworth’s description is very specific, so it seems possible that there were indeed two window inscriptions, one for Richard that was destroyed during the Civil War and the other for John the Younger. Both inscriptions refer to husband and wife yet the male tomb effigy is alone and such residual marking as remains on the niche suggest it was always alone. The wife of either John the Elder or John the Younger might have declined to be buried with her husband, but of the two Margaret Tannesley is the more likely: she is known to have remarried Roger Humberstone of Leicester by 1401 and perhaps sooner and is unlikely to have been buried with John the elder.113 Margaret Tannesley’s father, and John the elder’s father-in-law, John Tannesley, made his will in January 1414 only shortly after that of John Samon the Younger. Here he asked to be buried at the altar of St John in St Mary’s, which is in the north transept.114 His alabaster tomb chest is believed to be the one directly opposite that of his grandson or son-in-law, and has an Annunciation, St Peter and John the Baptist on the front and a Trinity on the west end (Fig. 10.12). It is not believed to belong either with 112 Throsby, J., The History and Antiquities of the Town and Country of the Town of Nottingham Containing the Whole of Thoroton’s Account of That Place, and All That Is Valuable in Deering (Nottingham, 1795), 83. 113 Maxwell-Lyte, H. C., Calendar of Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry IV, vol. 1, 1399–1401, (London, 1903-09) 371, July 1401. 114 Wadsworth, “Notes on the Tombs,” 53.

FIG. 10.12  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB CHEST OF JOHN TANNESLEY (D. 1414). ALABASTER. NOTTINGHAM, CHURCH OF ST MARY

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FIG. 10.13  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGY OF A MERCHANT, PERHAPS JOHN ALESTRE (D. 1431). ALABASTER. NOTTINGHAM, CHURCH OF ST MARY

Kim Woods

the Purbeck marble tomb top with insets for brasses, or with the canopy above it. If the tomb chest was of alabaster it is likely that the lost effigy was also. The mutilated alabaster effigy that survives in the north aisle represents not Tannesley but a third merchant whom the church believes to be Robert English (d.  1484) and Wadsworth to be John Alestre (d.  1431; Fig. 10.13). The high-necked houppelande (albeit pleated into the waist and belted) and high hat with a wide, turned-back brim somewhat resemble the Samon effigy. The alabaster slab of which the effigy is cut is much deeper and hence more expensive, however, outdoing the tomb in the south transept. The voluminous sleeves differ from all the effigies considered so far, suggesting a date later than the Samon effigy (see Harlaxton below), but not as late as the 1480s, excluding an identification with English. According to James Orange, it was moved from beneath a canopy in the north transept in 1839 to be sold but was left languishing by the south chancel wall.115 This effigy with its tomb chest are illustrated by Throsby, who places them in the Plumptre chapel in the north transept. 116 The single effigy wears a tall flowerpot shaped hat, and has an angel holding his pillow. Four of the twelve bays of the tomb chest are occupied, two by angels holding coats of arms, the other two by a bishop with raised hands and a slightly crouching king facing away from him. The bishop panel survives propped up on the Tannesley tomb chest.117 It is worth considering 115 116 117

Orange, J., History and Antiquities of Nottingham, vol. 2 (London, 1840), 513, 515. Throsby, The History and Antiquities, 86–7. Identified as from the lost tomb of ‘Robert Englishe’ in http://southwellchurches.

Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

whether the bishop and king relate to the subject of the alabaster panel of Thomas Becket or William of York discovered under the floor of the chancel. A document of 1436 reveals that one Richard March had been contracted to make a case for an altarpiece in the chapel of St John in the north transept, where this effigy was evidently sited.118 The date might support an identification with Alestre who requested burial in the north transept and, like the Samons and Tannesleys, was several times mayor and of a locally important family. There seem to have been at least three alabaster merchant’s tombs with effigies in St Mary’s, made within the space of thirty years or so. This suggests a degree of emulation among merchants. The fact that Nottingham lies a short distance from the alabaster quarries of Chellaston and Tutbury might also help to explain the concentration of alabaster merchant’s tombs here. Further east in Harlaxton, just outside Grantham, is another perplexing alabaster tomb the identity of which has been contested (Fig. 10.14). The identification as Thomas Rickhill, Judge, is a mistake on the part of Charles Cox, for Rickhill seems to have had nothing to do with Harlaxton.119 Although the identification of the effigy with someone of a legal profession has lingered there is little doubt that this man is in fact another merchant, for he carries a purse and his feet, tellingly, are placed on a sheep indicative of the wool trade.120 In the fifteenth-century brasses of Northleach, several of the merchants also have sheep under their feet to indicate their occupation and the source of their wealth.121 Lincolnshire remained an important wool producer. The effigy is likely to commemorate Thomas Ricard and his wife Anna who, according to his will of 1433 (proved December 1434) wished to be buried in the Trinity Chapel (on the north side of the chancel) at Harlaxton under a ‘marble stone’.122 A dispute of uncertain date over land that used to belong to Thomas Ricard describes him as a merchant.123 He made provision for a chantry for twenty years at 100s a year and among those to be commemorated was his servant and executor John Bluet (or Blewet) of Grantham. John Bluet the younger, Ricard’s ‘servant’ or apprentice died in 1464.124 He married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Ricard, and was

nottingham.ac.uk/nottingham-st-mary/hmonumnt.php#mon50 though. 118 Records of the Borough of Nottingham. Volume II. 1399–1485 (London, 1883), 155 [electronic edition: https://archive.org/details/recordsofborough02nott/page/n1]. 119 Cox, J.C., Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1916), 153. 120 Saul, English Church Monuments, 281–2 sees the hat as indicative of the legal profession; for the hat see below. 121 Saul, “The Wool Merchants.” 122 Gibbons, Early Lincoln Wills, 162–3. 123 The National Archives, C1/74/62. 124 Rogers, A., “Parliamentary Electors in Lincolnshire in the Fifteenth Century,” Lincolnshire History and Archaeology 1:3 (1968), 41–79.

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FIG. 10.14  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THOMAS RICARD (D. 1434) AND WIFE. ALABASTER AND STONE. LINCOLNSHIRE, HARLAXTON, CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ST PETER

a merchant of the staple.125 Bluet is a kind of blue cloth, suggesting the family were also cloth merchants.126 According to Letters Patent of 1471, he was accused posthumously of forging a property grant in the name of the elder John Bluet; both are described as merchants, the elder of nearby 125 Calendar of Patent Rolls 1452–1461, 228; Rogers, “Parliamentary Electors”; Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archive, Notes on Harlaxton and the Monument in the Church, 2PG/12/17/39. 126 For a definition see Woolgar, C.M., The Great Household in Late Medieval England (New Haven and London, 1999), 173.

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Grantham.127 Bluet’s identity as a merchant reinforces the vocation of his master Ricard as a merchant also. Ricard wears a high-necked merchant’s long robe open from the knees down, and his purse hangs prominently at his churchfacing side. His voluminous, bag-like hat may be the kind of floppy Continental headdress worn around the death of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (d.  1419), while the high waist of his wife’s carefullypleated robe and earphone hairstyle point to the 1420s on the continent but still worn a decade later.128 Both wear elaborate and apparently expensive belts. What remains of Anna’s headdress is tooled to suggest the texture of wool, like the Oteswich effigy. The voluminous sleeves, which we also saw in the mutilated effigy at Nottingham, mark these effigies out as later, however, and a date to the 1430s is plausible.129 The tomb is in a wall niche in the chapel on the north side of the church (Fig. 10.15). The niche is decorated with angels bearing coats of arms, a chevron impaled with a crescent, which are presumably the Ricard arms.130 The effigies are in the sightline of an impressive corner tabernacle high up in the north east corner of the chapel (Fig. 10.16). This held an image, perhaps of the Trinity to which the chapel was dedicated. Stylised sheep’s faces decorate it, relating it to the tomb. It seems likely that in addition to founding a chantry, Ricard was responsible for refurbishing the chapel itself, which is usually dated to the early years of the fifteenth century. This patronage and the wish to mark the legitimacy of John II Bluet’s inheritance of Ricard’s Harlaxton property may have been what prompted an effigial tomb rather than the Purbeck marble floor stone Ricard actually asked for. There are parallels, perhaps, with Lovekyn and Walworth. One way for merchants to build on their family status was to enter the church. John Pyel’s brother Henry was Archdeacon of Northampton, for Lincolnshire Record Office, 1/PG/1/35. Scott, Late Gothic Europe, Pls 42, 58, 61. 129 See, for example, Jan van Eyck’s famous Arnolfini portrait (National Gallery, London), dating to the mid-1430s, where the woman has voluminous sleeves and a robe pleated into a high waist, though the neckline differs. 130 Notes on Harlaxton. 127

128

FIG. 10.15  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THOMAS RICARD (D. 1434) AND WIFE, DETAIL. LINCOLNSHIRE, HARLAXTON, CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ST PETER

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FIG. 10.16  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, THOMAS RICARD (D. 1434) AND WIFE, VIEWPOINT. LINCOLNSHIRE, HARLAXTON, CHURCH OF ST MARY AND ST

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example. Several fifteenth-century English bishops came from mercantile families, most notably Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, who came from Higham Ferrars close to the Pyel estate and whose two brothers were both grocers.131 William Waynflete (1400–86), Bishop of Winchester, Geoffrey Blythe, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (reg. 1503–31) and his brother John Blythe, Bishop of Salisbury (reg. 1493/4–99), were also reputed to have been the sons of merchants. Both the Waynfletes and the Blythes honoured their fathers with alabaster tombs. Waynflete’s father was Richard Patten, also known as Richard Barbour, who came (as his son’s name suggests) from Wainfleet in Lincolnshire. The haven of Wainfleet near Skegness was in decline even by Leland’s day, but he explained that it had been ‘a very good town’ with two parish churches, and water transport straight into the heart of the fens by means of a creek.132 Presumably at the time of William Waynflete’s father’s merchant activities it was still a relatively thriving place. Nevertheless, it can never have been a centre of trade on the scale of London, Hull or Bristol. The explanation for Richard Patten’s tomb lies not in his own wealth or eminence but in that of his sons. William was Provost of Eton in 1442, Bishop of Winchester from 1447 until his death and chancellor from 1456 to 1460. He was involved in major building projects at Eton and Winchester and founded his own college, Magdalen College Oxford, in 1458. His brother John (d.  1479) was from 1447–8 Archdeacon of Surrey and by 1455 Dean of Chichester.133 Richard Patten was buried at the east end of the south aisle in his parish church. When Wainfleet church was demolished in 1820, the tomb was dismantled and reassembled, albeit damaged, in William’s foundation,

PETER

Nightingale, A Medieval Mercantile Community, 347–48. Toulmin Smith (ed.), The Itinerary of John Leland, vol. 4, 115, 181. 133 Peckham, W.D., “John Waynflete, Dean of Chichester,” Sussex Notes and Queries XII (1948–49), 7–9. For William see Davis, V., “Waynflete [Wainfleet, Patten], William (c. 1400–1486), bishop of Winchester and founder of Magdalen College, Oxford,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [electronic edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb9780198614128-e-28907] (last accessed April 2018). 131

132

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Magdalen College Oxford (Fig. 10.17). The tomb is heavily repaired and the heads of both the figures at Richard’s head have been replaced, but a detailed description of 1811 confirms that, very unusually, it is the two brothers who are represented at the head of their father in the place usually reserved for angels.134 William to the right even sits in the pose usually adopted by such angels, one foot tucked underneath him. John wears the almuce of a cathedral canon, and is represented as a reader, with one hand on a book. The coat of arms held by an angel at the head end beneath William is William’s own, lozengy three lilies in chief. The second angel, under John, is no longer accessible but in 1811 the coat of arms was said to be blank. Very unusually, both coats of arms are enclosed in a garter, which may be explained by William Waynflete’s status as chaplain of the Order of the Garter.135 The effigy’s feet rest, again very unusually, on lilies, a device that William had adopted as his own from the arms of Eton College.136 Chandler, R., Life of William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester (London, 1811), 241–6. Beltz, G.F., Memorials of the Noble Order of the Garter from its Foundation to the Present Time (London, 1841), lxxiii. 136 Davis, “Waynflete [Wainfleet, Patten], William.” 134 135

FIG. 10.17  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF RICHARD PATTEN/ BARBOUR (D. BEFORE 1474). ALABASTER. OXFORD, MAGDALEN COLLEGE

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FIG. 10.18  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF WILLIAM BLYTHE AND WIFE (D. BEFORE 1530). ALABASTER. SHEFFIELD, NORTON, CHURCH OF ST JAMES

Kim Woods

While the details of the tomb are all about the two sons, the effigy itself is a standard image of a merchant, with the customary long, belted gown and a drawstring purse hanging from the waist along with a rosary and another item now broken away apart from the end tucked under the body, perhaps a pen. A dagger used to lie beside the figure. The hands are now replaced, but the 1811 description lists a ring on the right index finger with a cavity for a lost stone or perhaps seal. Like John Samon, Richard Barbour was commemorated alone; perhaps his wife Margery Brereton was buried with her rather grand gentry family. The death date of Richard is not known but he must have been dead by 1474, when his property was reallocated, and perhaps some time before.137 The regularly-pleated robe, with its small stand-up collar revealing the undershirt and inset sleeves seems plausible costume for the 1460s. Remarkably, some fragments of paint survive, revealing that the lower pillow was red, the upper one green, and the edges of John’s book were gilded. Geoffrey Blythe (d.  1530), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and John Blythe (d.  1499), bishop of Salisbury were the sons of William Blythe of Norton and his wife Saffery Austen of Birley. Both had successful and upwardly mobile careers.138 This is reflected in the longer-lived Geoffrey’s foundation of a chantry chapel at the East end of the south aisle of Norton parish church with a separate external door and an alabaster tomb for his father and mother in the middle (Fig. 10.18).139 Chandler, Life of William Waynflete, 239. Chibi, A., “Blyth, Geoffrey (c. 1470–1530), bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [electronic edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/ odnb-9780198614128-e-2726] (last accessed April 2018); Wright, D., “Blyth, John (c. 1450–1499), bishop of Salisbury”, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [electronic edition:http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-2728] (last accessed April 2018). 139 Armitage, H., Chantrey Land (London, 1910), 32–3. Thanks to the minister of Norton 137

138

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William is said to have made his fortune in trade, and the long merchant’s robe and prominent scrip or purse familiar from the other effigies suggest this is correct. Fragments of colour show his robe was red, a highly expensive dye and one suggestive of civic office. William was granted a coat of arms of three roe bucks gules by Henry VII immediately after the battle of Bosworth, so the creature under his head is probably a deer.140 At the head end of the tomb chest are two identical bishops, plausibly identified as the two sons Geoffrey and John, with two further men and two women to either side, presumably family members (Fig. 10.19). On the long sides are bedesfolk: nuns and clerics interspersed by angels holding coats of arms (Fig. 10.20). Painted oak leaves decorate the top of the tracery and, curiously, the shoulder of one of the young men at the head end, conceivably signalling a connection with the local Selioke family. The date of the tomb is unknown, but the chantry was up and running by 1524, when Geoffrey made provision for the support of the chantry priest.141 The final and most perplexing alabaster ‘merchant’ tomb of all is that associated with Bristol mercer William Canynges (d.  1474). Canynges is well known from Carus-Wilson’s landmark research into the economic Church for supplying a copy of the relevant section of this book. 140 A brief historical sketch of the ancient name and family [of blythe]. https://archive. org/stream/abriefhistorica00blytgoog/abriefhistorica00blytgoog_djvu.txt 141 Armitage Chantrey Land, 32.

FIG. 10.19  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF WILLIAM BLYTHE AND WIFE (D. BEFORE 1530), DETAIL. SHEFFIELD, NORTON, CHURCH OF ST JAMES

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FIG. 10.20  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF WILLIAM BLYTHE AND WIFE (D. BEFORE 1530), DETAIL. SHEFFIELD, NORTON, CHURCH OF ST JAMES

Kim Woods

history of Bristol, and the outlines of his life are reasonably familiar.142 His grandfather, William the elder, and father, John, made their wealth exporting cloth from Bristol, and their mercantile connections were expanded through his mother’s remarriage to merchant Thomas Young, Crosby’s master. Thomas, William the younger’s brother, was an eminent London grocer who married the heiress to John Samon’s fortune, Agnes Salmon.143 William the younger was granted a licence in 1436 to trade woollen cloth anywhere on friendly terms with England except for Denmark.144 In addition to trading with Danzig, Prussia, Castile, Santiago de Compostela, Gascony, Bordeaux, Portugal, Iceland and Denmark, William the younger was Mayor of Bristol five times and MP of the city three times. William Worcester described his staggering fleet of nine surviving and originally ten merchant ships, one of the biggest of which was the Mary Redcliffe, the name of the church where his stone tomb and his alleged alabaster effigy are now to be found.145 142 Carus-Wilson, E.M., The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Later Middle Ages, Bristol Record Society, VII (Bristol, 1947); Power, E. and Postan, M.M. (eds), Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1951), chapter 5. 143 Pryce, G., Memorials of the Canynges Family and Their Times: Their Claim to Be Regarded As the Founders and Restorers of Westbury College and Redcliffe Church, Critically Examined to Which Is Added the Unedited Memoranda Relating to Chatterton (London, 1854), 146. 144 Carus-Wilson, The Overseas Trade, 68, doc. 77. 145 Harvey, J.H., William Worcester: Itineraries (Oxford, 1969), 133.

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FIG. 10.21  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, TOMB OF WILLIAM CANYNGES (D. 1474). STONE WITH MODERN POLYCHROMY. BRISTOL, ST MARY REDCLIFFE

In his 1474 will, Canynges stipulated that he was to be buried on the south side of St Mary Redcliffe ‘in the place which he had constructed and made’ in St Mary Redcliffe.146 Canynges had founded perpetual chantries in the church in 1466 and 1468. The stone tomb of him and his wife is still to be found in the church on the south side (Fig. 10.21).147 Re-painted, it shows Canynges in red, civic regalia commemorating him as a man of social as well as economic importance. His wife wears the kind of understated veil headdress familiar from the alabasters of St Martin’s Oteswich and Hull. Neither the leaf at his feet nor the simulated bottles set in the pierced quatrefoils of the tomb canopy are obvious attributes of Canynges, who was primarily a mercer with a coat of arms incorporating three moors’ heads. One of the angels on the canopy holds a shield repainted with a merchant’s mark believed to be Canynges’s own, however, and this tomb has never seriously been doubted to be his. On his wife’s death in 1466, Canynges hurriedly entered the church and served as Dean of the collegiate church of Westbury on Trym near Bristol from 1469 until his death. Westbury College was closed at the dissolution but the institution survived until the Civil War, when it was burnt down.148 The alabaster effigy in clerical dress now in St Mary Redcliffe is believed to have been transferred from Westbury and also to commemorate William 146 Wadley, T.P., Notes or Abstracts of the Wills Contained in the Volume Entitled the Great Orphan Book and Book of Wills in the Council House at Bristol (Bristol, 1886), 151. 147 Williams, E.E., The Chantries of William Canynges in St Mary Redcliffe Bristol (Bristol and Oxford, 1950), 19, 21. 148 Pryce, Memorials of the Canynges Family, 172–3. Pryce cites evidence that the alabaster effigy was in St Mary’s Redcliffe prior to the burning of Westbury, but it might plausibly have been transferred earlier.

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FIG. 10.22  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGY OF A CANON, PERHAPS WILLIAM VAUCE (D. 1479). ALABASTER. BRISTOL, ST MARY REDCLIFFE

(Fig. 10.22). It is highly unusual for any individual to have two tombs, let alone a merchant, nor does Canynges appear to have done anything specific to deserve this accolade. The tonsure and the almuce with its fur fringe identifies the alabaster cleric as a canon, while his gently parted lips evoke the recitation of the liturgy, echoed by the open mouth of one of the angels at his head. Very unusually, the cushion on which the head rests is placed on what appears to be a large book with two clasps (Fig. 10.23). Equally unusually, his feet rest on a secular bearded figure wearing a short tunic and a headscarf, perhaps intended to represent a Saracen (Fig. 10.24). This might explain the traditional identification with Canynges, whose coat of arms included three Saracen heads, but the motif is not uncommon in English heraldry. Westbury owned the manor of Turkdean, so a play on words is not out of the question though this conjecture would need further evidence. Of the two identifying features, the book is the more signficant. As a merchant, Canynges was not obviously identified with books, nor is it convincing to identify the book as a merchant’s ledger given that the effigy is that of the canon. Bristol was home to one of the earliest libraries, begun by Bishop Carpenter of Worcester (reg. 1443–76), which according to its 1464 statutes was to be run by the prior of the Bristol Kalendars Guild, who must be a Master of Arts.149 Canynges was mayor of Bristol in 1456, around the time that the library was founded and again in 1466, when he was signatory to a major grant to the Kalendars from 149 Pryce, Memorials of the Canynges Family; Orme, N., The Kalendars: Bristol’s Oldest Guild and Earliest Public Library, Avon Local History and Archaeology (Bristol, 2016), 18–23.

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FIG. 10.23  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGY OF A CANON, PERHAPS WILLIAM VAUCE (D. 1479), DETAIL. BRISTOL, ST MARY REDCLIFFE

FIG. 10.24  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, EFFIGY OF A CANON, PERHAPS WILLIAM VAUCE (D. 1479), DETAIL. BRISTOL, ST MARY REDCLIFFE

John and Edith Chancellor.150 This seems a slender connection to justify endowing Canynges with such a prominent book, nor does Canynges himself seem to have been an unusually learned man. None of the priors of the Kalendars is known to have been buried at Westbury, nor is there any reason to believe that the alabaster effigy might instead come from All Saints, Bristol, where the Kalendars were based. As Leland states, it was John Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester who was the real force behind Westbury College.151 He refounded it in 1455, issuing 150 151

Orme, The Kalendars, 22; Bristol Archives P/AS/D/C5 B6. Toulmin Smith, The Itinerary of John Leland, vol. 5, 227–8.

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new statutes. Although he was buried at Westbury in the crypt under the high altar, the alabaster effigy cannot be his: it represents a canon rather than a bishop and Carpenter evidently had a cadaver tomb.152 From the 1450s, Carpenter ensured that the college was run by learned individuals any of whom might have merited the commemorative motif of a book. The first of these was William Okeborne, master from 1451 to 1455, who is known to have left a book to the new library of the Bristol Kalendars and two to Westbury.153 Unless his own wishes were disregarded, the alabaster effigy is unlikely to be his, however, because he requested burial in Saint Katherine by the Tower in London. John Blacman, biographer of Henry VI, was then briefly dean. He was certainly a man of learning with a substantial collection of books, but he quickly left to become a Carthusian and would presumably have been buried at his last place of residence, the Charterhouse of Witham in Somerset.154 Henry Sampson, who succeeded him from 1459 to 1469 was non-resident and there is no indication he was buried at Westbury. His successor William Canynges, broke the mould of learned deans and seems to have owed his appointment to friendship with Bishop Carpenter and perhaps to his money, for Canynges is reputed to have paid for some of the rebuilding work at Westbury.155 Shortly after becoming dean, he received papal dispensation for his involvement in matters of justice; this and the fact that the licence specifically refers to the non-residentiary nature of his office may suggest that, like Sampson Canynges, was non-resident.156 We know that he was not buried at Westbury but at St Mary Redcliffe. He was succeeded by William Vauce (or Vaws; 1474–79), Archdeacon of Worcester, precentor of Lichfield and one of Carpenter’s executors. It was Vauce who in 1462 commissioned the Harley MS copy of Durandus’ Rationale Divinorum Officiorum now British Library.157 Vauce was not only buried at Westbury but buried in what was known as the Canynges chapel on the south side, not because Canynges was also buried there but presumably because he had put money towards it. Vauce’s successor John Lyndsey (1479–88) requested burial in front of the altar, so his was a floor slab rather than an effigial monument. The most plausible identification of the alabaster effigy is not William

Orme, The Kalendars, 21; Pryce, Memorials of the Canynges Family, 168. For this paragraph see Orme, N. and Cannon, J., Westbury-on-Trym Monastery, Minster and College, Bristol Record Society (Bristol, 2010), 63–79 and appendices. 154 Hughes, J., “Blacman [Blakman], John (1407/8–1485?), biographer of Henry VI,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) [electronic edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb9780198614128-e-2599] (last accessed April 2018). 155 Pryce, Memorials of the Canynges Family, 162–3. 156 Williams, The Chantries of William Canynges, 73-4. 157 http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?docId=IAMS040002049079&vid=IAMS_VU2&indx=1&dym=false&dscnt=1&onCampus=false&group=ALL &institution=BL&ct=search&vl(freeText0)=040-002049079. 152 153

Merchants’ tombs in alabaster

Canynges but William Vauce, whose tomb might have been misidentified because its site was named after Canynges. The group of merchants commemorated in alabaster was a diverse one. All were men of financial substance and most held civic office. With the exception of Lovekin, whose father was a Surrey landowner, their social status was less assured. The reputation of some, notably de la Pole and Pyel, was also equivocal, so an alabaster tomb might plausibly be seen as a demonstration of respectability. Since the use of alabaster may be traced back to Edward III, in the case of William de la Pole, Pyel and even Henry Barton, an alabaster tomb might serve as a signifier of a close association with the King and even as a means of rehabilitation.158 William Blythe, Richard Barbour and perhaps John Samon and William de la Pole were deliberately distinguished by and through their sons. Lovekyn, Chircheman, Ricard and Canynges left no heirs and their tombs were essential agents of memory. The interconnected character of the mercantile world belies the apparent diversity and randomness of this sample of alabaster merchants’ tombs, revealing patterns of emulation and even competition.

158 For a lengthier exposition of this argument see Woods, Cut in Alabaster, especially chapters 5 and 6.

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11

EXPLORING ALICE: THE THEOLOGICAL, SOCIOHISTORICAL, AND ANATOMICAL CONTEXT OF THE DE LA POLE CADAVER SCULPTURE CHRISTINA WELCH

T

he focus of this chapter is on the cadaver sculpture of Alice de la Pole (1401–1475), Duchess of Suffolk, at St Mary the Virgin in Ewelme (herein Alice). Part of an elaborate tiered tomb (Fig. 11.1), the cadaver sculpture is notable for several reasons. First, it is the only extant example of an alabaster cadaver sculpture in England (and indeed only one of a few in Europe) and it is largely undamaged. Second, it is the only extant cadaver sculpture of a woman in this style in England; as Carol Richardson notes, Alice commissioned her memorial late in life1 and therefore chose to be represented as a transi (meaning passed on/deceased),2 lying naked and emaciated in an open burial shroud exposing to those who gazed on her tomb, her wasted body, including her aged shrunken breasts. Third, there are connections between Alice and a number of individuals who are also commemorated with this genre of memorial. And lastly, Alice’s cadaver sculpture has some remarkable anatomical features that pre-date good quality accurate anatomical illustrations. Interestingly given the above, although the overall tomb has received academic attention, little 1 Richardson, C.M., “Art and Death,” in K. Wood, C.M. Richardson and A. Lymberoulou (eds), Viewing Renaissance Art (London, 2017), 209–45: 212. 2 Cohen, K., Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: The Transi Tomb in the Late MiddleAges and Renaissance (Berkeley, CA, 1973), 10.

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has focused exclusively on the cadaver sculpture, or speculated as to why Alice might have decided to be memorialised in this very unusual and exposing manner, and none explore its anatomical significance. This chapter will set the cadaver sculpture of Alice within its historical, socio-religious and wider cultural context. Focusing on its connections with piety and purgatory in late-medieval England, it will draw on the work of a number of scholars, including Archer, Goodall, and King.3 Further, by exploring the anatomical aspects of Alice’s memorial against extant English cadaver sculptures of this period (i.e., erected before 1475), together with contemporary text-book illustrations of the body, the extraordinariness of Alice’s carved cadaver will be highlighted. Further, we will also note the differences and similarities between the two effigy representations of Alice: one as a woman in her prime, clothed as a pious vowess yet bearing the prestigious Order of the Garter, and the other as a frail and humbled corpse. By setting the cadaver sculpture within the context of Alice’s wealth and social status, this chapter will suggest why Alice might have decided to be memorialised for eternity as a wasted cadaver, vulnerable and naked, in alabaster: a fashionable stone known to 3 Archer, R., “Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk (d.1475) and her East Anglian Estates,” in P. Bloore and E. Martin (eds), Wingfield College and its Patrons: Piety and Patronage in Medieval Suffolk (Woodbridge, 2015), 187–205; Goodall, J.A.A., God’s House at Ewelme (Aldershot, 2001); King, P.M., “Contexts of the Cadaver Tomb in Fifteenth-Century England,” D.Phil. thesis, University of York, 1987, p. 101 [electronic edition: http://etheses. whiterose.ac.uk/4274/2/DX082064_1.pdf] (last accessed January 2018]

FIG. 11.1  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ALICE DE LA POLE’S TOMB. EWELME, CHURCH OF ST MARY

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‘take fine detail well’4 and one that provided a slightly translucent surface easily highlighted by gilding and polychromy for full visual impact. In order fully to explore and contextualise Alice’s cadaver sculpture, it would be pertinent to provide a brief overview of the memorial, and to consider Alice herself. Alice de la Pole, born Alice Chaucer in 1404, commissioned her lavish memorial tomb shortly before she died in 1475. It is a tiered memorial fully in alabaster (a stone used for high-status effigies)5 and depicts Alice in life (en vie) as well as in death (en transi). The tomb lies in the church of St Mary the Virgin, in the Oxfordshire village of Ewelme, a village with family connections through her mother, Maud (known as Matilida) Burghersh (d. 1437), a wealthy heiress. Alice’s tomb stands to the right side of the altar, demarcating the chancel from the Chapel of St John the Baptist which holds the memorial she erected to her parents,6 and her own tomb. The chapel has been described by Goodall as ‘a self-conceived theatre for the community’s praise of God,’7 in part due to its intimate connections with the workings of an almshouse founded by Alice and her last husband, William de la Pole (d. 1450), which will be explored later in this chapter. As well as founding the almshouse, and an associated school, William and Alice rebuilt St Mary’s Church in the 1430s,8 and as such her impressive memorial in its prominent position can be understood as the tomb of its foundress. Alice’s tomb consists of an upper section featuring an en vie effigy of her recumbent in prayer, beneath a gablette (canopy). The chest tomb on which she lies is decorated with angels holding shields. The en vie representation of Alice likely shows elements of verism (portraiture of the face) due to her sculpted elongated face that would not have accorded with the era’s standards of beauty.9 This sculpture measures approximately 205 cm in length (which would make her six-feet, nine-inches tall) and, whilst the face may be a likeness, the sculptured body was clearly designed to be longer than life-size.10 Alice’s head lies on a cushion that is held by winged angels and is crowned with her ducal coronet, and she wears her Order 4 Cheetham, F., English Medieval Alabasters. With a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Oxford, 1984),11. 5 Hourihane, C. (ed.), Grove Encyclopedia of Art and Architecture, vol. 2 (Oxford, 2012), 437. Gardner, A., Alabaster Tombs of the Pre-Reformation Period in England (Cambridge, 1940), 3. 6 Badham, S., “Medieval Monuments to the De La Pole and Wingfield Families,” in Bloore and Martin (eds), Wingfield College, 135–76: 153. 7 Goodall, God’s House, 159. 8 Praganell, H.J., Architectural Britain: from 1066 to the Present Day (London, 2007), 83. 9 Goodall, God’s House, 7–8. For an exploration of verism in medieval art see Perkinson, S., “Sculpting Identity,” in C.T. Little (ed.), Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture (New Haven, 2007), 120–45. See also Tomlinson, A., The Medieval Face (London, 1974), and for the Italian context, Jacobus, L., “‘Propria figura’: The Advent of Facsimile Portraiture in Italian Art,” Art Bulletin 99:2 (2017), 72–101. 10 It must be noted that the original construction of Alice’s tomb was larger than the space allowed and the monument was shortened on installation; see Goodall, God’s House, 191–2. However, both the upper and lower effigies are as originally carved.

Exploring Alice: the de la Pole cadaver sculpture

of the Garter on her left forearm; these items, and the decorative shields, would have signalled her social status. However, her clothes are simple, being either widow’s weeds or those of a vowess. Goodall notes that the scrubbing marks on the en vie effigy suggest removal of polychrome (applied colour) and therefore suggests their original colour may indicate the latter, with its removal connected with the anti-Catholicism of the Reformation; this notion is strengthened as Alice also wears a rosary (an item intimately connected with Roman Catholic prayer ritual). The rosary also signified religious devotion and it appears that piety was important to her, for beneath her en vie effigy, largely hidden from view in a cage tomb, is her carved cadaver.11 The cadaver has, as noted, received little in the way of scholarly attention. Crossley in his English Church Monuments AD 1150–1550 does not mention Alice’s cadaver sculpture at all,12 whilst Gardner in his 1940 book Alabaster Tombs of the Pre-Reformation Period in England, inaccurately states that it is ‘not executed in alabaster,’ so need not be included in his work.13 Even Cohen in her seminal work on transi tombs makes scant mention of Alice’s cadaver sculpture.14 The first stab at a description comes from Stone who pronounces this carving as ‘particularly horrible’ and being of an ‘emaciated and shrunken elderly female… in the grip of rigor mortis.’15 King in her doctoral thesis on fifteenth-century English cadaver tombs however, is far kinder in her description, describing Alice as ‘a delicate shrivelled cadaver’.16 By far the most expansive piece of writing on cadaver sculpture is by Goodall, who includes it in a section of his book on the de la Pole Almshouse at Ewelme. He describes it as ‘macabre,’ with skin ‘shrunk taut over the skeleton to create claw-like hands and feet, cruelly angular joints and a deeply sunken stomach.’ He notes how the neck ‘arches up from bony shoulders to [her] head [where] her scalp has shrunk to pull the hair-line back from the face’ (Fig. 11.2).17 Goodall does little though to explore why Alice may have decided on this very unusual form of memorial, noting only its connection to her piety. Piety was certainly part of her reason for choosing to be represented in this genre of memorial art, a genre Aberth understands as ugly, noting that its very ugliness ‘almost seems an act of penance…due to God’.18 And this need for penance to God, is, I argue, another important aspect of King, “Contexts of the cadaver Tomb.”) Crossley, F.H., English Church Monuments AD 1150–1550 (London, 1921). 13 Gardner, Alabaster Tombs, p.21. 14 Cohen, Metamophosis. Alice’s sculpture at Ewelme features a number of times in Cohen’s lists of transi but has no elucidation; see pp. 42, 46, 67, 69, 192. 15 Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain. The Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1972), 217. 16 King, “Contexts of the cadaver Tomb”, 101. 17 Goodall, God’s House, 186. 18 Aberth, J., From the brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in the Later Middles Ages (Oxford, 2000), 259. 11

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FIG. 11.2  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ALICE DE LA POLE’S TOMB, DETAIL OF ALICE’S CADAVER EFFIGY SHOWING HER NECK AND FACE. EWELME, CHURCH OF ST MARY

Alice’s memorial choice. However, the memorial was evidently not just for God, as the overall tomb is sumptuous, and an overt display of material wealth and her prominence in society. Her upper effigy clearly displays ‘a woman of self-importance and confidence’,19 a woman with pride in her status and rank, and it is clear that her material success was something she wished to be remembered for after her death. However, as the Gospel writer Matthew informs, ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich [person] to enter into the kingdom of God’ (19:24), and thus, the lower effigy resonates with the very opposite of wealth. The cadaver effigy of Alice shows her naked, emaciated, and impoverished, with her humility visually emphasised by this sculpture being far shorter than the one directly above; it is 178 cm long (equivalent to five feet ten inches in height) and thus 28 cm (a little over eleven inches) shorter.20 As Morgan has claimed, the impact of visual representations of the body in this period of history should not be underestimated for, as the body (incarnation) was the only aspect of existence that humans shared with Christ, the body operated as a medium of identification with Christly suffering.21 The juxtaposition, then, between the upper and lower effigies is particularly interesting. But in order to unpack this juxtaposition further, a brief overview of Alice’s life is required. Archer, “Alice Chaucer,”, 187. The author measured the effigies in 2015. 21 Morgan, D., Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images (Berkeley, CA, 1998), 61–2. 19

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As previously stated, Alice came from a wealthy family. Her mother Maud was the daughter of Sir John Burghersh (d.  1391), a wealthy landowner, and a parliamentarian favoured by the King.22 Her father was Thomas Chaucer (d. 1434), fifteen times Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxfordshire, five times Speaker of the House of Commons, High Sheriff for the counties of Berkshire and Oxfordshire, and of Hampshire, three times Chief Butler of England. He was also the son of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer (d.  1400).23 Thomas Chaucer and his wife’s family were well connected, particularly politically, including with Sir John Golafre, a fellow MP with whom Chaucer had many financial dealings, one of which was to settle property on his only child Alice, and her first husband Sir John Phelip.24 Alice married Phelip when she was just a child; she is mentioned as his wife in 1414 (when she would have been just ten or eleven years of age), and Anderson suggests the marriage at such a young age was ‘probably for reasons of property’.25 Phelip was a wealthy man who lent money to King Henry V, and Alice is mentioned with her husband in relation to the manors and lands which became hers on his death in 1415. After returning to her parents as a young and wealthy widow, Alice remarried at some point between 1421 and 1424 to Thomas Montacute, the fourth Earl of Salisbury. Although the marriage was a short one (Montacute died in 1428), it brought her further wealth in the form of more manors which, at the death of Montacute, were granted to her for life. This match also increased her social status, connecting her with the aristocratic Fitzalans of Arundel; a member of this family, and the aforementioned Golafre, were both commemorated with cadaver sculpture memorials.26 It is also during her time with Montacute that Alice’s appearance is noted. In November 1424 Alice and Montacute were present at a wedding feast in France where an incident involving her and the Duke of Burgundy was described by a chronicler. In the 22 Roskell, J.S., Clark, L. and Rawcliffe C. (eds), “Burghersh, Sir John (1343–91) of Ewelme, Oxon,” in The Houses of Parliament: The House of Commons 1386–1421 (London, 1993) [available online: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386–1421/ member/burghersh-sir-john-1343–91] (last accessed January 2018). 23 Roskell, J.S., Clark, L. and Rawcliffe C. (eds), “Chaucer, Thomas (c. 1367–1434) of Ewelme, Oxon,” in The Houses of Parliament: The House of Commons 1386–1421 (London, 1993) [available online: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386–1421/ member/chaucer-thomas-1367–1434]; and “Burghersh, Sir John.” (last accessed January 2018). 24 Roskell, J.S., Clark, L. and Rawcliffe C. (eds), “Golafre, John (1442) of Fyfield, Berks,” in The Houses of Parliament: The House of Commons 1386–1421 (London, 1993) [available online: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386–1421/member/golafrejohn-1442] (last accessed January 2018). 25 Anderson, M., “Alice Chaucer and her Husbands,” PMLA 60:1 (1945), 24–47: 25. 26 Anderson, “Alice Chaucer,” 28. See Rosenthal, J.T., Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth-Century England (Philadelphia, 1991) for information on the Fitzalan’s of Arundel, and Barker, J., “Stone and Bone: The Corpse, the Effigy and the Viewer in LateMedieval Tomb Sculpture,” in A. Adams and J. Barker (eds), Revisiting the Monument: Fifty Years Since Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture (London, 2016), 113–36.

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chronicler’s account Alice is pronounced a ‘very handsome woman’;27 Goodall speculates this may be the reason for the verisim of the en vie effigy.28 It appears that the man who would become husband number three also attended this feast, William de la Pole.29 William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, has been described by Hicks as ‘the most powerful man about the king’,30 and Alice’s marriage to him in 1431 brought her further wealth and status. Cementing the social importance of the pair, in 1421 Henry VI appointed William as a Knight of the Garter, with Alice granted the privilege of the Order of the Garter in 1432,31 and together they escorted Margaret of Anjou to England for her marriage with Henry VI; a marriage William had effectively brokered.32 William and Alice were literary folk, patrons of the poet John Lydgate (d.  1451), a monk of the abbey at Bury St Edmunds. Lydgate was a familiar acquaintance for Alice, having been both a friend of her father, Thomas Chaucer, and of her second husband, Thomas Montacute. Indeed, Montacute commissioned Lydgate to translate the devotional, Le Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine (The Pilgrimage of Human Life) by the French Cistercian monk Guillaume de Deguileville, whilst Lydgate was in Paris in 1426.33 Whilst in Paris, Lydgate also translated the text of the Daunce of Poulys (Dance of Death) mural at the city’s Les Innocents Cemetery,34 and an adaptation of this text was incorporated into the painted mural of the Pardon Churchyard at St Paul’s Cathedral, London.35 Lydgate believed his translation of the Dance of Death ‘was an investment in his role as privileged vehicle for moral discourse,’ and that the genre was able to present ‘the unpalatable truth of universal mortality to aristocratic patrons eager for art that confirmed both their devotional piety and social status’,36 a sentiment which resonates strongly with Alice and her choice of commemorative tomb. Roskell, J.S., Parliament and Politics in Medieval England, vol.3 (London, 1983), 187. Goodall, Gods House, 184. 29 Baumgaertner, W.E., Squires, Knights, Barons, Kings: War and Politics in Fifteenth Century England (Victoria, 2009). 30 Hicks, M., Warwick the Kingmaker (Oxford, 1998), 32. 31 Archer, “Alice Chaucer,” 189. 32 Anderson, ‘Alice Chaucer’, 31. 33 Schimmer, W.F., John Lydgate: A Study in the Culture of the XVth Century, transl. A.E. Keep (Berkeley, CA, 1961), 61. For a translation of “The Pilgrimage of Life” see, Shinners, J., Medieval Popular Religion 1000–1500 (Toronto, 2006). 34 Appleford, A., “The Dance of Death in London: John Carpenter, John Lydgate and the Daunce of Poulys,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 38:2 (2008), 285–314: x. 35 Oosterwijk, S., “‘Fro Paris to Inglond’? The danse macabre in text and image in latemedieval England”, PhD thesis, Leiden University, 2009 (especially chapter 3, “‘Owte of the Frensshe’ John Lydgate and the Dance of Death,” 99–136); Eadem,“Death, Memory and Commemoration: John Lydgate and the ‘Macabrees Daunce’ at Old St. Paul’s Cathedral London,” in C.M. Barron and C. Burgess (eds), Memory and Commemoration in Medieval England (Donington, 2010), 185–201. 36 Kinch, A., Imago Mortis: Mediating Images of Death in Late Medieval Culture (Leiden, 2013), 192, 196. 27

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In around 1435, Alice commissioned Lydgate to write Virtues of the Masses, a didactic poem about the crucial importance of attending the Mass, and for women to make their ‘daily church attendance into a devotional’.37 The poem, which definitely operated as a vehicle for moral discourse, closes with two stanzas that emphasise the criticality of the Mass to both the living and the dead. As well as increasing the piety of the living, the poem emphasises how the Mass helped the souls of the deceased in lessening their time in Purgatory; 38 the agonisingly painful afterlife destination for all (bar the sainted who went straight to Heaven and the damned who went straight to Hell) which ensured souls were cleansed of the sins of earthly temptation before being fit to enter the Kingdom of God. Despite her wealth and social status, with two deceased husbands and no child, Alice doubtless had reason to ensure she was as devout as possible, for it was fervently believed at this time that all things ultimately came from God,39 and that God was both ‘merciful and just’.40 And in 1442 her only child (or at least the only child known to have survived), was born; John de la Pole. Any happiness she might have felt though was short-lived for in 1450, William, now Duke of Suffolk, was impeached for complicity with the French and committed to the Tower of London.41 He was then brutally murdered after being temporarily exiled by the King in an effort to save him from the wrath of the Francophobic English.42 After William’s murder there were moves against Alice, who was also indicted for treason and sent to the Tower of London. However, during the period between her impeachment and charge, she loaned 3500 marks to the King; an act which may have aided Henry’s refusal to declare her a traitor.43 A widow for the third time, Alice, although very wealthy (with an estimated income of ‘not less than 2000 pounds’ per annum)44 and in favour with the King, was precariously placed politically through her historically strong ties with the out-of-favour Lancastrians.45 However, by cementing her distant connections with the Yorkists,46 Alice was able to 37 Bryan, J., Looking Inward: Devotional Reading and the Private Self in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2008), 58. 38 Lydgate, J., The Vertue of [the] Masse (London, 1520). 39 Mortimer, I., The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England (New York, 2008), 191. 40 Duffy, E., “Wingfield College and the Late Medieval Cult of Purgatory,” in Bloore and Martin (eds), Wingfield College, 49–59: 58. 41 Goodall, God’s House, 10. 42 Anderson, “Alice Chaucer,” 32, and Archer, “Alice Chaucer,” 197–98. 43 Archer, “Alice Chaucer,” 198, and Anderson, “Alice Chaucer,” 39–40. 44 Archer, “Alice Chaucer,” 192. Archer gives details of Alice’s property holdings, furthering information on her finances during her long widowhood, these included Alice owning 130 manor houses in over 22 shires, 144 parcels of land (‘some of them thousands of acres’), 2 residences in London, 5 castles, and her Ewelme estate with its almshouse and school. 45 King, P.M. “The English Cadaver Tomb in the Late Fifteenth Century: Some Indications of a Lancastrian Connection,” in J.M. Taylor (ed.), Dies Illa: Death in the Middle Ages (Manchester, 1984), 45–57. 46 Anderson, “Alice Chaucer,” 36, and Archer, “Alice Chaucer,” 198, who notes that the

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live out her remaining twenty-five years in relative peace. It must be noted though that Alice’s trials and tribulations did not leave her as frail as her cadaver sculpture might imply. Indeed, correspondence strongly suggests she was a formidable woman.47 One letter goes so far as to note that whilst her ‘friendship was valuable’ she was deeply unpopular, and was a woman ‘whose enmity was stubborn and long enduring’.48 Further, as her en vie effigy demonstrates she was clearly not reticent in highlighting both her social prominence and her piety, but arguably, it is the carved cadaver that is the most important part of her legacy. Alice’s cadaver sculpture is, as King notes, of ‘semi-translucent alabaster’,49 and thus the stone itself has an almost flesh-like quality. Unlike the upper effigy it bears no trace of scrubbing and thus retains a few small patches of polychromy, notably inside the mouth where some red paint can be seen. During this period of time, colouring (polychroming) sculpture was normative and integral to any overall design; with alabaster effigies it was usual to polychrome selectively just ‘to enhance and pick out details’.50 As alabaster was not porous, unlike other stone worked for sculpture, there was no need for a ground (gesso) to be applied over the stone to stop the colour from being absorbed.51 The traces of remaining polychromy on the cadaver effigy therefore provide some evidence of the original overall design, and the red in her mouth indicates her lips had the rosy hue of the living, rather than a deadly pallor. Therefore, I argue that Alice’s lower effigy, rather than being representative of a cadaver (as in a person that is dead), depicts Alice in a liminal space between life and death. This liminal space, I assert, is symbolic of Purgatory: the liminal space between the material thislife (earth) and spiritual after-life (Heaven). However, before exploring notions of Purgatory in this period of English history, my argument for the lower effigy being in effect a person in the final stages of death, a Goses, is crucial, and requires a brief explanation of the physical effects of death and bodily decomposition, and how these are not evident on the lower effigy. The term Goses is Hebrew and is a specific word used for someone who is in the final stages of the dying process or has died but is coat of arms of her cousin, Richard, Duke of York, was on the tomb of her father in Ewelme church. 47 Fowler, E., “The Duchess and the Cadaver: Doubling and Microarchitecture in Late Medieval Art (with Alice Chaucer and John Lydgate),” in W. Mellon and B. Ramakers (eds), Personification: Embodying Meaning an Emotion (Leiden, 2016), 575–600: 592. 48 Anderson, “Alice Chaucer,” 43–4. 49 King, “Contexts of the Cadaver Tomb”)101. 50 Cannan, F., “Alabaster,” in M. Trusted (ed.), The Making of Sculpture: The Materials and Techniques of European Sculpture (London, 2007), 105–14: 110. Alabaster altarpieces were typically highly decorative often fully ornamented with polychromy and gilding. For a discussion on this matter, see Sophie Philipps and Stephanie de Roemer’s chapter in the present volume. 51 Hourihane, C. (ed.), Grove Encyclopedia of Art and Architecture (Oxford, 2012), vol. 1, 20; vol. 5, 85.

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not yet buried (Jewish burial traditionally occurs with twenty-four hours of death).52 Notably, in Jewish lore/law, the dying and very recently dead are treated as if still fully sentient and have a special status that separates them from the fully living and from the fully dead. I do not wish to suggest here that Alice had any connections with Judaism by using the term Goses, but the English language does not possess a word for someone in this liminal state, someone who is still deemed perceptive but not in the usual sense of the word. However, the concept of a post-mortem sentience was a reality in medieval England, and indeed there is strong evidence for this perception into the Early Modern and beyond. Shakespeare Richard III (Act V scene III) includes a scene where the spontaneous bleeding of a corpse identifies the murderer (cruentation), the corpse here being perceptive of the perpetrators presence and communicates their identification through the reopening of a stab wound;53 the importance of post-mortem sentience and its connections with Purgatory, and with cadaver/goses sculptures, will be explored later in this chapter. However, it is not just the red polychromy remaining in Alice’s mouth that indicates her lower effigy is not yet fully dead, as the sculptor has carved muscle tension and veins that indicate the circulation of blood around the body (Figs 11.3–11.4). 52 For a brief overview of Jewish treatment of persons as Goses see, Abeles, M. and Samson Katz J., “A Time to Mourn; Reflections on Jewish Bereavement Practices,” Bereavement Care 29:1 (2010), 19–22. 53 For a brief history of Post-mortem sentience see Fitzharris, L., “’Crying to Heaven for Revenge’: The Bleeding Corpse and its Significance in History,” The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice (30 March 2011) [digital resource: http://www.drlindseyfitzharris. com/2011/03/30/crying-to-heaven-for-revenge-the-bleeding-corpse-and-its-significance-inhistory/] (last accessed January 2018).

FIG. 11.3  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ALICE DE LA POLE’S TOMB, DETAIL OF MUSCLE TENSION AND VEINS ON THE HANDS OF ALICE’S CADAVER EFFIGY. EWELME, CHURCH OF ST MARY

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FIG. 11.4  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ALICE DE LA POLE’S TOMB, DETAIL OF MUSCLE TENSION AND VEINS ON THE CARVED FEET OF ALICE’S CADAVER EFFIGY. EWELME, CHURCH OF ST MARY

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In order to grasp the anatomical significance of this important remnant of the sculpture’s original design, it is crucial to understand what happens to the body after death. Within thirty minutes of death the lips turn white as lividity takes place. This is the process that occurs when the blood stops circulating after the heart ceases pumping, and gravity causes the blood in the system to settle at the lowest point of the body. The body turns white and waxy, with the pooling of the blood at the body’s lowest point causing a purplish stain to the skin. At this point the eyes begin to shrink into their sockets. Rigor Mortis sets in around four hours after death (but can be as fast as within ten or so minutes) and lasts for approximately twenty-four to seventy-two hours depending on the ambient temperature; during this period the body is rigid as the muscle fibres tighten (contract) and only once they start to decay do the muscles become flexible. The body changes colour to a greenish-blue, and bloating occurs due to the pressure of internal gases which are released as part of the decomposition process; this bloating causes the skin to blister and slough off.54 None of this is evident on the lower sculpture Alice commissioned to represent herself in (or more likely at) death. Indeed, as previously noted, her body is depicted in extreme emaciation with her skin fully intact, and although she has her head tipped backwards and her mouth gaping open as is typical for a corpse,55 this is also typical of someone gasping their final breath. I contend therefore that the sculptured representation of Alice, is that of a goses, not a body in Rigor and the early stages of decomposition. The vast majority of transi sculptures in England (there are forty-two extant, and a further three in Wales) also show a goses as opposed to a 54 Wilkinson, C. with Tillotson, A., “Post Mortem Predication of Facial Appearance,” in C. Wilkinson and C. Rynn (eds), Cranofacial Identification (Cambridge, 2012), 166–83: 167. 55 Iserson, K.V., “Rigor Mortis and Other Postmortem Changes,” in The Encyclopedia of Death and Dying (2018) [digital resource: http://www.deathreference.com/Py-Se/RigorMortis-and-Other-Postmortem-Changes.html] (last accessed January 2018).

Exploring Alice: the de la Pole cadaver sculpture

clearly deceased individual. However, there are three sculptures in England that represent the commemorated person with an open chest cavity, so very clearly dead,56 and one as a corpse with their mouth held closed by a piece of cloth tied beneath the chin and around the head;57 closing the mouth of the deceased in this fashion was normal practice (as was closing the eyes at death before rigor mortis caused them to remain open).58 With death at the time a common-place phenomenon,59 art highly symbolic,60 and sculptors of good quality cadaver/goses effigies not only highly skilled but well able to depict a corpse if they so wished,61 the visual signifier of a sculpted goses or even a corpse with an open chest cavity, clearly had potent meaning. Although Alice’s extant goses effigy is unique, the will left by Isabel Despenser (d.  1439), Countess of Warwick, stipulates an effigy of her be carved showing her as a naked cadaver, with her ‘here cast bakwardys’.62 The sculpture does not exist and indeed may not have ever been commissioned; an extant transi to a male cleric in the specified location of her memorial, Tewkesbury Abbey, provides good reason to speculate the Despenser commission was never actually carved.63 Only one other naked transi sculpture to a female is extant. This was carved by the Florentine sculptor Girolamo della Robbia (d. 1566) of Catherine de’ Medici (d. 1589). Like Alice, it shows her emaciated and baring her shrunken breast to the 56 The anonymous cleric at St John the Baptist Church, Keyston, is shown eviscerated with an open abdomen and internal viscera missing; this was an early form of embalming as well as a way to rid the body of evidence of earthly corruption. The tired memorial to Sir Roger Rockley (d.1524 or 1533) at St Mary’s Church, Worsborough has a cadaver sculpture with an open chest cavity however, the intestines are carved incorrectly, displaying a poor knowledge f the anatomy by the sculptor, and what remains of the cadaver sculpture allegedly to Sit Marmaduke Constable (the Little) (d.1530) at St Oswalds’ Church, Flamborough, appears to show an open abdomen containing the heart. See Welch, C., “Late Medieval English Carved Cadaver Memento Mori Sculpture,” in T. Tomani (ed.), Dealing with the Dead: Mortality and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (New York, 2018), 380–417. 57 The anonymous male (non-cleric) at St Mary’s Church, Stalbridge, shows a man clearly deceased, see Welch, C. “Late Medieval Carved Cadaver Memorials in England and Wales,” in A. Classen (ed.), Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time. The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death (Berlin, 2016), 373–410: 389. 58 Iserson, K.V., “Rigor Mortis and Other Postmortem Changes,” in The Encyclopedia of Death and Dying (2018) 59 Ariès, P., Western Attitudes to Death. From the Middle Ages to the Present (London, 1975), and Gottfried, R.S., Epidemic Disease in Fifteenth Century England (Leicester, 1978). 60 Marrow, J.H., “Symbol and Meaning in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance,” Simiolus 16:2–3 (1986), 150–69. 61 Welch, “Late Medieval Carved Cadaver Memorials,” and Eadeam, “Late Medieval English Carved Cadaver Memento Mori”; see also Jacobus, “‘Propria figura’.” There are transi sculptures on the continent that display a decomposing cadaver – see Cohen, Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol. 62 Platt, C., King Death. The Black Death and its Aftermath in Late-Medieval England (London, 1997), 158. 63 The extant memorial in Tewkesbury Abbey was not damaged in the Reformation, or Civil War, and survived the Victorian restricting of church interiors, and thus it is very unlikely a similar memorial would be destroyed.

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onlooker’s gaze.64 Catherine however, was not pleased with this display of her aged body and the sculpture was rejected. Her chosen memorial shows her younger, plumper, and more modest.65 A very modest sculpture of a dead woman lies in the church of St Nicholas, Denston. Smaller than life-size, it is one of a pair of transi sculptures. One sculpture shows John Denston (d.  1473) in the usual manner; naked, emaciated and lying in an open burial shroud. To his left is the sculpture of his wife, Katherine Denston (d. unknown). Only her face and her crossed hands are visible, as the rest of her body is wrapped completely in her burial shroud.66 Katherine is clearly deceased yet, unlike her husband, is not shown humbled. King asserts that female cadaver tombs are a by-product of female assertion, and that they are a visual demonstration of female autonomy and independence.67 This is evident in regard to Alice, Isabelle, and Catherine who, regardless of whether their cadaver/goses effigies were actually sculpted, prearranged the design of their memorials themselves. With Katherine we do not know whether it was she, or her husband who commissioned her effigy and thus cannot be certain it displays female independence. What we do know though, is that Katherine was the patron of the friar-poet, Osbern Bokenham (d.  c.  1464), who admired the work of Lydgate, and like him was motivated by personal devotion and a ‘desire to teach others’.68 Thus, there appears to be a strong connection with piety in relation to these sculptures, with Katherine Denston shown as modest corpse, but Alice on full view (although given curtains would have likely surrounded her tomb as there is evidence of ‘iron hooks and eyes’ on the canopy, then only on full view when the tomb was displayed);69 Isabel Despenser may have willed herself more pious than she was finally able to deliver, at least in terms of her memorial sculpture. The importance of piety to Alice is evident from a number of sources, including the commissioning of her cadaver/goses sculpture with, as previously noted, its connections with Purgatory and the need for humility to finally enter the Kingdom of God. A further source of information on her level of devotion is the design of the St John’s Chantry Chapel where Alice’s tomb lies; Goodall notes that the iconography that graced its walls made a ‘powerful statement of Christian belief and piety,’ speaking to the ‘importance of Jesus’ humility as a preparation for his majesty,’ and 64 For Della Robbia’s cadaver sculpture of Catherine de’ Medici see: https://it.wikipedia. org/wiki/File:Effige_funeraria_di_Caterina_de%27_Medici_-_Girolamo_della_Robbia.jpg. 65 Cohen, Metamorphosis, 187 (Pl. 93) and 188 (Pl. 94). 66 Welch, “Late Medieval English Carved Cadaver Memento Mori,” 341. 67 King, P.M., “‘My Image to be Made all Naked’; Cadaver Tombs and the Commemoration of Women in Fifteenth-Century England,” The Ricardian 23 (2003), 294–314: 304–8. 68 Watt, D., Medieval Women’s Writing: Works by and for Women in England, 1100 –1500 (Cambridge, 2007), 66. 69 Goodall, God’s House, 175.

Exploring Alice: the de la Pole cadaver sculpture

expressing the hope for the salvation of the believer.70 Given the centrality of the Mass to this outcome, it is perhaps unsurprising that when founding Godshouse, the de la Pole’s almshouse, a central tenet was for the almsmen to pray regularly for the souls of their benefactors; William and Alice. Godshouse was founded to establish a community dedicated ‘principally to God’s worship to the increase of [William and Alice’s] merits,’ with an emphasis on performing the Divine Service, and Works of Mercy.71 The Divine Service helped speed the souls of the deceased through Purgatory, and assisted in alleviating their pains whilst suffering in that place, whilst the Works of Mercy provided food, shelter and clothing to the thirteen almsmen and two priests who resided there.72 The almsmen were to be ‘meek in spirit, poor in temporal goods…chaste in body [and likely celibate]… and broken in age,’ but able enough to carry out the rigours of devotional duties according to the timetable of formal prayers which took up much of the day. It was important that they should not be drunks, gluttons, idlers, surly, gossips, or lecherous (six of the Seven Deadly Sins that were to be avoided), and knowledgeable in the key prayers; the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the Creed.73 Godshouse was a place that, much like other religious establishments, encouraged virtue and excluded vice with strict rules that made the place an effective haven from the outside sinful world; indeed so keen were the de la Pole’s to keep their almsmen uncorrupted that almsmen were unable to leave Godshouse for more than an hour, and there were financial incentives to keep the almsmen from visiting family or going on pilgrimage.74 Godshouse was not an isolated undertaking by Alice and her husband, who were involved in a number of charitable foundations, and made bequests to numerous parish churches and to members of guilds; they also founded a number of guilds. 75 Guilds were fraternity groups based around the veneration of a particular saint, with a number of purposes such as distributing money to the poor, and holding Masses for deceased members; as Farnhill notes, their role was effectively ‘to interceded for the souls [of the Guild members] in Purgatory and protect the Guild members still on earth’.76 It would appear that piety with its associated need to carry out the Works of Mercy, and a concern for their afterlife destination, were pivotal to the de la Poles, especially Alice. Alice, I suggest, commissioned her lower effigy to show a cadaver/goses for a specific purpose and that related to Purgatory and its sufferings, for Ibidem, 162 Ibidem, 2,142. 72 Ibidem, 3–5, 111. 73 Ibidem, 111–14. 74 Ibidem, 115, 155. 75 Ibidem, 12, 34, 97. 76 Farnhill, K., “Guilds, Purgatory and the Cult of Saints: Westlake Reconsidered,” in S. Ditchfield (ed.), Christianity and Community in the West: Essays for John Bossy (Abingdon, 2016), 59–71: 67. 70 71

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post-mortem sentience meant that the pains inflicted were felt physically as well as spiritually. As Le Goff notes, ‘in purgatory the soul was supposed to be wrapped in a body capable of feeling the devilish tortures,’77 and the tortures inflicted in Purgatory were indeed considered Hellish. Vernacular texts such as the 1422 English anonymous revelation of a nun suffering in Purgatory, describes flesh being perpetually torn from bodies, and fire leaping from mouths.78 Other tales tell of the fittingness of Purgatorial punishments, including Dante’s Divine Comedy which was well-known across Europe. Here and in similar tales readers would learn about a man known in life for his pride, brought low after death – his eyes hanging out of their sockets, his ears burning, and his brains oozing out of his nostrils, and discover that in Purgatory the arrogant were bent double by heavy boulders on their backs, and the greedy forced to eat dust. Sermons too gave similarly visceral depictions of what sinners could expect whilst purging their souls of their venial sins, particularly the infamous Seven Deadly Sins which included pride, vanity, and greed.79 Alice’s humbled lower effigy clearly juxtaposed her upper representation and thus can be understood as a visual didactic showing that death was ever present and that, once dead, sins were painfully cleansed. By displaying this truth, it could therefore encourage prayers for the dead which benefited both the person praying and the one commemorated. Praying for the dead was one of the Seven Works of Mercy and thus the prayer gained merit as, like the person prayed for, they had their Purgatorial sufferings reduced a little. However, this sculpture also depicted Alice’s inner piety by representing her naked (thus poor) and emaciated (thus hungry) and as a goses. In life she might have been beautiful, wealthy, and socially well connected, but ‘given that nakedness was associated biblically with shame, sin, self-disgust, and fleshly disobedience’, for her to bare all was a highly symbolic act of humility,80 and one that resonated with the Gospel warning that the wealthy struggled to get into the Kingdom of God.81 Choosing this particular design to be remembered by, was not unique to Alice, as there are a number of similar tiered tombs in England that predate hers; Archbishop Henry Chichele (d.  1443, but monument in place by 1427) – Canterbury Cathedral; Sir John Fitzalan (d.  1435) – Arundel Castle; Sir John Golafre (d. 1442) – St Nicholas Church, Fyfield; Archbishop William Sponne (d. 1447) – St Lawrence Church, Towcester; and Bishop Thomas Beckington (d. 1465) – Wells Cathedral, all have transi Le Goff, J., The Medieval Imagination, transl. A. Goldhammer (Chicago, 1985), 14. Herbert McAvoy, L. (ed.), A Revelation of Purgatory (Melton, 2017). 79 Welch, “Late Medieval Carved Cadaver Memorials,” 404. See also Duffy, “Wingfield College,” and Watkins, C.S., History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge, 2007). 80 Welch, “Late Medieval Carved Cadaver Memorials,” 380. 81 For work on the body and its physical deterioration in connection with notions of sin, moral corruption and the afterlife see, Brody, S.N., The Disease of the Soul: Leprosy in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, NY, 1974). 77 78

Exploring Alice: the de la Pole cadaver sculpture

tombs that display a cadaver/goses below an upper effigy resplendent in ceremonial dress. There are a number of isolated transi examples with a known provenance that also predate Alice; these only have the cadaver/ goses sculpture and no en vie effigy. Transis to John Careway (d.  1443) – St Vigor Church, Fulbourn; John Baret (d.  1467 but will dated 1463) – Bury St Edmunds; and Sir Richard Willoughby (d.  1471) – St Leonard’s Church, Wollaton, are examples where the commissioned sculpture is on public display. However, both cadaver/goses sculptures to Sir Sampson Meverill (d.  1462) – John the Baptist Church, Tideswell; and Bishop John Carpenter (d.  1476) – Holy Trinity Church, Westbury, have their sculptures largely hidden in cage tombs. All these examples have their memorials in prominent positions, but apart from Chicheley and Baret, it is not known whether the sculptures were commissioned before death or erected later. One of the major issues in unpacking these cadaver/goses memorials is that beyond the sculptures themselves, there is little in the way of contemporary information. What is clear with cadaver/goses sculptures though is that these memorials were designed to have a visual impact on the viewer. Morgan notes that the body was understood in the late medieval period as a medium of identifying with Christ and His suffering, and as such the body was ‘a powerful organ of religious knowing.’ Indeed, because the very ‘act of looking at an image elicited a visceral response,’ images were understood to be revelatory.82 In relation to Alice’s cadaver/goses sculpture, the emaciation of her body and the humility suggested in her nakedness would have resonated powerfully with contemporary images of the Suffering Christ. With much of the population of fifteenth-century England only semi-literate,83 visual literacy would have made Alice’s didactic memorial understandable to all, with the ‘presence of text’ on the memorial and in the chapel itself, adding a form of authority to the overall piece.84 This visual literacy would have also applied to perhaps the strangest aspect, to contemporary eyes at least, of Alice’s cadaver effigy; her shrunken breasts. In this period of time, images of a naked breast were understood as a metaphor for nourishment,85 thus the shrunken breasts of Alice’s cadaver/goses sculpture would have be read as a signifier of a spent life; their nourishment ended (Fig. 11.5). There are a number of other unusual (to the contemporary viewer) aspects to Alice’s cadaver/goses effigy. One is the paintings on the underside

Morgan, Visual Piety, 61–2, 66. Welch, C., “For Prayers and Pedagogy: Contextualizing English Cadaver Memorials of the Late Medieval Social and Religious Elite,” Fieldwork in Religion 8:2 (2013), 133–55: 139. 84 Grey, M., Images of Piety: The Iconography of Traditional Religion in Late Medieval Wales (Oxford, 2000), 60–1. 85 Lindquist, S.C.M., “The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art: An Introduction,” in S.C.M. Lindquist (ed.), The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art (Farnham, 2012), 1–46: 9, 11. 82 83

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FIG. 11.5  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, ALICE DE LA POLE’S TOMB, DETAIL OF ALICE’S SHRUNKEN BREASTS ON HER CADAVER EFFIGY. EWELME, CHURCH OF ST MARY

Christina Welch

of the chest tomb that supports her en vie effigy; above her half-closed eyes is the Annunciation, and at her feet, reversed so she can see them, are the figures of St John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene. These saints were popular patrons of almshouses,86 and of penitents,87 and thus are suggestive of post-mortem intercessions to her favoured saints.88 However, I suggest that the most curious aspect to Alice’s cadaver sculpture is its anatomy. Art historians typically insist that ‘late-medieval sculptors often used two-dimensional sources as design models,’ such as woodcuts, engravings and sketchbooks.89 Yet a close inspection of Alice’s cadaver/ goses effigy confirms this is not the case. The better sculpted transis, such as that to Alice, as well as, for instance, those to Bishops Chicheley (erected c.  1424) and Beckington (d.  1465), to Sir John Fitzalan (d.  1435), John Baret (erected c. 1463), and John Denston (d. 1473), display an anatomical knowledge that extends far beyond that which would be possible from even a close inspection of a two-dimensional image. Contemporary illustrations of the body were at the time somewhat crude.90 Early images, Goodall, Gods House, 189. I would like to thank Dr Zuleika Murat for pointing out the relevance of the Saint figures on Alice’s tomb. Interestingly, another favoured Saint of penitents was Mary of Egypt who was often depicted as a single figure or in devotional art as a ‘meagre wasted aged woman with long hair… sometimes with Mary Magdalene.’ This image of Mary of Egypt has resonance with the cadaver sculpture of Alice. Jameson, A., Sacred and Legendary Art (London, 1850), 228. 88 Badham, “Medieval Monuments,” 155. 89 Lindley, P., “Gothic Sculpture: Studio and Workshop Practices,” in P. Lindley (ed.), Making Medieval Art (Donington, 2003), 54–80: 72. 90 The first artist that can be properly understood as producing anatomical art is 86 87

Exploring Alice: the de la Pole cadaver sculpture

such as those related to John of Mirfield’s (d. 1407) translation of the earlier Breviarium Barthlomei (c. 1380–1395) can hardly be described as anatomical, rather merely drawings of a body with marked areas indicating locations of symptoms.91 However, later illustrations were little better with the fifteenth-century Pseudo-Galen Anatomia, in English, including a number of illustrations of the human body including two of the skeletal structure, both of which can only be described as naïve (if not largely inaccurate); one drawing is of the front of a skeleton, and the other the back.92 The front view of the skeleton shows the hip bones (illium) strangely placed in relation to the spine, with no ischium; the lower part of the hip bone.93 Further, there appear to be fourteen pairs of ribs, although the back view of the skeleton shows the correct number; twelve pairs. The reverse view of the hip bones suggests they may well be scapulae (shoulder blades), although likely not human, and in both drawings the humerus (upper arm bone) and femur (upper leg bone) are overly short. The illustrations in this medical treatise were the ‘prototypes of those found in Ketham’s Fasciculus medicinae, first printed in 1491,’94 the first printed medical book with anatomical illustrations,95 although noticeably the Pseudo-Galen skeletons are absent from Ketham’s work. There is a distinct paucity of illustrations of the body’s anatomy for the period of history in which Alice lived and died, particularly those available in England, but regardless, none of those extant would allow a sculptor to create an accurate three-dimensional sculpture of the human form, meaning that the sculptor of Alice’s cadaver must have had access to human models (most likely both alive and dead). The poorly carved cadaver effigies provide evidence to suggest strongly that this is the case. As previously noted, one cadaver effigy is of a deceased man with his jaw tied closed. This particular effigy has very poor surface, or gross, anatomy; his body is barrel-shaped, he only has nine pairs of ribs and there is no definition to the rib-cage (Fig. 11.6).96 The importance of a close scientific observation of a human form to provide an accurate artistic representation Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) who used close observation of human figures to produce ‘anatomical drawings of great accuracy’. Moxham, B.J. and Plaisant, O., “The History of the Teaching of Gross Anatomy – how we got to where we are!” Journal of European Anatomy 18:2 (2014), 219–44: 227. Cf. Clayton, M. and Philo, R., Leonardo da Vinci. The Mechanics of Man (London, 2010). 91 Mandeville Caciola, N., Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 2016), 77–8. 92 Pseudo-Galen, Anatomia, in English, 1491, Wellcome Library, Ms. 290 and 50v & 51r at https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b1964601x#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=107&z=-0.5677%2C0.0263%2C2.1356%2C1.3415 (last accessed January 2018). 93 For contemporary illustrations of human skull and bone anatomy see http:// anatomybodysystem.com/all-206-bones-of-the-body/ (last accessedMarch 2019). 94 Wellcome, Ms. 290. 95 Johannes de Ketham, Fasciculus Medicine, see https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/ view/drs:7622337$8i 96 This cadaver sculpture to a now anonymous male at Stalbridge is likely to be fifteenth century, so later than the sculpted effigy to Alice.

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FIG. 11.6  ENGLISH WORKSHOP, CADAVER EFFIGY OF A NOW ANONYMOUS MAN, SHOWING POOR SURFACE ANATOMY. STALBRIDGE,

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of the human body can be seen in the work of later artists; the Italian painter and sculpture Michelangelo (1475–1564), the Italian painter, sculptor and polymath, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), and the Flemish anatomist and author Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564).97 However, it can also be further evidenced in the lengths to which the English Pre-Raphaelite artist Ford MaddoxBrown went in ensuring that his 1857 illustration for Lord Bryon’s poem ‘The Prisoner of Challon’, was accurate; he sought out a cadaver from a London hospital morgue to draw over a number of days.98 From in-depth observation of the cadaver sculptures, it is evident that firsthand knowledge of the human form would be required to provide the level of anatomical detail that is evident of the vast majority of cadaver/goses sculptures, for instance, the gross anatomical details only evident in cases of extreme emaciation. It is noticeable that the better-quality sculpted cadavers, such as Alice’s, feature ligaments and muscles that only close observation and/or a scientific examination of bodies (alive and recently dead) would deliver.99 In conclusion then, the cadaver sculpture of Alice de la Pole needs to be interpreted in its historical and socio-religious context in order to gain a full understanding of its significance. Kinch argues that the ‘devotional purpose of [cadaver sculptures was] to convert aesthetic fascination into spiritual benefit in the economy of prayer,’100 and Alice’s attentiveness to piety supports this reading; she was

CHURCH OF ST MARY

Moxham and Plaisant, “The History,” 226–9. Surtees, V. (ed.), The Diary of Ford Maddox Brown (New Haven, 1981), 137. For Maddox Brown’s sketch see http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1927P352 (last accessed January 2018). 99 For a more detailed overview on cadaver sculptures, their anatomy, and their relationship to the history of anatomy see Welch, “Late Medieval English Carved Cadaver Memento Mori.” I would like to thank Forensic Anatomist, Dr Wendy Birch, and anatomical sculptor, Eleanor Crook, for their assistance with anatomical readings of the cadaver effigies. 100 Kinch, Imago Mortis, 179. 97

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keen to enact the Seven Works of Mercy where she could, and praying for the dead was one of these. She also took care to ensure her almsmen avoided the Seven Deadly Sins, although her upper effigy shows signs of pride and vanity in its verism and accessories of rank. Further, the sheer cost of such a lavish memorial emphasises that wealth allowed those with social status and material excess the privilege of displaying their piety overtly; something that Alice was not alone in doing, nor indeed the first. However, Alice is alone in having an alabaster cadaver effigy, and with its polychrome tinting providing evidence that rather than being a representation of her dead, it shows her as a goses. Here her liminal state between this-life on earth and the after-life in Heaven displays her in a state of post-mortem sentience, suffering in Purgatory but able to plead to the saints painted above her half-open eyes. Further, because her effigy is largely undamaged it displays the anatomical knowledge of its skilful carver; a carver who, given its anatomical detailing, must have had access to actual bodies from which to model her cadaver/goses. As such this sculpture demonstrates a currently unacknowledged pre-history to anatomical knowledge in England.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY ARCHIVAL AND MANUSCRIPT SOURCES ABERYSTWYTH National Library of Wales: Penrice and Margam Estate Records, MS 2191 BRISTOL Bristol Archives: P/AS/D/C5 B6 GLASGOW GMRC (Glasgow Museums Resource Centre): Burrell Archive, Sir William Burrell’s Purchase Books, manuscript in 28 volumes, 1911–1957, inv. nos 52.1–52.28 LEICESTER Leicestershire Record Office, 26 D 53/2571 LINCOLN Lincolnshire Archives: Leverton Par, 7/1 The Lincoln Minute Book, L/1/1/2 INV Box, 6 INV Box, 10 Notes on Harlaxton and the Monument in the Church, 2PG/12/17/39 Lincolnshire Record Office, 1/PG/1/35 LONDON The National Archives:

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339

INDEX Abdy, Anthony 221 Abe, Thomas 166 Adoration of the Magi, reliefs of 131 Adynet, Thomas 245 Aelred of Rievaulx, St Spirituali Amicitia 58 alabaster, English altarpieces see under subject headings carvers and workshops see under individual names centres of production and/or quarries see under individual names concealments, diaspora and destructions see Reformation of the English Church reliefs see under subject headings statues see under subject headings Alberti, Leon Battista 88 Albertus Magnus 54, 103 Alestre, John 262 Alfonso the Wise, King Cantigas 80 Alighieri, Dante Paradiso 75–6 Amiens, Amiens Cathedral (France) 26, 181 Amsterdam (Netherlands) 215, 219 Andrea Pisano 85, 91, 92 Anne, St, statues of 12, 189 teaching the Virgin Mary to read, statues of 16

Ardizzone, Giorgio 148 Ardizzone, Raffaele 148 Arras (France) 217 Ashby-de-la-Zouch (Leicestershire) 228, 234 Ashby, Thomas (alabaster carver) 218 Ashley (Staffordshire) 222 Atye, Bartholomew (alabaster carver) 217, 218 Augustine, St 57 Austen, Saffery 268 Bacon, Sir Francis 230 Bacon, Sir Nicholas 215 Bainbrigge, William 225 Bakewell (Derbyshire) 224 Baldwin, Samuel (alabaster carver) 229 Baltimore, Walters Art Museum (Maryland) 14 Barbour, Richard see Patten, Richard Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Spain) 16 Baret, John 291, 292 Barnack (Northamptonshire) 225 Bartholomaeus Anglicus De rerum proprietatibus 60 Bartholomew the Englishman see Bartholomaeus Anglicus Barton, Henry 248 Barton, Robert 248

341

index

Barton-upon-Humber (Lincolshire) 167 Barton-upon-Humber, St Peter (Lincolshire) 154 Bassett, William 227 Beckington, Thomas 290, 292 Bedfordshire 222 Bell, John 164 Bellington Hill 233 Belton, All Saints (Lincolnshire) 165, 166 Benet, John 113 Berkeley, Lord Henry 229 Berkeley (Gloucestershire) 229 Berlin, Dahlem Museum (Germany) 85 Berlin, Staatliche Museen (Germany) 163 Bertrand du Puget, 78 Beuda (Spain) 75 Bilborough (Nottinghamshire) 223, 224 Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts (West Midlands) 111 Fig. 4.2 Biscarra, Carlo Francesco 132 Bishop Saint, reliefs of 3 Blacman, John 274 Blore (Staffordhire) 227 Blount, Sir Edward 226 Blount, Sir George 222–3 Blue Anchor Bay (Somerset) 231 Bluet, John 263 Blythe, Geoffrey 266, 268, 269 Blythe, John 268, 269 Blythe, William 268 Bockleton (Worcestershire) 225 Boetius 55 Boghem, Lodewijk van 53 Bokenham Osbern 288 Bologna (Italy) 32 Bologna, San Domenico (Italy) 80 Bologna, Santo Stefano (Italy) 78 Bologna, Porta Galliera (Italy) 78 Bonino da Campione 87, 88 Bordeaux, Saint-Michel (France), 162–3

Boston (Lincolnshire) 234 Bottesford (Leicestershire) 215, 223, 234, 244 Boughton, Henry (alabaster carver) 221 Breadsall (Derbyshire) 223 Brereton, Margery 268 Brewood (Staffordshire) 227 Bristol, St Stephen 231 British Museum see under London Brook, Robert (alabaster carver) 164 Brook, John 217 Brooke, John (alabaster carver) 164 Browne, Agnes 191 Brudenell, Edward 224 Bruges (Belgium) 53, 147, 216, 217, 234 Buckinghamshire 215, 222 Burghersh, John 281 Burghersh, Maud 278 Burman, Thomas (alabaster carver) 221 Burnell, Bishop 223 Burrell, Sir William 6, 48, 174–9, 192 Burton-on-Trent see Burton-uponTrent Burton-upon-Trent (Staffordshire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 1 n.1, 35–50, 124, 221, 223, 225, 234 Caius, John 230 Cambridgeshire 12, 226 Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral (Kent) 186 Canynges, John 270 Canynges, William 269, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275 Canynges, William the Elder 270 Careway, John 291 Carlier, Jan 234 Carmarthen (Carmarthenshire) 179 Carpenter, John 272, 273, 274, 291 Cascalls, Jaume 75 Cavendish, Francis 229 Cavendish, Sir John 217 Cavendish, William 227

342 index Chaucer, Alice see Pole, Alice de la Chaucer, Geoffrey 113, 281 Chaucer, Thomas 281, 282 Cheetham, Francis 4, 6, 8, 9, 15, 16, 45, 152–3, 157, 158, 180 Chellaston (Derbyshire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 233 Cheshire 228, 229 Chiapusso, Augusta Pongiluppi 134 Chiapusso, Felice 132, 133, 134 Chichele, Henry 266, 290 Chircheman, John 246, 247, 248, 275 Christ Ascension of, reliefs of 171 Betrayal of, reliefs of 73, 128 Crucifixion of, reliefs of 134 Deposition of, reliefs of 73, 128 Nativity, reliefs of 12 Christmas, Garrett (alabaster carver) 221 Christmas, John (alabaster carver) 221 Christmas, Mathias (alabaster carver) 221 Cini, Vittorio 134 Collyns, Robert 191 Colt, John (alabaster carver) 216, 217 Colt, John the Younger (alabaster carver) 217 Colt, Maximilian (alabaster carver) 217, 232, 233 Colyns, John 10 n.43 Condover (Shropshire) 222 Cornwallis, John 234 Corringham (Essex) 166 Cosmato Gentilis 46, 71, 72 n.2 Coston, Bridget 221 Couper, Richard (alabaster carver) 124 Coxe, Robert (alabaster carver) 223 Crane, Sir Robert 221 Cretingham (Suffolk) 234 Croft Lyons, George Babington 178, 179 Cromwell, Lord Ralph 245 Crosby, Annys 237, 244

Crosby, John 237, 238, 239, 251 Cure (family and alabaster workshop) 231 Cure, Cornelius (alabaster carver) 215 Cure, William (alabaster carver) 215 Dante see Alighieri, Dante De Santi, Andriolo 86 Deguileville, Guillaume de 282 Dekker, Thomas Old Fortunatus 65 Della Robbia, Girolamo 287 Della Scala, Cansignorio 87 Den Broecke, Willem van 63 Denston, John 288, 292 Denston, Katherine 288 Deptford (Kent) 218 Derby (Derbyshire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 233 Derbyshire 151, 171, 178, 223, 224, 225, 227, 228, 229 Derbyshire (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 45, 151, 171 Despenser, Isabel 287, 288 Dewes, Paul 218 Dominic, St 57, 80 Donatello 88 Donne, John 221 Dove (Valley) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 73 Doveridge (Derbyshire) 229 Drayton (Berkshire) 154 Dublin, Dublin Cathedral (Ireland) 229 Dugdale, Sir William 229 Dunstaple, John 113 Durham, Durham Cathedral 114 East Anglia (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 230 East Harling (Norfolk) 230 East Midlands (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 137, 150, 152, 162, 232, 234

343

index

Eddington, William 236 Edward II, King 49, 96 n.9, 236 Edward IV, King 14, 96 n.10, 185, 188 Eligius, St, reliefs of 12 Elizabeth I, Queen 214, 217 Embriachi, workshop of 9 Embriaco, Guglielmo 27 English Midlands 30 English Midlands (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 72 n.4, 75, 214, 221, 225, 229 English, Robert 260, 262 Epstein, Jacob 67, 68, 70 Epworth (Lincolnshire) 151, 167, 168, 171 Este, family 73, 122 Estensi see Este Evesham, Epiphanius (alabaster carver) 217, 218 Ewelme, St Mary (Oxfordshire) 32, 276, 278, 279 Exeter, St Kerrian (Devon) 12, 189

Fraunceys, Adam 254, 258 Fulbourn (Cambridgeshire) 291 Fyfield (Essex) 290 Gainsborough (Lincolnshire) 233 Galen (Galen of Pergamon) 62 Games, Edward 218 Gattiglio, D. 133 Gaudier-Brzeska, Henri 66, 67, 70 Gell, Ralph 224 Genoa, Genoa Cathedral (Italy) 26 George, St, altarpieces of the life of 3 n.12, 7 n.30, 14, 23 n.86, 37, 96, 109 n.37, 148 n.72 reliefs of 171 with the Dragon, statues of 47 Gerard, Sir Gilbert 222 Gerard, Thomas 231 Giovanni di Balduccio 78 Giovanni Pisano, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87 n.51, 92 Glasgow, Burrell Collection 23, 27, 33, 48, 165, 173–213 Gloucester (Gloucestershire) 229 Gloucester (Gloucestershire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 235 Gloucester, Gloucester Cathedral (Gloucestershire) 49 Golafre, Sir John 281, 290 Gondreville, Saint-Martin (France) 7 n.30 Goodyear, John (alabaster carver) 137, 153 Gour, John 253 Great Brington (Northamptonshire) 226 Green, Raphael 1 n.2, 137 n.28 Greenway, John (alabaster carver) 225 Greville, Sir Fulke 218 Grigs, Francis (alabaster carver) 221 Grosvenor Thomas, George 174, 175 Gudguar, Johanes see Goodyear, John

Fairburn (Yorkshire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 230 Faringdon (Berkshire) 225 Fauconberg, Thomas 237 Fauld (Staffordshire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 233 Ferrara (Italy) 122 Ferrara, Museum of Palazzo Schifanoia (Italy) 73, 122, 128 Fieschi, Sinibaldo 72 Fitzalan, Sir John 290, 292 Fitzjames, Lady Jane 217 Florence (Italy) 122, 189 Florence, San Miniato al Monte (Italy) 76 Floris, Cornelis 217 Foljambe, Sir Godfrey 46 Forton (Staffordshire) 33, 227 Fotheringhay, St Mary and All Saints (Northamptonshire) 186 Hacconby (Lincolnshire) 166 Fouquet, Jean 145 Hall, Hugh (alabaster carver) 227, Franckyshe, William 164 229, 234

344 index Hall, Richard (alabaster carver) 234 Hancock, Walter 222 Harding, F. 176 Hargrave, William (alabaster carver) 223, 224, 225, 234 Harpur, John 223 Hatfield, Thomas 236 Haveus, Theodore (alabaster carver) 230 Helwys, John 225 Henry of Lancaster 254 Henry II, King 185 Henry III, King 96 n.10 Henry IV, King 96 n.9 Henry V, King 281 Henry VI, King 93, 96, 282 Henry VIII, King 60, 96 n.10, 137 n.27, 215 Herbert, Sir Richard 154, 222 Herte, Agas 183, 190 Hildburgh, Walter Leo 5, 6, 13, 14, 19, 26, 35–50, 152, 156, 161, 174, 176 n.14 Hill, Nicholas (alabaster carver) 184 Hills, Alexander (alabaster carver) 218 Hilton, Edward (alabaster carver) 1 n.2, 137 n.27 Hilton, Walter (alabaster carver) 1 n.1, 137 n.27 Hollemans, Garrat (alabaster carver) 227 Hollemans, Garrett (alabaster carver) 33, 225 Hollemans, Jasper (alabaster carver) 225 Hollemans, Richard (alabaster carver) 227, 229 Holme Pierrepont (Nottinghamshire) 228 Hope, William St John 3, 12, 19, 24, 35–50, 105 n.24, 165, 175, 179, 183 n. 54, 185 Hull (Yorkshire) 248, 249, 250, 251, 258, 259, 266 Hull, Holy Trinity (Yorkshire) 248, 250

Humber (River) 151 Humberstone, Roger 261 Humphris, Cyril 42 Hunt, John 178, 179 Iconoclasm see Reformation of the English Church Innocent IV, Pope 72 Ipswich (Suffolk) 177, 178 Ipswich (Suffolk) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 230 Irthlingborough (Northamptonshire) 255, 256, 259 Isabella, Queen 26, 236 Isidore of Seville, St 54 Isle of Axholme (Lincolnshire) 151, 152, 165, 171 Islington (London) 233 Jacopo della Quercia 91 James, Isaac (alabaster carver) 218 James I, King 215, 217 James, St, altarpieces of the life of 23, 137, 153 Janssen, Jan (alabaster carver) 218 Jerome, St Commentaria in Matthaeum 57 Joan de Tournai 75 John of Eltham 236 John of Gaunt 46, 96 n.9, 248, 254 John of Mirfield 293 John the Baptist, St altarpieces of the life of 26–7 Heads of, reliefs of 12, 23, 165, 173–213 Johnson, Garret (alabaster carver) 215 Johnson, Nicholas (alabaster carver) 215 Jones, Eleanor 226 Jones, William 226 Katherine de Norwich 248 Kent 178, 217, 218 Kettlebaston (Suffolk) 155 Key, John (alabaster carver) 218

index

Keyser, Hendryk de 219 London, Victoria and Albert Keyser, Hendryk de Junior 229 Museum 6, 7, 10 n.43, 12–15, Kidderminster (Worcestershire) 226 26, 36 n.3, 39, 40 n.18, 41, 42, Kinder, Henry (alabaster carver) 223, 44, 47, 60, 131, 137, 152, 154, 235 156–61, 165, 168, 175, 178 London, Westminster Cathedral 114 La Selle, Parish Church (France) 7 Longford (Derbyshire) 227 n.30, 14, 109 n.37 Longford, Margaret 227 Lancashire 229 Longford, Sir Nicholas 227 Laneham (Nottinghamshire) 229 Lonhy, Antoine de 140, 144–6, 147, Langham, Simon 245 149 Lawhton, Amos 164 Lovell, Sir Thomas 230 Leeds, Henry Moore Institute Lovekyn, John 240, 241, 247, 248, (Yorkshire) 69 255, 265, 275 Leicester (Leicestershire) 179, 185 Lydgate, John 282, 283, 288 Leicestershire 151, 223, 225, 228, 244 Lyndsey, John 274 Leicestershire (alabaster centre of Lyons, Richard 255 production and/or quarries) 235 Maddox-Brown, Ford 294 Leland, John 152, 171, 250, 251, 260, Madrid, Museo Arqueologico 266, 273 National (Spain) 16, 24 Leonardo da Vinci 292–3 n. 90, 294 Malaucène (France) 75 Leverton (Lincolsnhire) 163, 164, 165, Manners, Sir John 223 172 Manners, Earl Roger 215, 223 Limoges, enamels 9, 41 Mansel, Sir Lewis 217 Lincoln (Lincolnshire) 150 March, Richard 263 Lincoln, The Collection Marianus, Christophorus 53 (Lincolnshire) 171 Margario, Eusebio de 139 Lincolnshire 165, 215, 223 Mark, St Lincolnshire (alabaster centre of Gospel 57 production and/or quarries) Markham, Gervase 229 150–72 Marshall, Edward (alabaster carver) Lincolnshire, Bardney Abbey 151 221 Lingard, John 222 Martin V, Pope 139 Lisbon, Museu Nacional de Arte Martyrdom, altarpieces of 7 n.30, 7 Antiga (Portugal) 16 n.34, 155 n.20 Littleton, Sir Edward 227 Mary, Queen of Scots 214, 215 Lockington (Leicestershire) 225 Mason, John 10 London 218, 221, 234, 237 Matthew Paris 72 London (alabaster centre of Medici, Catherine de’ 287 production and/or quarries) Meit, Conrat 63 214 Mespelbrun, Julius Echter von 53 London, British Museum 13, 44, 95, Meverill, Sampson 291 114, 155 n.20 Michelangelo 53, 294 London, Society of Antiquaries 3, 4, Milan, Musei d’Arte Antica del 37, 39, 155, 175, 178, 192 Castello Sforzesco (Italy) 73, London, Tate Gallery 66, 67 128

345

346 index Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera (Italy) 73, 128 Milan, San Giovanni in Conca (Italy) 88 Minehead (Somerset) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 231 Mirfin, Thomas 248 Monselice, Cini Castle (Italy) 134 Montacute, Thomas 281, 282 Montagu, Bishop 215 Moore, Henry 19, 67, 69 Morelli, Giovanni di Paolo 25 Moreton, Edward 227 Moreton, Margaret 227 Moreton, Matthew 227 Mowbray, Thomas 152 Moyer, Humphrey (alabaster carver) 221 Nantwich (Cheshire) 227, 228 Naples, Capodimonte Museum (Italy) 73, 128 Nelson, Philip 3, 4, 6, 19, 35–50, 174 Netherlands 189 Nevill, John of Raby 23 n.86, 148 n.69 Neville, Earl Richard 40 Newark (Nottinghamshire) 233 Newark (Nottinghamshire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 235 Newdigate, Sir John 218 Newstead (Scottish Borders) 229 Nicholas ‘Fabro’ 164 Nicola Pisano 80, 84 Nino Pisano 85, 91 Norfolk (Suffolk) 178, 218, 230, 246 Norfolk, Buckenham Priory (Suffolk) 50 Norris, Lord Henry 218 Northampton (Northamptonshire) 255 Northamptonshire 222 Norwich (Norfolk) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 230

Notre-Dame-de-Mésage (France) 75 Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) 178 Nottingham (Nottinghamshire) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 3 n.12, 24, 35–50, 73, 110, 152, 165, 185, 234, 258, 263 Nottingham, Castle Museum and Art Gallery (Nottinghamshire) 3, 44, 45, 95, 98 n.16, 104–5 n.24 Nottinghamshire 151, 171, 227, 228, 229 Novalesa, Abbey and Abbey Church (Italy) 23, 127–49 Nowell, Sir Andrew 223 Okeborne, William 274 Old Dalby (Leicestershire) 223 Oman, Charles 41 Oteswich, John de 241, 243, 245, 247, 253, 256, 259, 265 Oteswich, William de 245 Padua (Italy) 32 Painter, William 166 Paleologue, Theodore 139 Paris, Museé national du Moyen-Âge, Thermes de Cluny (France) 14 Parker, Richard (alabaster carver) 1 n.2, 221–2 Paston, Sir William 218 Passion, altarpieces of 73, 104–5 n.24, 122, 128, 146, 163 Patten, Richard (also known as Richard Barbour) 152, 266, 268 Paul, St reliefs of 12 statues of 46, 71–2, 128 Paynson, John 165 Pedanius Dioscorides 62 Penkridge (Staffordshire) 227 Peter, St, statues of 3, 46, 71–2, 128 Peter the Mason (alabaster carver) 3 n.12, 23 n.86, 37, 148 n.72 Phelip, Sir John 281

347

index

Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art (Pennsylvania) 114 Philippa of Hainaut 236 Pierrepont, Sir Henry 228 Pietà, reliefs of 12 Pistoia, San Giovanni Fuorcivitas (Italy) 84 Pitchley (Shropshire) 222 Pitman, Jeffrey 230 Pliny the Elder 19, 54, 60, 62, 75, 84, 92 Plouha, Chapel of Kermaria-enIsquit (France) 162–3 Pole, Alice de la 32, 276–95 Pole, John de la 283 Pole, Michael de la 250, 251, 254 Pole, Richard de la 250, 253 Pole, William de la 248, 249, 253, 278 Power, Leonel 113 Prato, Prato Cathedral (Italy) 83 Prentis, Thomas (alabaster carver) 1 n.3, 137 n.28 Preston-next-Faversham (Kent) 218 Pringe, Martin 231 Prior, Edward 3, 4, 5, 6, 19, 26, 35–50 Provana, Andrea 140 n.38 Provana, Antonio 147 Provana, Bartolomeo 139 Provana, family 127–49 Provana, Domenico 148 Provana, Filiberto Maurizio 140 Provana, Giacomo, 139 Provana, Giorgio 127–49 Provana, Giovanni 147 Provana, Martino 140 n.38 Pryme, Abraham de la 167 Pyel, Henry 265 Pyel, Joan 257 Pyel, John 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 265, 275 Pyel, Nicolas 256 Quellinus, Artus 53 Ralph of Shrewsbury 236 Ravesner, Richard 251

Reformation of the English Church 2, 10, 11, 12, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30, 124, 128, 150, 163, 164, 166, 167, 172, 177, 221, 249, 254, 279 Reykjavik (Iceland) 179, 185 Reynell, Sir Richard 231 Ricard, Thomas 263, 265 Richard II, King 71 Richard III, King 1 n.2, 137 n.27 Rickhill, Thomas 263 Robyn, Jan II 53 Rockley, Sir Roger 287 n.56 Rome, Basilica of St Peter (Italy) 20 Rome, Museum of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Italy) 46, 71–2, 128 Roper, Caroline of Lynsted Park 178 Rous, John 244 Rous, William 244 Royley, Gabriel (alabaster carver) 221, 222 Royley, Richard (alabaster carver) 221, 222 Russell, Lord Francis 215 Samon, John the Elder 258 Samon, John the Younger 259, 261 Samon, Richard 259 Sampson, Henry 274 Sandys, Edwin 223 Santiago de Compostela, Cathedral of Santiago Museum (Spain) 23, 137, 153 Sarral (Spain) 75 Saundby (Nottinghamshire) 225 Scarning (Norfolk) 218 Scartho, St Giles (Lincolnshire) 152, 154–63 Scartho, Grantham Almshouses (Lincolnshire) 154 Schietere, Jan de 216 Schnebbelie, Jacob 257 Scone, Lord David 217 Screveton (Nottinghamshire) 223 Scriven, Thomas 222 Selby, Henry 252 Selby, Robert 250, 251, 252

348 index Settala, Manfredo 73 Shakespeare, William 215 Othello 64, 214 Richard III 285 The Merchant of Venice 65 The Rape of Lucrece 63 Shirley, Frances 225, 226, 234 Shirley, Sir George 225, 226, 234 Sibthorpe (Nottinghamshire) 223 Skrymsher, Sir Thomas 33, 227 Smith, Sir Thomas 227 Smyth, Dorcas 217 Smythson, John (alabaster carver) 227, 228 Smythson, Robert 224, 225 Snarford (Lincolnshire) 223 Society of Antiquaries see under London South Kensington Museum see Victoria and Albert Museum Southwark 215, 231 Spencer, Lord Robert 225, 226 Spenser, Elizabeth (alabaster workshop) 1 n.1 Spenser, Emma (alabaster workshop) 1 n.1 Spero, Alfred 42 Sponne, William Staffordshire 33, 151, 171, 222, 227 Staffordshire (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 45, 151, 171, 233 Stamford, All Saints’ (Lincolnshire) 167 Stanhope, Sir John 225 Stanton, Thomas (alabaster carver) 221 Stapleford (Nottinghamshire) 229 St Pol, Sir Thomas 223 Stevens, Richard (alabaster carver) 215, 216 Stodley, Robert 191 Stone, Nicholas (alabaster carver) 218, 229, 234 Stonehouse, Rev. W.B. 167, 171 Stonton Wyville (Leicestershire) 224 Stowlangtoft (Suffolk) 218

Stratford, John 236 Stroud (Gloucestershire) 229 Susa (Valley) 127–49 Susa, Museo Diocesano di Arte Sacra (Italy) 135 Sutton, Robert (alabaster carver) 1 n.3, 137 n.28, 256 Tannesley, John 261 Tannesley, Margaret 261 Tarbook, John (alabaster carver) 222 Tate Gallery see under London Taylor, John 245 Taylor, Mathias 227 Tevery, Gervase 229 Theophilus On Diverse Arts 77, 83 Theophrastus 54 Thirland, Thomas 260 Thomas Becket, St, Murder of, reliefs of 46 Tingham, Edmond (alabaster carver) 229 Towcester (Northamptonshire) 290 Trapani, Our Lady of Mount Carmelo (Italy) 91 Tree of Jesse, reliefs of 114 Trent (River) 151, 171, 223 Trent (Valley) (alabaster centre of production and/or quarries) 73 Trento (Italy) 122 Trinity, the, reliefs of 12 in mandorla with the Evangelists, reliefs of 14 with the Bosom of Abraham, reliefs of 48 Tuddenham, Walter 245 Turin (Italy) 129, 132 Turin, Museo Civico d’Arte Antica – Palazza Madama (Italy) 134 Turvey (Bedfordshire) 222 Tyler, Watt 240 Unton, Sir Henry 225 Urban V, Pope 75 Ursula, St, with the Virgin Martyrs, statues of 14

index

Vanlore, Sir Peter 218 Vasari, Giorgio 88, 91 Vauce, William 274 Venaus (Italy) 131 Vertue, George 230 Vesalius, Andreas 294 Vicenza, San Lorenzo (Italy) 86 Victoria and Albert Museum see under London V&A see Victoria and Albert Museum Venafro, National Museum of Castello Pandone (Italy) 146 Verona, Santa Maria Antiqua (Italy) 87 Virgin Mary Annunciation, reliefs of 114 Assumption of, reliefs of 135, 171 Breastfeeding the Christ Child, reliefs of 12, 179 Coronation of, reliefs of 111 Fig. 4.2, 134, 171 Joys of, altarpieces of 16, 24, 127–49, 152, 154, 157, 161–3 statues of 3, 13, 46, 71, 95, 114, 128, 179 with Saints, reliefs of 114 Visconti, Bernabò 88 Volterra (Italy) 66, 84

Westbury (Whiltshire) 271, 273, 274, 291 Whalley, Richard 223 Wheeler, Mortimer 36 White, James (alabaster carver) 218 White, William (alabaster carver) 218 Whitstones, Francis 225 Whittlesford, Parish Church (Cambridgeshire) 12 Whitwick (Leicestershire) 234 Wildgoose, Nicholas 190 Willerton, Robert 166 William ap Thomas, Sir 153 William of Hatfield 236 Willoughby, Sir John 225 Willoughby, Sir Richard 244, 291 Willoughby, William 227 Windsor, Chapel of St George (Berkshire) 3 n.12, 23 n.86, 37, 96, 148 n.72 Windsor, Eton College (Berkshire) 93 Wirksworth (Derbyshire) 224 Wisbech (Cambridgeshire) 226, 227 Witte, Gilles de (alabaster carver) 216 Wolborough (Devon) 231 Wollaton (Nottinghamshire) 225, 291 Woodbridge (Suffolk) 230 Wooton (Bedfordshire) 155 Worcester, William 270 Wainfleet see Waynflete Worcester, Worcester Cathedral Walker, Margery (alabaster (Worcestershire) 179 workshop) 1 n.1 Worcestershire 222, 225, 226 Walworth, William 240, 241, 247, Wright, William (alabaster carver) 255, 265 218 Washington, National Gallery of Art Wybunbury (Cheshire) 227 (DC) 47, 114 Watchet (Somerset) (alabaster centre Yarnton (Oxfordshire) 155 of production and/or quarries) York (Yorkshire) 119, 178, 182, 183, 231 185, 186, 230 Waynflete, William 97 n.14, 266, 267 York (Yorkshire) (alabaster centre of Webster, John 64 production and/or quarries) The Duchess of Malfi 65 214, 230 Weigel, Cristoph 65 Yorkshire 151, 217, 249 Wellar, Mr (alabaster carver) 231 Weller, Hans (alabaster carver) 231 Zierikzee (Netherlands) 148 Wells, St Cuthbert (Somerset) 114 Zita of Lucca, St, reliefs of 12

349

ALREADY PUBLISHED The Art of Anglo-Saxon England Catherine E. Karkov English Medieval Misericords: The Margins of Meaning Paul Hardwick English Medieval Shrines John Crook Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces Edited by Elina Gertsman and Jill Stevenson The Marvellous and the Monstrous in the Sculpture of Twelfth-Century Europe Kirk Ambrose Early Medieval Stone Monuments: Materiality, Biography, Landscape Edited by Howard Williams, Joanne Kirton and Meggen Gondek The Royal Abbey of Reading Ron Baxter Education in Twelfth-Century Art and Architecture: Images of Learning in Europe, c.1100–1220 Laura Cleaver The Art and Science of the Church Screen in Medieval Europe: Making, Meaning, Preserving Edited by Spike Bucklow, Richard Marks and Lucy Wrapson Motherhood and Meaning in Medieval Sculpture: Representations from France, c.1100–1500 Marian Bleeke Graphic Devices and the Early Decorated Book Edited by Michelle P. Brown, Ildar H. Garipzanov and Benjamin C. Tilghman Church Monuments in South Wales, c.1200–1547 Rhianydd Biebrach Tomb and Temple: Re-imagining the Sacred Buildings of Jerusalem Edited by Robin Griffith-Jones and Eric Fernie Art and Political Thought in Medieval England, c.1150–1350 Laura Slater Insular Iconographies: Essays in Honour of Jane Hawkes Edited by Meg Boulton and Michael D.J. Bintley

ZULEIKA MURAT is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the History of Medieval Art at the University of Padua. Contributors: Jennifer Alexander, Jon Bayliss, Claire Blakey, Stephanie De Roemer, Rachel King, Andrew Kirkman, Aleksandra Lipinska, Zuleika Murat, Luca Palozzi, Sophie Phillips, Nigel Ramsay, Christina Welch, Philip Weller, Kim Woods, Michaela Zöschg. Cover image: English Workshop, Virgin and Child. London, British Museum, Inv. 2016,8041.1 (Photo: © Trustees of the British Museum) Cover design: www.stay-creative.co.uk

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS

This volume incorporates a variety of new approaches to these artefacts, employing methodologies drawn from a number of different disciplines. Its chapters explore a range of key points connected to alabasters: their origins, their general history and their social, cultural, intellectual and devotional contexts.

ZULEIKA MURAT (ed.)

E

nglish alabasters played a seminal role in the artistic development of late medieval and early modern Europe. Carvings made of this lustrous white stone were sold throughout England and abroad, and as a result many survived the iconoclasm that destroyed so much else from this period. They are a unique and valuable witness to the material culture of the Middle Ages.

ENGLISH ALABASTER CARVINGS AND THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXTS Edited by

ZULEIKA MURAT