Lost Artefacts from Medieval England and France: Representation, Reimagination, Recovery 9781914049057, 9781800105454, 1914049055

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Contents
Illustrations
Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1: Hoard Fever: Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging
2: Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition
3: Typological Exegesis and Medieval Architecture in Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae
4: Lost Objects and Historical Consciousness: The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely
5: Fire! Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds in the Late 12th C
6: Reweaving the Material Past: Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans
7: Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans
8: A Pictorial Treasury in the Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey
9: Lost and Found: Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records
10: Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325-1422: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age?
11: Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives
12: The Mythical Outcast Medieval Leper: Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints
Bibliography
Index of Manuscripts
General Index
Writing History in the Middle Ages

Citation preview

Writing History in the Middle Ages Volume 8

Lost Artefacts from Medieval England and France

YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS York Medieval Press is published by the University of York’s Centre for Medieval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer Limited. Our objective is the promotion of innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture. We have a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Centre’s belief that the future of Medieval Studies lies in those areas in which its major constituent disciplines at once inform and challenge each other. Editorial Board (2022) Peter Biller, Emeritus (Dept of History): General Editor Tim Ayers (Dept of History of Art): Co-Director, Centre for Medieval Studies Henry Bainton: Private scholar K. P. Clarke (Dept of English and Related Literature) K. F. Giles (Dept of Archaeology) Shazia Jagot (Dept of English and Related Literature) Holly James-Maddocks (Dept of English and Related Literature) Harry Munt (Dept of History) L. J. Sackville (Dept of History) Elizabeth M. Tyler (Dept of English and Related Literature): Co-Director, Centre for Medieval Studies Hanna Vorholt (Dept of History of Art) Sethina Watson (Dept of History) Bärwalde J. G. Wogan-Browne (English Faculty, Fordham University) Stephanie Wynne-Jones (Dept of Archaeology) All enquiries of an editorial kind, including suggestions for monographs and essay collections, should be addressed to: The Academic Editor, York Medieval Press, Department of History, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD (E-mail: [email protected]) Details of other York Medieval Press volumes are available from Boydell & Brewer Ltd. Writing History in the Middle Ages ISSN 2057-0252 Series editors Laura Cleaver, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Elisabeth van Houts, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge History-writing was a vital form of expression throughout the European Middle Ages, and is fundamental to our understanding of medieval societies, politics, modes of expression, cultural memory, and social identity. This series publishes innovative work on history-writing from across the medieval world; monographs, collections of essays, and editions of texts are all welcome. Other volumes in the series are listed at the back of this book.

Lost Artefacts from Medieval England and France Representation, Reimagination, Recovery

Edited by Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver

Y O RK MEDIEVA L PRE S S

© Contributors 2022 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 2022 A York Medieval Press publication in association with The Boydell Press 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 and with the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York ISBN 978 1 914049 05 7 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 800105 45 4 (ePDF) A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library 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 Cover image: British Library, Cotton MS Nero D I, f. 146v © The British Library Board.

Contents List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements

vii xi xii

Introduction Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver

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1 Hoard Fever: Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging 13 Joshua Davies 2 Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition 27 Beth Whalley 3 Typological Exegesis and Medieval Architecture in Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae Karl Kinsella

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4 Lost Objects and Historical Consciousness: The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely Katherine Weikert

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5 Fire! Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds in the Late Twelfth Century Laura Cleaver

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6 Reweaving the Material Past: Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans Kathryn Gerry

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7 Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans Judith Collard

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8 Illustrating the Material Past: A Pictorial Treasury in the Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey Deirdre Carter

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9 Lost and Found: Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records Katherine A. Rush

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Contents 10 Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age? Marian Bleeke

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11 Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives 228 Katherine Baker 12 The Mythical Outcast Medieval Leper: Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints Victoria Yuskaitis

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Bibliography 262 Index of Manuscripts 286 General Index 288

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Illustrations Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver, Introduction 1 The shrine of St Edmund, John Lydgate’s life of St Edmund, 1434–39, British Library Harley MS 2278, fol. 9r © The British Library Board.

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2 The shrine of St Edmund, John Lydgate’s life of St Edmund, c. 1470, British Library Yates Thompson MS 47, fol. 4r © The British Library Board.

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Katherine Weikert, Lost Objects and Historical Consciousness: The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely 1 The development of the Liber Eliensis. 62 Kathryn Gerry, Reweaving the Material Past: Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans 1 The Precious Gospels of Bernward (sog. Kostbares Evangeliar). Hildesheim, Dom Museum, Domschatz 18, fol. 16v © Dommuseum Hildesheim.

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2 Panel (fragment) depicting the Life of Thomas Becket: Flight from Northampton, Reconciliation with Henry II at Fréteval, and Thomas’s return to England. Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, inv. no. 4226 b © Abegg-Stiftung, CH-3132 Riggisberg, 2008 (photo: Christoph von Viràg).

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3 St Thomas returns to England, from the Manuscript with the Life of Thomas Becket (fragmentary). Wormsley Library MS 6, fol. 4v © The Trustees of the Wormsley Fund.

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4 Martyrdom of Alban, from the St Albans Psalter. Dombibliothek Hildesheim, HS St. God. 1 (Property of the Basilica of St. Godehard, Hildesheim), p. 416, reproduced by kind permission of Dombibliothek Hildesheim.

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5 Martyrdom of Alban, from the Chronica majora, vol. 1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26, fol. 58v, reproduced by kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

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6 Martyrdom of Alban, from the Life of St Alban. Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fol. 38r © The Board of Trinity College Dublin. 106 7 Invention of Alban’s Relics, from the Chronica majora, vol. 1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26, fol. 59r, reproduced by kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

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Illustrations 8 Invention of Alban’s relics, from the Life of St Alban. Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fol. 59r © The Board of Trinity College Dublin.

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9 Investiture of the first abbot of St Albans by King Offa, from the Life of St Alban. Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fol. 60v © The Board of Trinity College Dublin.

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Judith Collard, Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans 1 Matthew Paris, the jewels of St Albans. British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 146r © The British Library Board.

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2 Matthew Paris, the jewels of St Albans. British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 146v © The British Library Board.

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3 Stirrup type gold ring set with a cabochon sapphire © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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4 King Æthelred II, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 4v (detail) © The British Library Board.

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Deirdre Carter, Illustrating the Material Past: A Pictorial Treasury in the Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1 Alban watches Amphibalus kneel before the cross, from Vie de Seint Auban. Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 177, fol. 31r © The Board of Trinity College Dublin.

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2 Matthew Paris, the jewels of St Albans. British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 146v © The British Library Board.

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3 Pope Adrian IV, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 9v © The British Library Board.

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4 King Æthelred II, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 4v © The British Library Board.

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5 Abbot John de Maryns, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 19v © The British Library Board.

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6 Shrine base of Saint Alban's Shrine. St Albans Abbey. Photograph: Deirdre Carter.

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7 Abbot John Whethamstede, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 27r © The British Library Board.

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8 Counterseal of King Henry VI, impression of 1442. British Library Add. Ch. 5309 © The British Library Board.

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9 Abbot Richard d’Aubigny, from the Gesta abbatum. British Library Cotton MS Claudius E IV, fol. 107r © The British Library Board.

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Illustrations 10 Head reliquary of Saint Eustace. London, British Museum, no. 1850,1127.1 © The Trustees of the British Museum.

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Katherine A. Rush, Lost and Found: Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records 1 Ivory Casket with Scenes of Romances. Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, 71.264, reproduced with kind permission of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (photograph: Susan Tobin).

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2 Saint Hedwig, from Life of the Blessed Hedwig. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, MS Ludwig XI 7 [83.MN.126], fol. 12v, reproduced with kind permission of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

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3 Virgin of the Sainte-Chapelle. Paris, Musée du Louvre. OA 57 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre)/Martine Beck-Coppola. 171 Katherine Baker, Parisian Painters and their Missing Oeuvres: Evidence from the Archives 1 Excerpt from the inventory of Germain de Marle, 7 January 1507/08. Paris, Archives nationales, Minutier central des notaires de Paris, box ET/VIII, 26. Photograph: Katherine Baker. 236 2 Vespasian’s Sickness and Healing from the Vengeance of Christ series. Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Collection of the Dépôt Hospices civils de Reims, D.876.1.19. Photograph: Katherine Baker, reproduced by kind permission of the Dépôt Hospices civils de Reims.

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3 First Intervention of the Angel, in Ars de bien mourir, Antoine Vérard, Paris, 1493/94. Washington DC, Library of Congress, Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Incun.1494.A75, reproduced by kind permission of the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

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4 Detail: lower border of Vespasian’s Sickness and Healing from the Vengeance of Christ series. Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Collection of the Dépôt Hospices civils de Reims, D.876.1.19. Photograph: Katherine Baker, reproduced by kind permission of the Dépôt Hospices civils de Reims.

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Victoria Yuskaitis, The Mythical Outcast Medieval Leper: Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints 1 The two low side windows, facing each other, at Dodington Church, Kent, identified by Archdeacon Edward Trollope, after Trollope’s illustration in ‘Low Side Window in Dodington Church.—Letter from Archdeacon Trollope’, Archaeologia Cantiana 9 (1874), 236.

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2 The so-called squint at St Julian’s Church, Norwich. Photograph: Victoria Yuskaitis.

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Illustrations 3 The so-called squint at All Saints, King’s Lynn, Norfolk. Photograph: Victoria Yuskaitis.

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4 The so-called squint at the Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street, Durham. Photograph: Victoria Yuskaitis.

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5 View of the second storey of the anchorite cell in which the squint is found, which has now been repurposed into a museum, Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street, Durham. Photograph: Victoria Yuskaitis.

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6 The anchorite squint at St Peter’s Church, Barnburgh. Photograph: Victoria Yuskaitis.

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The editors, 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.

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Abbreviations ANS BAACT BL CCCM CCSL GA LE ODNB OMT PL RS TRHS

Anglo-Norman Studies British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions British Library Corpus Christianorum Continuatio mediaevalis Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina Gesta Abbatum Liber Eliensis Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford Medieval Texts Patrologia Cursus Completus. Series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–65) Rolls Series Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

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Acknowledgements The volume has its roots in a series of sessions held at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, in 2019, and the editors are grateful to all the participants in those discussions. As we drafted and re-drafted our papers, we have all leaned heavily on colleagues near and far, too many to name individually here, but all deserving our heartfelt gratitude. The librarians, keepers and curators at the various repositories that we have consulted have supported this work, as have the readers and the staff of Boydell & Brewer and the anonymous readers who helped to get all of these essays into good form. The essays were developed during the global pandemic, which began in late 2019. As a result, many of the authors had limited access to both primary and secondary sources. Readers should therefore be aware that the references may not be as extensive as the authors would have liked.

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Introduction Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver

Anyone reading or writing about the Middle Ages quickly runs up against the issue of absence, and the frustration of trying to piece together a picture of the past from a few fragments of evidence. Surviving texts and objects provide evidence for the existence of many more human-made items that can no longer be located. The loss of medieval texts, historical and otherwise, is coupled with an even greater loss of the material record. Surviving textual accounts of the material culture of this period – of the churches, palaces, houses, boats, reliquaries, wall paintings, textiles, ivory mirror cases, book bindings, and much more – not to mention contemporary documentation of secular collections and sacred treasuries, present a tantalising glimpse of medieval life, and hint at the richness that material sources had for medieval authors, and might have had for us had they survived. Such records, the circumstances in which they were created and how we should (and should not) use them, are the main subjects of this book. The potential for objects as records, and perhaps even creators, of history was as much at play in the past as it is today. In the Middle Ages, some of those who set out to write about the past made reference to the evidential potential of a wide variety of artefacts.1 In the early twelfth century, Orderic Vitalis, writing about sources for the reign of William the Conqueror, observed that the churches that the king had built ‘stand as noble witnesses to his piety and generosity’.2 In England, in the early thirteenth century, Thomas of Marlborough described relics, books, and precious objects that had been given to the abbey of Evesham in the eleventh century to be ‘lovingly preserved here for ever’.3 Such accounts not only served to link past and present, but were used to construct arguments for the actions and character of the people associated with them. Thus, Thomas claimed that ‘Earl Leofric and Countess Godgifu, wisely rejecting the world for the most part […], magnificently built the abbey at Coventry and many other churches in their love for God, and enriched them with

A. Gransden, ‘Realistic Observation in Twelfth-Century England’, Speculum 47 (1972), 29–51; D. Roach, ‘The Material and the Visual: Objects and Memories in the Historia ecclesiastica of Orderic Vitalis’, Haskins Society Journal 24 (2012), 63–78. 2 Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, 6 vols., OMT (Oxford, 1969–80), II, 190–1. 3 ‘laudabiliter reseruandas hic perpetuo’, Thomas of Marlborough, History of the Abbey of Evesham, ed. J. Sayers and L. Watkiss, OMT (Oxford, 2003), pp. 150–3. 1

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Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver lands, possessions, and many beautiful treasures’.4 These included a small black cope, a green chasuble, a large cross and figures of the Virgin and St John in silver and gold, none of which is known to survive. In addition, medieval writers mentioned documents and other artefacts that were no longer extant in their own times in a range of contexts, for example to demonstrate the miraculous survival of other items, or as part of explanations of known gaps in records.5 Such accounts can provide insights into the values assigned to objects by those describing them. Not all the artefacts described were treasured; for example a rush mat at St Wulfstan’s shrine in Worcester Cathedral destroyed by fire was expendable and only mentioned to stress the miraculous survival of the shrine.6 Moreover, medieval texts include accounts of deliberate destruction, such as that of books and rolls concerning pagan gods supposedly found in a wall cavity at St Albans in the eleventh century, but described in a text preserved in a thirteenth-century manuscript.7 Such items were not considered a loss by medieval writers, though modern readers may feel differently. If we apply our present-day categories, historical writing is a slippery genre for the Middle Ages, often blurring into hagiography and sometimes fiction – perhaps most famously in the case of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s hugely influential account of the kings of Britain, including mytho-historical figures such as Arthur. Yet even Geoffrey’s history was constructed, in part, through references to known sites and monuments, including Stonehenge, which Geoffrey claimed had been transported from Ireland by Merlin.8 Moreover, when old documents were produced to support claims to rights and privileges, the physical form as well as the textual content was considered an important factor in assessing their authenticity.9 Objects, including, but not limited to, texts, provided evidence of past human actions. This, in turn, helps to explain why images of important historic objects were sometimes included in compilations of documents. For example, the relic of the “black cross” believed to have been made from nails used at the crucifixion, which was a treasured relic at Abingdon, was both described in text and depicted in a cartulary-chronicle probably Ibid., pp. 152–5. See M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 3rd edn (Chichester, 2013), pp. 150–1. 6 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: The History of the English Bishops, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom with R. M. Thomson, 2 vols., OMT (Oxford, 2007), I, 438–9. 7 H. T. Riley, ed., Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, 3 vols., RS (London, 1867–69), I, 26–7; see also Clanchy, From Memory, p. 151; and for further discussion of the Gesta abbatum see Gerry, Collard and Carter’s contributions to this volume. 8 Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, ed. M. D. Reeve, trans. N. Wright (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 174–5. 9 A. Hiatt, The Making of Medieval Forgeries: False Documents in Fifteenth-Century England (London, 2004), pp. 1–35; Clanchy, From Memory, pp. 256–62; J. Berenbeim, Art of Documentation: Documents and Visual Culture in Medieval England (Toronto, 2015). 4 5

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Introduction produced c. 1225.10 This collection of essays focuses on texts that purport to give accounts of real, rather than imagined, man-made objects that, like the Abingdon cross, have not survived. No medieval object survives in exactly the state it had in the Middle Ages and an enormous amount of material has been “lost”, that is destroyed, whether deliberately, accidentally or through natural decay, or buried, whitewashed or reworked such that it is no longer recognised. This loss has not affected all medieval objects equally. Some materials survive better than others. Wood is more likely to have crumbled than stone and ivory is more difficult to rework than gold. In addition, objects from the early Middle Ages have had more time to decay or be damaged than those made at the end of a period that spans approximately 1,000 years. Churches have survived in much greater numbers than secular or monastic buildings due to their continued use, albeit usually in significantly altered form as they were adapted according to changing taste, wealth, patronage, population levels, and religious practice. Manuscripts have survived in remarkable numbers due to a combination of their materials and appeal to antiquarians, although even here some types of text have fared better than others, and heavily decorated books, desirable for aesthetic as well as documentary reasons, have probably survived disproportionately well. Geography has also played a part in survival. The essays in this volume focus on case studies from the areas that form the modern nations of England and France, a focus informed by the rich tradition of historical writing and record-keeping in these regions (but which was, of course, not exclusive to those areas). In England, relics and reliquaries have fared extremely badly due to the deliberate destruction of the Reformation, but in Continental Europe their survival rate is much higher. In France many churches were damaged during the Revolution, which was succeeded by large-scale restoration programmes in the nineteenth century. More localised events have also had an impact on the available evidence, from the frequent fires of the Middle Ages, through the famous conflagration of Robert Cotton’s library at Ashburnham House in 1731 and the bombs of the Second World War, which destroyed most of Chartres’ medieval books, to the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019. Yet the case of the Cotton Library is a significant reminder of the importance of human actions even in the context of disasters, as some books, notably the Lindisfarne Gospels (British Library Cotton MS Nero D IV), were rescued unharmed, whilst others, such as the Beowulf manuscript (British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A XV), suffered relatively minor damage, and yet others, famously the Cotton Genesis (British Library Cotton MS Otho B VI), were severely damaged or destroyed. One result of centuries of damage and destruction is that certain kinds of research questions now find a much richer evidence-base than others. This means that research on different periods and subjects has developed in different ways. For example, the lack of surviving material for the 10

London, BL Cotton MS Claudius B VI; see L. Cleaver, Illuminated History Books in the Anglo-Norman World, 1066–1272 (Oxford, 2018), p. 138.

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Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver early Middle Ages has encouraged approaches that draw on a wide range of source material, while for the later Middle Ages many texts remain unedited and under-studied. At the same time, the development of different disciplines, focused primarily on distinct types of evidence, and in pursuit of different aims, has sometimes contributed to diverse readings of sources. For example, Baudri of Bourgeuil’s poem for Adela of Chartres, written in the early twelfth century, has been read as a description of the Bayeux Tapestry, or something like it, and as an allegory designed to attribute ideal qualities to its subject.11 One of the aims of this collection is to bring together essays by scholars with different disciplinary expertise and interests to showcase a range of approaches to the fundamental issue of loss for the study of the Middle Ages. Although most of the essays in this volume are rooted in art history, they include contributions from experts in literature, archaeology and history. The “known unknown” problem of lost objects has prompted logical responses in many fields. In manuscript studies the emphasis on copying in the production of books has resulted in hypothetical models with lost archetypes and missing links. The “genealogical method” developed in the context of textual criticism, which compares the surviving copies of a text to infer archetypes from which they were derived, has also been applied in art history, most famously in the work of Kurt Weitzmann.12 Scholars working on objects in other media, where multiple copies rarely survive, have brought together the evidence provided in a variety of sources to produce their own textual and visual accounts of lost artefacts. For example, Sandy Heslop used a combination of textual and visual sources to reconstruct hypothetically the paintings at the chapter house at Worcester.13 Similarly, attempts have been made to create images of lost shrines, most recently with the use of computer-generated imagery, drawing on evidence from texts, images and the physical remains, to imagine Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury.14 In the case of the Canterbury models, there is much more

See Baudri de Bourgueil: Poèmes, ed. J.-Y. Tilliette, 2 vols. (Paris, 1998), II, 3–43; J.-Y. Tilliette, ‘La chambre de la comtesse Adèle: savoir scientifique et technique littéraire dans le c. CXCVI de Baudri de Bourgueil’, Romania 102 (1981), 145–71; N. P. Brooks and H. E. Walker, ‘The Authority and Interpretation of the Bayeux Tapestry’, in The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. R. Gameson (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 63–92; S. A. Brown and M. W. Herren, ‘The Adelae Comitissae of Baudri of Bourgueil and the Bayeux Tapestry’, in The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. R. Gameson (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 139–56. 12 See K. Weitzmann, Illustrations in Roll and Codex: A Study of the Origin and Method of Text Illustration (Princeton, 1947); M.-L. Dolezal, ‘Manuscript Studies in the Twentieth Century: Kurt Weitzmann Reconsidered’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 22 (1998), 216–63. 13 T. A. Heslop, ‘Worcester Cathedral Chapterhouse and the Harmony of the Testaments’, in New Offerings, Ancient Treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson, ed. P. Binski and W. Noel (Stroud, 2001), pp. 280–311. 14 J. Jenkins, ‘Modelling the Cult of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 173 (2020), 100–23; for an earlier, less digital approach to the same problem, see S. Blick, ‘Reconstructing the 11

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Introduction evidence for some elements than others, resulting in the remarkable decision to base the large painted and gilded wooden shrine cover (of which no examples survive) on very small enamel caskets, which have survived in significant numbers, but with no explicit evidence that they resembled shrine covers.15 This underlines the differences between textual descriptions and visual representations of objects, in which fuller detail must be supplied, an issue also pertinent to the study of textual and visual sources more broadly. A fundamental point raised in many of the essays in this volume is the degree of mediation of a text, image, or in some cases multiple texts and images, between the medieval object in question and our encounter as modern readers with that artefact. It will come as no surprise to those accustomed to working with historical texts that we cannot simply take these written accounts, themselves often surviving only through later copies (as in the case of the destruction of pagan books at St Albans, or Gervase of Canterbury’s account of the fire that damaged Canterbury Cathedral in 1174), as simple records of fact or statements of disinterested observation.16 The question of the intention, context, and bias of the author becomes particularly complicated when we consider textual accounts of visual images or other artefacts, which were also conceived and created as points of interpretation and argument, with the intention of presenting a certain point of view. Highly crafted objects often present their makers’ or commissioners’ views in a veiled or indirect way, sometimes relying heavily on metaphor, artistic convention and the conceit of representation to communicate and promote complex and often controversial ideas. These can be particularly difficult to reconstruct when filtered through second-hand accounts, whether textual or visual. Cases where multiple accounts of the same object survive, as, for example, with the lost jewels of St Albans Abbey, examined here by Judith Collard and Deirdre Carter, demonstrate not only changes over time, but also the impact of the maker of each new record in interpreting the item before them or even copying another source. The abundance of sources from St Albans is exceptional, and the desire to fill apparent gaps has led to very different readings of texts by modern scholars with different interests and perspectives. A famous case is Conrad Rudolph’s attempt to reconstruct Hugh of Saint Victor’s complex diagram, arising from exegesis of Noah’s ark. Rudolph posits that a visual representation of Hugh of Saint Victor’s text De arca Noe mystica once existed, perhaps as a wall-painting at the abbey of Saint-Victor on the outskirts of medieval Paris.17 In contrast, Mary Carruthers has argued that Hugh’s text

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Shrine of St. Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral’, in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. S. Blick and R. Tekippe (Leiden, 2005), pp. 407–41. Jenkins, ‘Modelling’, p. 111. For Gervase of Canterbury see Cleaver in this volume. See C. Rudolph, “First, I Find the Center Point”: Reading the Text of Hugh of Saint Victor’s The Mystic Ark (Philadelphia, 2004); C. Rudolph, The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 2014).

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Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver was supposed to be imagined by the reader or hearer, as part of medieval memory-training practices.18 In the absence of the abbey complex at SaintVictor, the remains of which are now beneath and embedded into modern Paris, or of a copy of the diagram, such debates are unresolvable, although it is not impossible that a copy, perhaps something like the remarkable diagrams on parchment in the archive at Vercelli, might yet be identified.19 Archaeology provides a constant reminder that what is lost does not necessarily stay lost. The contributors to this volume were asked to focus on a particular source or type of source to create case studies for an approach to issues of loss in connection with human-made objects of the Middle Ages. The results reflect the different evidence-bases available for different eras. The essays are therefore organised chronologically, although recurring themes emerge. For the early Middle Ages, Joshua Davies and Bethany Whalley follow in Roberta Frank’s footsteps in thinking about literature in conjunction with archaeology.20 For an era with very limited surviving evidence, archaeological discoveries, such as the Sutton Hoo burials and more recently the Staffordshire Hoard, have the potential radically to alter our understanding of the period and its textual sources. However, Davies draws on the description of a hoard in Beowulf and twenty-first-century attempts to manage the discovery of hoards in order to explore how hoards represent loss on multiple levels. Like elaborate burials such as those found at Sutton Hoo and Prittlewell, hoards contain objects whose significance shifted as they were buried, no longer serving the functions for which they were ostensibly created. Yet while burials did not, strictly speaking, represent lost artefacts to those who constructed them (although the precise contents were lost to collective memory over time, the site must have been known for at least some period of time after the initial interment), the knowledge of the location of hoards was probably much more restricted, and discovery through modern archaeology demonstrates that no-one in the later Middle Ages was able to locate the items. Turning to Riddles in Old English and Latin, Whalley’s chapter focuses on the difference between literary and archaeological sources. Whalley explores the parallels between riddles as a form, in which meaning is unstable, and ideas of both creation and loss. In addition, she examines the potential parallel in some riddles between ships and books, which arises because both are complex, highly crafted objects that travel through both space and time. In this Whalley draws attention to both a rich body of evidence for lost objects, and to the sophisticated play with ideas of

18

19

20

M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 2008), p. 303. T. Leonardi and M. Rainini, ed., Ordinare il mondo: Diagrammi e simboli nelle pergamene di Vercelli (Milan, 2019). R. Frank, ‘Beowulf and Sutton Hoo: The Odd Couple’, in Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo, ed. C. B. Kendall and P. S. Wells (Minneapolis, 1992), pp. 47–64.

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Introduction creation and destruction in these texts that make them complex evidence for physical artefacts. From the twelfth century, the relative abundance of written sources allows for explorations of a range of engagements with human-made artefacts in texts, albeit dominated by ecclesiastical sources. Karl Kinsella examines Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae to investigate how history and liturgy were combined in accounts of objects associated with ecclesiastical rituals. Such descriptions of objects can be highly detailed, suggesting that an author had a particular example in mind, or generic, allowing a reader to draw on their own experience of objects and apply the ideas of the text to their own environment. They therefore provide insights both into the types of objects that once filled medieval churches and attitudes towards them. As with Whalley’s essay, Kinsella demonstrates the complexity of texts that have been read as descriptions of medieval churches and their furnishings, in which medieval authors grappled with the potential to evoke objects that did not survive in their own time in order to shape the meaning readers might then find in contemporary artefacts. Katherine Weikert’s chapter addresses the links between objects, performance and the creation of written records, in this case in three inventories of the precious objects at Ely Cathedral preserved in the Liber Eliensis. Weikert calls attention to the selective nature of inventorying, and the practical and ideological concerns that might have informed such processes. Ideas of historical significance and present relevance helped to ensure the preservation of objects as well as the creation of new records of them in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. While Weikert addresses records of survival, Laura Cleaver examines two well-known accounts of destruction: those of Gervase of Canterbury and Jocelin of Brakelond on devastating fires at the major shrines of Canterbury Cathedral and Bury St Edmunds. Gervase’s work has been of significant interest to architectural historians, but, as Carol Davidson Cragoe observed, many scholars have been highly selective in their use of the text, omitting the parts not directly related to the building in their editions and translations.21 Cleaver argues that while these texts provide valuable evidence for lost shrines, and particularly for the ephemeral material associated with them, they should be read as part of a textual tradition informed by both hagiographic and historical writing, and therefore not so different from the texts studied by Weikert and Kinsella as they might initially seem. For the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, three authors have chosen to engage with the remarkably rich sources produced by Matthew Paris and the community at the Benedictine monastery of St Albans. In part, this is a result of the history of modern editing. Paris’s work was edited in the nineteenth century, laying the foundations for scholars exploring a wide range of topics in the context of his work in the twentieth and twenty-first C. Davidson Cragoe, ‘Reading and Rereading Gervase of Canterbury’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 154:1 (2001), 40–53.

21

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Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver centuries. Paris has been studied as an author, a scribe and an artist, but he can also be understood as an editor and reviser, and his account of the deeds of the abbots of St Albans (the Gesta abbatum, which includes the account of the destruction of the pagan books) acknowledges his debt to earlier monks, for example in the form of a roll attributed to Bartholomew and Adam the Cellarer.22 This roll does not survive, making Paris’s work a witness to lost objects on many levels. The Gesta abbatum provides details of a range of objects created on the instructions of the abbots of St Albans. Kathryn Gerry’s chapter focuses on the evidence provided about textiles, some of the most vulnerable objects of the Middle Ages. Her essay draws on surviving textual and visual evidence to offer a means of attempting to reconstruct two twelfth-century textiles with images of St Alban described in thirteenthcentury sources from St Albans. Gerry combines a critical reading of the textual evidence with a search for potential visual clues in surviving objects in a wide range of media. This provides insights into material that was produced in large quantities but survives in tiny ones. Her work demonstrates the extent to which modern scholars are dependent on surviving material as a reference point for what has not survived. Turning to another type of object with a poor survival rate, Judith Collard focuses on Matthew Paris’s account of gems at St Albans, in which the jewels were depicted and described in the accompanying text. The limited survival of jewellery has been determined not by its fragility, but by the potential for stones to be reset and metal to be melted down and refashioned. Such activities took place in the Middle Ages, when even shrines and reliquaries might be stripped to release the capital contained in metal and gems, as well as during subsequent political and cultural shifts.23 At the same time, large numbers of medieval rings survive, and the numbers are being added to on a regular basis by metal-detectorists and professional archaeologists. This underlines the abundance of such material in the Middle Ages and explains Paris’s emphasis on the unique features of the items he drew and described. Paris’s inventory of gems is notable for its combination of a physical description and notes on the objects’ history. The account occupies three pages in British Library Cotton MS Nero D I (fols. 146r–147r). Collard examines the evidence for Paris’s familiarity with metalwork, as both a writer and illustrator, and a potential metalworker. She argues that Paris’s textual and visual account of the

22

23

See J. G. Clark, ‘Introduction’, The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta Abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, trans. D. Preest and ed. J. Clark (Woodbridge, 2019), pp. 8, 9; R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 182–9; for the text, see Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 41. For an example of such activity, see the account of Abbot Geoffrey of St Albans Abbey selling off the materials intended for the shrine of St Alban in order to provide for the poor during a period of famine: Riley, ed., GA, I, 82–3; see also M. Bagnoli, ‘The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval Reliquaries’, in M. Bagnoli, et al., ed., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (New Haven, 2010), pp. 137–47 (p. 138).

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Introduction gems needs to be understood in the context of the community’s archive as part of a long, and ongoing, history of donations from important figures both within and outside the monastic community. Deirdre Carter also uses Paris’s account of the St Albans jewels, but compares this with the textual and visual record provided in the Liber benefactorum (Book of Benefactors) created in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Carter notes that the visual record of objects from St Albans is unusually rich, but must be treated with caution and as part of a long-standing visual tradition at the abbey. She also analyses the choices made as to content and appearance in the representation of objects, providing a parallel with Weikert’s argument about selective inventorying in the earlier material from Ely. St Albans was not the only community to have its treasures represented in images as well as text in the later Middle Ages, and the studies collected here may serve as a starting point for text and images in other contexts. One example, the representations of St Edmund’s shrine (the same shrine discussed by Jocelin of Brakelond in the context of a fire in 1198), included in copies of John Lydgate’s life of St Edmund, serves as another important reminder of the interpretative role of artists. For example, in British Library Harley MS 2278, copied between 1434 and 1439, on fol. 9r the shrine appears to be located in a space surrounded by an iron grille, while in the miniature at the same point in British Library Yates Thompson MS 47, fol. 4r, produced in about 1470, it seems to be surrounded by patterned hangings and set on a tiled floor (Figs. 1–2). Moreover, in the Harley manuscript, although the golden shrine remains largely the same in representations throughout the text, the details of the setting change. This seems to have been the result of the artist’s creativity, perhaps in discussion with a patron, rather than an attempt to suggest changes over time, and is a reminder that artists could create images from descriptions, drawing on their memory of related material or other images, without necessarily having seen the object being represented.24 From the late fourteenth century a new type of evidence for objects survives in the form of personal or household inventories for laymen and women, and these are the subject of three essays in this volume. Katherine Rush and Marian Bleeke both focus on records of ivories in such documentation. In their exploration of inventories as potential sources for writing history, both take a more nuanced approach than has sometimes been the case in earlier scholarship. Rush draws on both the textual evidence and surviving examples of works in ivory to attempt to reconstruct histories for two noblewomen. She argues that although it is now extremely difficult to reconcile surviving ivories with inventories, these sources, whether produced for a living owner or as a posthumous account of possessions, provide insights into not only the physical forms of objects, but also their social, cultural and financial value to the makers of these records. Bleeke 24

See also K. Scott, ‘Caveat Lector: Ownership and Standardization in the Illustration of Fifteenth-Century English Manuscripts’, English Manuscript Studies, 1100–1700 1 (1989), 19–63.

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Figure 1: The shrine of St Edmund, John Lydgate’s life of St Edmund, 1434–39, British Library Harley MS 2278, fol. 9r.

Figure 2: The shrine of St Edmund, John Lydgate’s life of St Edmund, c. 1470, British Library Yates Thompson MS 47, fol. 4r.

Introduction argues that the limited survival of ivory objects, together with colonial attitudes, may have led us to over-value the rarity of ivory, which appears in very large quantities and often associated with low prices in medieval documents. She also explores the evidence for the location of ivories and mixed-media objects within households at particular moments in time, and the impact that context can have on how we understand the significance of these items. Katherine Baker tackles works in a different medium: painting and its associated practices. Using estate inventories, contracts and other documentation, she explores the evidence for painters and their productions in late-medieval Paris. The relatively rich accounts provide a basis for an analysis of the materials, subjects and values assigned to this medium, examples of which, like textiles, are now almost entirely lost. Although this volume is organised chronologically, many of the types of sources discussed were not restricted to a narrow timeframe. Lists of objects survive from throughout the period and pose similar problems of interpretation, including their original purpose and the usually unrecorded criteria used to decide what was (and was not) included. Similarly, images of objects in sources produced across Europe survive from throughout the Middle Ages, although in many cases it is unclear to what extent they were intended to represent specific objects, rather than a generic type of object. A point raised by this collection of case studies, and one that will perhaps prevent us from drawing any universal conclusions or formulating unified theories, is the way in which sources are inflected for their presumed audience. Not only the intention and format, but the amount and type of information included in a textual account vary significantly across documents drawn up for different purposes. The information considered valuable in the inventories drawn up for individuals, as shown in the essays by Baker, Bleeke, and Rush, varies considerably from the accounts created for monastic communities, evidenced in the contributions from Carter, Cleaver, Collard, Gerry, and Weikert. In these sources, which we might label, in a basic way, as catalogues or archives, real objects are listed, but the variation of detail and the lacunae of information that modern readers would like is frustrating at best, and often, as Baker puts it, feels like trying to collect sand in a sieve. As we move away from these documentary sources and into areas that we might broadly label literary, such as the texts discussed by Kinsella, Whalley and Davies, the reasons for discussing certain categories of objects, and thus the information about those categories considered to be relevant by their medieval authors, becomes even more nuanced and elusive. Although these essays, looking at a wide variety of source texts to glean information and ideas about a wide variety of lost artefacts, might not lead us to any single theoretical or methodological approach, they offer points of consideration, both practical and theoretical, for making sense of such disparate evidence. The problems posed for medievalists by the lack of material evidence challenged eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarians as much as the academic researchers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and the methods and assumptions used by antiquarians to fill in these

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Kathryn Gerry and Laura Cleaver gaps have in some cases created as many problems as they solved. In the final essay in this collection Victoria Yuskaitis examines the pitfalls of interpreting archaeological remains, often restored or otherwise altered, without an explicit medieval written parallel. Taking the case of low side windows in churches, she explores how nineteenth-century writers attempted to explain these as anchorite or leper squints and the impact that this has had on the development of modern scholarship. Her work underlines the extent to which our interpretations of the Middle Ages are grounded in the questions and concerns of the time in which we write, and the danger of using our assumptions to fill gaps in the evidence. This volume is, of course, not an exhaustive survey of the known lost objects of the Middle Ages nor of approaches to their study, not least because one of the challenges of researching medieval Europe is that there must have been a huge amount of ephemeral material that does not survive and leaves no trace in written, pictorial or archaeological records (the “unknown unknowns”).25 Moreover, the sources and approaches presented here are not the only ones that may yield fruitful results for our understanding of medieval culture. Instead, this collection is designed to be a starting point for further research that seeks to take account of the rich material culture of the Middle Ages, whether in northwestern Europe or beyond, that is no longer directly accessible, in its assessment of historiography both medieval and modern. A greater awareness and appreciation of the once-rich material culture of this period will also enable academic researchers to engage a wider public audience more effectively, pulling back the curtain, as it were, on the beauty, subtlety, and sensorially immersive experience of life in the past. For most people, medieval texts, written in Latin and other now-obscure languages, often working with arcane intellectual models and heavy-handed moralisations, are a barrier rather than a bridge to the historical past. Works of art, architectural structures, and other aspects of material culture, on the other hand, offer a chance for direct and immediate engagement with this past, for a sense of connection to the people that have lived before us. Although much of what has been lost cannot be fully recovered or represented, this volume provides examples of how we can examine and reimagine some of the lost culture of the Middle Ages and use it to shed new light on a wide range of topics.

25

See M. Camille, ‘At the sign of the “Spinning Sow”: the “other” Chartres and images of everyday life of the medieval street’, in History and Images: Towards a New Iconology, ed. A. Bolvig and P. Lindley (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 249–76.

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1 Hoard Fever: Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging1 Joshua Davies

To whom does a lost object belong? It depends on the object, and who finds it. Today, in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, the discovery of lost objects is governed by the 1996 Treasure Act. If an object is discovered that is (a) at least 300 years old and at least 10% precious metal; (b) a coin that is at least 300 years old (and, if the coin is less than 10% precious metal, discovered in a group of at least 10 coins); or (c) another type of object found with material that meets the requirements of (a) or (b), then it is classified as Treasure and must be declared. The Act applies only to objects that are lost in the sense that it excludes objects that belong to the original owner or their relatives. If a museum wants to acquire objects defined as Treasure, the Treasure Valuation Committee convenes to assign a value to the object, which is usually split between the finder and the landowner. 95% of objects classified as Treasure are found by amateur metal detectorists.2 Other countries have different ways of protecting and valuing lost objects. To take just three proximate examples, in Scotland, detectorists are required to report the discovery of any object of ‘archaeological significance’, almost regardless of its origin;3 in Ireland, the use of metal detectors is heavily regulated and it is illegal to use a detection device without prior written approval from the government;4 in France, a detectorist requires written permission from both the landowner and the préfecture (regional

I thank the editors for the opportunity to join this project and for their patience and advice throughout the writing process. I thank the anonymous reader for their feedback and Beth Whalley for sharing her work. 2 This paragraph relies on the summary of the Act provided by R. Bland, et al., ‘The Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme in England and Wales’, in Key Concepts in Public Archaeology, ed. G. Moshenska (London, 2017), pp. 107–21 (pp. 108–9). The Act is available online: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ ukpga/1996/24/contents (accessed 30.7.2021). 3 Further information is available online: https://treasuretrovescotland.co.uk (accessed 26.7.2021). 4 The legislation is available online: http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1930/ act/2/enacted/en/print (accessed 26.7.2021). 1

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Joshua Davies police authority) before any search is undertaken.5 While the 1996 Treasure Act attempts to reward the individual finder and landowner, in Ireland, Scotland and France the regulation appears to be determined by a sense of collective ownership, a belief that lost historical objects can only properly belong to a people, not a person.6 This essay is prompted by stories of objects lost and found.7 Lost objects leave gaps in a society’s knowledge of the past that are often only, if ever, recognised and understood after careful study, or following an extraordinary discovery. Until the discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard in 2009, for instance, the many references to gold in Old English literature were not matched in the archaeological record. Terry Herbert found over five kilos of gold in Hammerwich and recast the presence of gold in the Old English corpus.8 Discoveries, like losses, are relational. The objects encountered in this chapter were all lost and found as elements of hoards. “Hoard” is a very broad term. As Leslie Webster and Tania Dickinson write, ‘Many different factors – economic, social, political and religious – govern why particular objects are deliberately assembled and deposited together’.9 It is hard to know why or how an object might belong to a hoard. The contents of a hoard are determined by value judgements that may or may not be recognisable by those who later encounter it. For the purposes of this chapter, I am interested in the hoard as transitory state – a moment of loss, after an object’s circulation and before its rediscovery. An uncovered hoard is an unreadable letter from the past.10 While the objects that make up a hoard may be recovered and interpreted, the circumstances of burial and the rationale of composition are usually lost, like the buried objects themselves. Rediscovered lost objects pose questions as well as providing answers. Prompted by the discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard, Karen Eileen Overbey and Maggie M. Williams ask:

Guidance is available online: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/ LEGIARTI000006845775/ (accessed 26.7.2021). 6 See further D. W. Harding, Rewriting History: Changing Perceptions of the Archaeological Past (Oxford, 2020), pp. 87–102. 7 Objects were not only deposited in the ground. On deposits in wetlands and water see J. Lund, ‘At the water’s edge’, in Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited, ed. M. Carver, A. Sanmark and S. Semple (Oxford, 2010), pp. 49–66. On loss and early medieval England more broadly see, among others, G. Henderson, Losses and Lacunae in Early Insular Art (York, 1982); A. Lester-Makin, The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World (Oxford, 2019); R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval England (London, 1952). 8 On the discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard see H. E. M. Cool, ‘Discovery’, in The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon Treasure, ed. C. Fern, T. Dickinson and L. Webster (London, 2019), pp. 3–4. 9 L. Webster and T. Dickinson, ‘Hoards and hoarding’, in Staffordshire Hoard, ed. Fern, Dickinson and Webster, pp. 322–49 (p. 322). 10 Martin Carver describes early medieval burials as a form of poetry. See M. Carver, ‘Burial as poetry: The context of treasure in Anglo-Saxon graves’, in Treasure in the Medieval West, ed. E. Tyler (York, 2000), pp. 25–48. 5

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Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging How do we historians of material culture deal with such a displaced and enigmatic group of objects, especially while they are still in fragments? Our familiar starting points are provenance, production, iconography, and context; these are the means by which we fix a work of art in place and time, give it a ‘biography’ or even a title. But the Hoard resists that kind of fetishism: it is not a solid thing; it is at once singular and collective.11Although the hoard is a singular event, it contains layers of losses. The objects that make up a hoard have already been removed from their earlier contexts: hilts without swords; crosses bent over themselves. As they are buried, objects are joined together to become a single hoard but retain their individual histories of facture, use and value, to some degree at least.

The questions posed by Overbey and Williams mark out some aspects of what I term ‘hoard fever’. Like Jacques Derrida’s ‘mal d’archive’ (‘archive fever’), it is a conflicted state of being, characterised at the moment of deposition by a need to dispose and preserve and at the moment of discovery by a struggle to comprehend the riches offered up by the ground while simultaneously grappling with the new losses revealed by the discoveries.12 Even after discovery, a hoard is always defined by an element of loss – a discovered object might be damaged beyond comprehension, might reveal a previously unknown iconographic tradition, method of making, or network of cultural contacts. Then there is the question of value. A hoard consists of objects deemed valuable enough to hide. A hidden object is lost to the social world even if it remains treasured by the individual or group responsible for hiding it. As its location passes beyond living memory, either through willful loss or negligence, the object is transformed and its loss may become an important part of its identity, use and value. All of this is related to the question of belonging: how do hoarded objects belong to the moments of deposit and discovery? To the person or people depositing the objects or discovering them? This essay discusses objects from and responses to a number of hoards. It focuses its attention on early medieval England, although the questions it asks might be applied to other contexts. It begins with the hoard that determines the final disasters of the Old English poem Beowulf and moves on to think through the stories of two discoveries made in the last decade. The story of the cup stolen from the dragon’s hoard shares some common ground with the story of the Leominster Hoard, which was uncovered – illegally – in 2015 and the Galloway Hoard which was uncovered – legally – in 2014. Despite Roberta Frank’s warnings, Beowulf is never far away when an early medieval hoard is discussed in contemporary Britain, and the disposal, discovery and display of the Galloway and Leominster hoards are clearly in conversation with the poem’s

K. E. Overbey and M. M. Williams, ‘Hoards, Hoarders, Hordes, and Hoarding’, Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 7 (2016), 339–45 (p. 342). 12 See J. Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. E. Prenowitz (Chicago, 1996). 11

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Joshua Davies materialist imagination.13 Beowulf does not presume that the value of a hoard is stable. It acknowledges the complex temporal relations that any hoard contains and the questions of use and belonging that hoards pose. It provides a stark account of the dangers of hoard fever. *** Beowulf survives – barely – in the Nowell Codex, which now forms part of London British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A XV. Copied around the year 1000, although the poem was composed at some point before that, the manuscript was almost lost in the Ashburnham House fire of 1731 and many leaves are now severely damaged.14 Towards the end of the poem, a hoard of lost objects is disturbed, and a series of dire events unfolds: Þær on innan giong nið(ð)a nathwyl(c, se ðe ne)h g(eþ[r]on)g hæðnum horde; hond (eðe gefeng) (searo) since fah. Ne he þæt syððan (bemað), þ(eah) ð(e he) slæpende besyre(d wur)de þeofes cræfte; þæt sie ðiod (onfand), b(u)folc b(i)orn(a), þæt he gebolge(n) wæs.15 (A man went inside there, moved towards the heathen hoard – grasped in his hand […] skilfully decorated jewels. He got no profit there, though he had been tricked in his sleep by a thief: the people knew, all those around, that he was enraged.)

The poem tells us that the trespasser was a ‘þeo’ (2223, servant or slave) driven by ‘þreanedlan’ (2223, dire distress). He stole the cup so he might give it to his ‘mandryhtne’ (2281, master) in order to renew their relationship. His act also, however, provokes the dragon and leads ultimately to the death of Beowulf and, perhaps, the extinction of the Geats. The origin story that the poem provides for the hoard is complicated. The objects appear to have been held by two different groups of people before finally being taken into the dragon’s protection.16 The hoard was also cursed at some point although the poem does not make clear when, why or by R. Frank, ‘Beowulf and Sutton Hoo: The Odd Couple’, in Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo, ed. C. B. Kendall and P. S. Wells (Minneapolis, 1992), pp. 47–64. 14 The manuscript is digitised by the British Library: https://www.bl.uk/ manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Vitellius_A_XV (accessed 30.7.2021). 15 R. D. Fulk, R. E. Bjork and J. D. Niles, ed., Klaeber’s ‘Beowulf’, 4th edn (Toronto, 2008), lines 2214–20, p. 75; subsequent references to this text refer to this edition and provide only line numbers. 16 On the ambiguities of the dragon’s hoard see, among others, P. Beekman Taylor, 13

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Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging whom.17 What is clear is that the objects are associated with a now absent ‘æþelan cynnes’ (2234, noble people). As Denis Ferhatović writes, the hoard is ‘associated with more than loss. It results from near extermination’.18 Ferhatović focuses his analysis on the stolen cup and notes that it appears to offer important lessons on the life and meaning of objects: the drinking vessel stands for the back and forth of the heroic community, the passing of the drinking vessel that signals conviviality. We may assume that the creature does not use the goblet appropriately, not only because he has no thanes and holds no beer-gatherings, but also because dragons do not drink from such objects. The cup cannot lose its association with its previous owner; a piece of plunder seized by the servant to reintegrate himself into the society cannot itself be reintegrated. Indirectly, it causes havoc.19

The cup might be intended to bring people together, but its improper use drives them apart and ultimately ends lives. Hoards unify and distinguish, collect and separate. Both the ‘þeo’ and the dragon misunderstand the value of the cup and misuse it. They are brought into a kind of fellowship by the object. In a way their treatment of the cup marks them as belonging together. This is a point made subtly by the poem as, when it describes the moment of the cup’s theft, the pronouns shift ambiguously between the thief and the dragon: ‘Ne he þæt syððan (bemað), / þ(eah) ð(e he) slæpende besyre(d wur)de / þeofes cræfte’ (He (the thief) got no profit there, / though he (the dragon) had been trapped in his sleep by a thief’s trickery). These lines decentre the place of the actors in the scene, allowing the cup to occupy the dominant position in the social network. For Aaron Hostetter, ‘The hoard represents what objects might become without humans there to interpret them’.20 It also demonstrates what lost objects might unleash upon their return to the social world. In their state of hoard fever, the Geats ultimately decide that the only thing to do with the hoard is rebury it. The lost objects become lost again. Leslie Webster notes that ‘the placing of the unburnt treasure with the cremated remains of Beowulf finds no real archaeological parallel, and suggests that the narrative is led by the need to consign the ill-gotten treasure back to the earth’.21 There ‘The dragon’s treasure in Beowulf’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 98 (1997), 229–40. 17 See further W. Cooke, ‘Who cursed whom, and when? The cursing of the hoard and Beowulf’s fate’, Medium Ævum 76 (2007), 207–24. 18 D. Ferhatović, Borrowed Objects and the Art of Poetry: Spolia in Old English Verse (Manchester, 2019), p. 143. 19 Ibid., p. 149. 20 A. Hostetter, ‘Disruptive things in Beowulf’, New Medieval Literatures 17 (2017), 34–61 (p. 54). On the poem’s material imagination see also J. Paz, Nonhuman Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture (Manchester, 2017), pp. 34–58. 21 L. Webster, ‘Archaeology and Beowulf’, in Beowulf: An Edition with Relevant Shorter Texts, ed. B. Mitchell and F. C. Robinson (Oxford, 1998), pp. 183–94 (p. 194). But see also the unburnt goods included alongside cremations noted by S. Lucy, The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death (Stroud, 2000), pp. 108–9.

17

Joshua Davies are multiple narratives at play here, however: the narrative of the poem and the narratives of the objects themselves. Each requires resolution, none offers much promise for profit. Some lost objects are not worth the trouble. *** The problem with the objects drawn from the dragon’s hoard is summed up in the poem by the word ‘unnyt’. After the cup is stolen, the final movement of the poem contains few surprises. As Beowulf’s burial mound is constructed, the poem describes the treasure buried with him as ‘eldum swa unnyt swa hit æror wæs’ (3168, as useless to men as it ever was). When Beowulf requests that the treasure is buried with him as part of the ‘gemyndum’ (2804, memorial) that he names ‘Biowulfes Biorh’ (2807, Beowulf’s Barrow), it is not codified as a loss. By the end of the poem the grim judgement is clearly fitting, even as it comes after over 3,000 lines often devoted to the accumulation and exchange of objects and the stories they carry with them. That ‘unnyt’ treasure is the dragon’s and in its immediate context it is understandable why it might be a matter of regret. Yet the word ‘unnyt’ carries a rich range of meanings that reach beyond the funeral scene to tap into a broader field of thought. Translators have struggled to capture the ambiguity of the judgement with, for example, Hostetter offering ‘unavailing’;22 S. A. J. Bradley ‘unuseable’;23 Edwin Morgan ‘useless’.24 It is clear that the word means all this and something more besides. The funeral scene is the second appearance of ‘unnyt’ in Beowulf. The first comes from Beowulf himself, in his very first speech as he explains what he knows of the Danes’ problems: Me wearð Grendles þing on minre eþeltyrf undyrne cuð; secgað sæliðend þæt þæs sele stande, reced selesta rinca gehwylcum idel ond unnyt, siððan æfenleoht under heofenes haðor beholen weorþeð. (409–14, This business with Grendel was made known to me on my home turf; seafarers say that this building, most excellent of halls, stands idle and useless to every man, when evening’s light, the brightness of heaven, is hidden.)

Again, the power and breadth of the word is captured to some degree by the poem’s translators. Hostetter renders the phrase ‘idel ond unnyt’ as 22

23 24

A. Hostetter, trans., ‘Beowulf’, The Old English Poetry Project, line 3168, https:// oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/beowulf/ (accessed 26.7.2021). S. A. J. Bradley, trans., ‘Beowulf’, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1982), p. 494. E. Morgan, trans., Beowulf: A Verse Translation in Modern English (Manchester, 2002), line 3168, p. 83.

18

Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging ‘idle, impotent’ (line 413); Marijane Osborn offers ‘empty and useless’;25 Chris McCully ‘beset, unused’.26 Edward Condren suggests that the word works metonymically in the poem to refer to human communities by way of judgement of their use of material objects. Of the first use of the word in the poem, he suggests that it ‘may actually refer […] to the Danes’ rather than the hall,27 and he suggests that the second use of the word ‘emphasises the difference between Beowulf and the generality of men’.28 Some of the sense carried by ‘unnyt’ can be determined by ‘nyt’. Much more common than ‘unnyt’, it is a word that appears to have been especially useful to the riddle tradition. In Riddle 25 from the tenth-century manuscript known as the Exeter Book, the onion/phallus is described as ‘neahbuendum nyt’ (a help to neighbours);29 in Riddle 32, the ship/wheelbarrow, is described as ‘Moncynne nyt’ (helpful to mankind).30 Context determines whether it describes a solitary or communal experience. The Bosworth-Toller AngloSaxon Dictionary acknowledges the breadth of the meanings of the word in its definition as ‘use, advantage, profit’, but it is clear that the word’s precise semantic range is very difficult to capture in modern English.31 There is a broader context here, too, because ‘idel’ and ‘unnyt’ are words that often appear together in the Old English corpus and carry what Elizabeth Tyler calls ‘homiletic connotations’.32 The formula ‘idel ond unnyt’ appears in one other poetic text, the biblical adaptation known as Genesis A, and numerous homilies and other texts. In Genesis A, the ‘Metod engla […] lifes brytta’ (121–2, maker of angels [… and] giver of life) is just about to create the world as he looks out on a ‘wida grund’ (104, wide land) that was ‘deop and dim, drihtne fremde, idel and unnyt’ (105–6, deep and dark, alien to himself the Lord, idle and useless).33 A Life of St Martin writes of ‘hæðenan gild’ (heathen gold) that was ‘idel and unnytt’ (idle and useless).34 The formula was also often used to condemn speech, as 25

26 27

28 29

30 31

32

33

34

M. Osborn, trans., Beowulf: A Verse Translation with Treasures of the Ancient North (Berkeley, 1983), line 412, p. 16. C. McCully, trans., Beowulf: A New Translation (Manchester, 2018), line 412, p. 41. E. I. Condren, ‘Unnyt Gold in Beowulf’, Philological Quarterly 52 (1973), 296–9 (p. 298). Ibid., p. 299. Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501; ‘Riddle 25’, B. Muir, ed., The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry, 2 vols. (Exeter, 2000), I, 303, line 2; numbering of the riddles varies between some editions. ‘Riddle 32’, Muir, ed., Exeter Anthology, I, 308, line 9. ‘nyt’, J. Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, ed., An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, digitised by O. Tichý, et al. (Prague, 2010), http://www.bosworthtoller.com/ (accessed 26.7.2021). E. Tyler, Old English Poetics: The Aesthetics of the Familiar in Anglo-Saxon England (York, 2006), p. 153, n. 79. A. N. Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised (Tempe AZ, 2013), p. 149. See further J. Fitzgerald, Rebel Angels: Space and Sovereignty in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 2019), pp. 30–1. D. G. Scragg, ed., ‘Homily XVIII: De Sancto Martino Confessore’, The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, Early English Text Society Original Series 300 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 291–308 (p. 301), line 187.

19

Joshua Davies when the Alfredian Boethius writes of ‘idelan hlisan & þone unnyttan gilp’ (idle fame and useless glory).35 The phrase works to emphasise the value of Christian knowledge. Turning back to Beowulf, these usages suggest the phrase is not so much about loss as unrealised potential, a judgement on unworthy actions. ‘Unnyt’ is a political judgement in the sense that it is a judgement against a people. It is also a social judgement, as it locates an individual’s actions in their fullest social context. It suggests not just a lack of purposeful activity, but a lack of self-knowledge. It marks a loss, not in the sense of a disappearance or even necessarily a known absence, but in the sense of a deficiency. These ideas are defining characteristics of hoard fever. The entry for the year 418 in the text commonly known as the E Manuscript of the AngloSaxon Chronicle could mark a point of origin for early medieval hoard fever. It records the following bizarre claim: Her Romane gesamnodan ealle þa goldhord ðe on Brytene wæron 7 sume on eorðan behyddan þet heo nan man syððan findon ne mihton 7 sume mid heom on Gallia læddon.36 (This year the Romans collected all the hoards of gold that were in Britain; and some they hid in the earth, so that no man afterwards might find them, and some they carried away with them into Gaul.)

While it is easy to disavow its claims to historical truth, the entry captures something of the mixture of loss and discovery, ambiguity and knowledge, that is threaded through the account of the dragon’s treasure in Beowulf and captured especially in the word ‘unnyt’. The hoard is an explanation without a question. It explains a deficit that is perceived rather than quantifiable. *** A relatively short time before the anonymous scribe, dubbed “Scribe B” by modern researchers, committed the strange story of Beowulf and the dragon’s hoard to parchment, an unknown group or individual buried some objects in Eye, a village three miles to the north of Leominster in what is now Herefordshire, England. Over a thousand years later, in 2015, two men, George Powell and Layton Davies, discovered the objects and, again, a series of dire events unfolded. Like the ‘þeo’ of Beowulf, Davies and Powell ventured where they should not. The 1996 Treasure Act stipulates that the landowner must give permission before anyone digs on their land. If permission is granted, the Act ensures that any proceeds are divided between the landowner and the

35

36

M. Godden and S. Irvine, ed. and trans., The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2009), I, 282. S. Irvine, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Volume 7: MS E (Cambridge, 2004), p. 15.

20

Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging treasure seekers. The objects Davies and Powell found were located on land on which they did not have permission to dig. Without permission, they would be unable to profit from their finds. After their metal detectors pinged and they began to uncover lost objects buried in the ground, Davies and Powell failed to register their discovery with the local Finds Liaison Officer. Later, as their crime was under investigation, they declined to cooperate with the police investigation and refused to identify the find spot. In 2019 they were found guilty of theft, conspiracy to convert criminal property, and conspiracy to conceal criminal property; Davies received a sentence of ten years and Powell eight and a half. The sentences were appealed and later reduced. A subsequent investigation relevant to the Proceeds of Crime Law began with their conviction and at the time of writing is yet to conclude.37 If Powell and Davies had learned the lessons that Beowulf offers, they might have been more cautious and more thoughtful in their treatment of their ‘hæðnum horde’ (heathen hoard). Like the dragon’s hoard, the Leominster Hoard has much to say about loss and discovery, use and belonging. It is impossible to know precisely what Davies and Powell found as they were able to dispose of the vast majority of the objects. Those lost objects were very quickly lost again. Other objects, recovered from the thieves, have been studied and have revealed hitherto unknown gaps in historical knowledge. The objects reveal hidden political alliances, transnational connections, and deep histories. Writing in Current Archaeology, Tim Hoverd, Peter Reavill, Judy Stevenson and Gareth Williams note that the range of coins recovered from Davies and Powell ‘highlight the wide reach of Viking cultural contacts’.38 They include a ‘Frankish silver denier of Louis the Pious (814–840)’ and ‘a silver dirham of the Umayyad dynasty, probably minted in AH 102 (AD 720/721), possibly at Suq al-Ahwaz in south-west Iran’. The other coins are described as Anglo-Saxon and those which have received most attention were issued by Alfred of Wessex (reigned 871–99) and Ceolwulf II of Mercia (reigned c. 874–79). The authors write: It is these coins that provide the historical context for the hoard. The neighbouring kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia had at times been rivals and at times allies, and when Alfred became king in 871 he inherited

37

38

The case captured the public’s attention and received a great deal of media coverage. See, for example, in addition to the sources cited below, S. Morris, ‘Detectorists hid find that rewrites Anglo-Saxon history’, The Guardian, 21 November 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/21/ detectorists-hid-find-that-rewrites-anglo-saxon-history (accessed 30.7.2021); and J. Wilson, ‘In pictures, the astonishing treasures in Leominster’s Viking hoard’, Hereford Times, 22 November 2019, https://www.herefordtimes.com/ news/18054600.pictures-astonishing-treasures-leominsters-viking-hoard/ (accessed 30.7.2021). T. Hoverd, P. Reavill, J. Stevenson and G. Williamson, ‘The Herefordshire Viking hoard: Unpicking the story of a stolen treasure’, Current Archaeology (6 March 2020), https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/the-herefordshire-viking-hoard. htm (accessed 26.7.2021).

21

Joshua Davies an alliance with the then king of Mercia, Burgred (856–874). In 874, however, following three successive years in which the Viking ‘great army’ had occupied sites in Mercia, Burgred abdicated. He was replaced by Ceolwulf, who is dismissed in West Saxon sources written in the 890s as ‘a foolish king’s thegn’ and a puppet of the Vikings, with no suggestion of any alliance – but the coins tell us a very different story.

Hoverd, Reavill, Stevenson and Williams continue to write that these coins ‘provide vital evidence for an alliance between the two kings that is not attested to in written sources’. The coins demonstrate the power of rediscovered lost objects to rewrite our understanding of the past. These once-lost objects reveal gaps – that is, another type of loss – in the textual record. It is also worth noting that it was these extraordinary coins that ensured that the rogue detectorists failed in their attempts to avoid detection. The rarity and value of these coins ensured that Davies and Powell were unable to keep their discovery hidden. While few would go so far as to seriously suggest that these lost objects were cursed, as in Beowulf, they determined the fate of those who discovered them. While the coins are obviously of great historical significance, the other recovered objects also reward sustained attention. There is a crystal pendant, identified by Hoverd, Reavill, Stevenson and Williams as Frankish and likely to have been made between the fifth and seventh centuries, and a gold finger ring which recalls other early medieval objects made in the Trewhiddle style, a name derived from a Cornish hoard of metalwork from ninth-century England discovered in 1774.39 There is one other recovered object of extraordinary significance, a gold arm-ring or bracelet which Hoverd, Reavill, Stevenson and Williams describe as ‘closed by a stylised animal head apparently biting its own tail; it is probably of 9th-century Anglo-Saxon manufacture’. The note of doubt sounded by ‘apparently’ and ‘probably’ is due to the fact that there is no directly comparable surviving object from early medieval England. Again, this once-lost object reveals other losses. The object recalls the ‘searum gesæled’ (2764, cunningly twisted) ‘earmbeaga’ (2763, arm-rings) of the dragon’s hoard in Beowulf. Stylistically it registers as a sleek and restrained riff on the ornate stylised animals of interlace preserved in other early medieval objects and manuscripts. While Hoverd, Reavill, Stevenson and Williams decline to identify the animal, Rebecca Mead describes the object as a ‘gold arm bangle in the shape of a snake consuming its own tail’.40 Serpents are certainly a common feature of early medieval metalwork and stone sculpture, but regardless of whether or not the head is identifiable as a snake or some other serpent, it is hard

39

40

See L. Webster, ‘Style: Influences, chronology, and meaning’, in The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, ed. H. Hamerow, D. A. Hinton, and S. Crawford (Oxford, 2011), pp. 460–500 (pp. 483–4). R. Mead, ‘The curse of the buried treasure’, The New Yorker, 9 November 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/16/the-curse-of-the-buriedtreasure (accessed 26.7.2021).

22

Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging not to read the armlet as dealing in what Jane Hawkes has described as ‘the traditional symbols of protection’.41 The way in which it belongs in the archaeological record is clear enough. The Galloway Hoard, an early medieval deposit discovered by Derek McLennan, accompanied by David Bartholomew and Mike Smith, in September 2014 in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, provides a useful comparison with the Leominster Hoard. Originally understood as consisting largely of Viking objects, the Galloway Hoard is now known to contain objects produced and possibly acquired in a range of contexts.42 The objects were deposited in four distinct groups at two different levels – presumably the objects buried at the shallowest depth were intended to distract any would-be raiders from the true treasures directly below. What Martin Goldberg and Mary Davis call the ‘decoy layer’ consisted of silver bullion – arm rings, ingots and hacksilver (broken up objects valued as metal) – and a pectoral cross.43 Most of the arm-rings are in a well-known Hiberno–Scandinavian style although others are decorated in individual, distinctive ways.44 Many more are best described as ex-arm-rings as they were cut up before they were buried. The objects were lost before they were part of the hoard and lost again. These objects speak eloquently of the cultures of exchange – economic, social and cultural – that existed on the routes that connected Ireland and Scandinavia. The pectoral cross, however, is decorated in the Trewhiddle style. Its precise journey from the ecclesiastical world of its earliest contexts to its eventual deposition in Galloway is unknowable but appears to fit with numerous accounts of raids that survive in early medieval sources.45 The lower deposit held greater riches. Made up of three distinct groups of objects, the lower deposit contained some items similar to those found in the higher deposit. The largest group of objects consists of silver bullion, including arm-rings, hacksilver and ingots. Four arm-rings are marked with runic inscriptions. One has the Old English name ‘EGGBRECT’ inscribed upon it, while three others appear to be marked with abbreviations: ‘ED’; ‘TIL’; and ‘BER’. Goldberg and Davis suggest that these inscriptions are marks of possession, that they are evidence that the silver bullion in this part of the deposit had four different owners.

41

42

43

44 45

J. Hawkes, ‘Symbolic lives: The visual evidence’, in The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century, ed. J. Hines (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 311–44 (p. 323). On serpent motifs see also G. Speake, Anglo-Saxon Animal Art (Oxford, 1980), pp. 85–92. See also C. Fern, ‘Animal ornament in the Hoard’, in Staffordshire Hoard, ed. Fern, Dickinson and Webster, pp. 213–31. On the discovery and initial interpretation see O. Owen, ‘Galloway’s Viking treasure: the story of a discovery’, British Archaeology 140 (January-February 2015), 16–23. M. Goldberg and M. Davis, The Galloway Hoard: Viking-age Treasure (Edinburgh, 2021), p. 17. Ibid., p. 19. See, for example, the raid of Lindisfarne in 793 described in M. Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (London, 2001), pp. 54–7.

23

Joshua Davies The most extraordinary object in the hoard is a silver-gilt lidded vessel that was wrapped in textile before it was deposited. Analysis of the vessel by three-dimensional X-radiography has revealed decoration obscured by the textile and a potential origin. The object is dominated by images of fire altars that are bordered by curved lines that rush up the body of the vessel. Medallion-like forms make up a border around the neck.46 Goldberg and Davis argue that the vessel is associated with Zoroastrianism and note that the decoration of the vessel ‘is entirely unfamiliar from a western European or Christian art-historical perspective’.47 It is not possible to say how familiar the decoration was to the person or people who buried the object. Goldberg and Davis detail further iconographic elements of the design which secure their identification of its Zoroastrian origins and note: ‘These preliminary identifications are quite unexpected’.48 The contents of the vessel are also surprising and include, as Goldberg and Davis write: ‘one of the largest collections of Anglo-Saxon metalwork surviving from the 9th century AD, as well as objects not normally thought of as valuable, such as a rounded stone or balls of dirt’.49 This is a hoard-within-a-hoard, determined by its own private logic and a history of belonging that is currently lost to us. While the study of the Galloway Hoard is, as Goldberg and Davis emphasise at various points in their work, only in its early days, the wealth of information already drawn from the objects puts the crimes of Davies and Powell and the fate of the Leominster Hoard into stark relief. While the legal structures of England and Scotland attempt to put a price on lost objects, it is hard to overestimate the value of the scholarly work halted by the dishonesty of Davies and Powell. Some of that value is hinted at by a statement made by Amanda Blakeman, West Mercia Police’s Deputy Chief Constable, after Davies and Powell were convicted. Blakeman described Davies and Powell’s crime as an attempt to ‘criminally profit from removing the historical footprint of our country’ and attempted to reassure the public by stating that ‘It’s absolutely critical that we protect our heritage, our history, and we bring offenders to justice who are looking to profit from something that is owned by the community’.50 Blakeman’s words speak eloquently of the cultural importance these objects possess. Their value is revealed by the way in which Blakeman deploys the language of ownership and belonging and moves between ‘our country’, ‘our heritage’ and ‘our history’. But these words also hint at the power these objects hold. As Goldberg and Davis’s work demonstrates, lost objects can bring into question the very identity of the ‘our’ of The object is digitised: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/silver-lidded-vesselgalloway-hoard-edacd8487e954b91a25f67f05703316c (accessed 30.7.2021). 47 Goldberg and Davis, Galloway Hoard, pp. 65–6. 48 Ibid., p. 69. 49 Ibid., p. 71. 50 Anon., ‘Detectorists stole Viking hoard that “rewrites history’”, BBC News, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-50461860 (accessed 26.7.2021). 46

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Objects Lost and Found, Beowulf and Questions of Belonging Blakeman’s formulations. The true value of the lost objects would lie, in part, in the manner in which they alter the language used to speak of the past and open up new ways of thinking about how and to whom these objects might belong. Writing on the attitudes towards wealth in early medieval texts, Märit Gaimster argues that they demonstrate ‘that wealth in itself was not an ideal; it had to be used – and used in the correct way and in the right amounts. Rather, it was the creation and maintenance of social relationships – a gift demands a gift – that was central’.51 The same might be said of those objects lost and found in hoards. These objects – such as the lidded vessel from the Galloway Hoard and the Two Emperor coins from the Leominster Hoard – might be understood as kinds of gift that hold the promise of new relations between past and present, belonging to both and neither.52 It is hard to quantify that value. Those objects from the Leominster Hoard lost again through the deceptions of Davies and Powell carry with them lost knowledge, lost networks, lost insights. Those losses echo between past and present. *** Modern British ‘hoard fever’ perhaps began with the burial at Sutton Hoo, discovered in 1938 but promptly reburied at the outbreak of the Second World War.53 During the conflict the mounds were used to train tank drivers. The relationship between militarism and hoards continued after that. In the wake of the war, mine- and bomb-detecting technology was adapted to civilian use and the first metal detectors appeared on the market in the late 1960s.54 The detectorist is an amateur – literally, but not strictly, they do it for love.55 The 1996 Treasure Act was a response to the ubiquity of the new technology and the new power held by detectorists. In its attempts to put a price on access to the material remains of the distant past, the Act poses difficult questions around the right use of objects and the proper use of the past which coalesce around modern notions of heritage. 51

52

53

54

55

M. Gaimster, ‘Viking economies: Evidence from the silver hoards’, in Silver Economy in the Viking Age, ed. J. Graham-Campbell and G. Williams (Walnut Creek, 2007), pp. 123–33 (p. 126). Catherine Karkov makes a similar point regarding the Staffordshire Hoard but writes that ‘The change promised by the Hoard is elusive, and in many instances, the Hoard has simply served to reaffirm the existing order’, C. Karkov, ‘Hoards, hoarders, and other broken things’, Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 7 (2016), 456–68 (p. 458). On the reception of Sutton Hoo see F. Allfrey, ‘Sutton Hoo in Public: Newspapers, Television, and Museums’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, King’s College London, 2020). On the entry of the metal detector to the mass market see further C. Dobinson and S. Denison, with contributions by H. Cool and K. Sussams, Metal Detecting and Archaeology in England (London, 1995), pp. 2–7. On the medievalist amateur see C. Dinshaw, How Soon is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time (Durham NC, 2012).

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Joshua Davies Since the Second World War, “heritage” has become an industry in Britain. The rise of the idea of heritage in this sense is part of what Richard Terdiman has called late-modernity’s ‘memory crisis’, which he explicitly links to a collective experience of loss, a phenomenon also tied to the military history of the twentieth century.56 In Britain, the heritage industry emerged to sustained cultural prominence in the 1980s as other parts of the economy deindustrialised.57 Questions of belonging, individual responsibility and collective identity took on new urgency in the wake of decolonisation and Margaret Thatcher’s aggressive political, economic and social agenda. The 1996 Treasure Act, with its focus on individual profit and encouragement of entrepreneurial attitudes to the material past, belongs in this context. The Scottish devolution referendum allowed the legislative independence necessary to adopt different practices. Therefore, the history, discovery and interpretation of the Leominster and Galloway Hoards are determined by the peculiar political arrangements of the modern United Kingdom as much as the event of their burial, their circulation in the early medieval world, or the circumstances of their making. Similar complexity no doubt determined the burial sites of the hoards, although only some of it survives in the historical record. Davies and Powell travelled from Wales to England to find their hoard; Galloway was part of the early medieval English kingdoms of Bernicia and Northumbria. The Leominster Hoard was first displayed at the British Museum, the Galloway Hoard at the National Museum of Scotland. These locations mark a sudden change in the status of these objects from ‘unnyt’ to ‘nyt’ but are only pauses in the objects’ long histories. As with the hoard found and buried again in Beowulf, these objects will at some point be put to new use. To return to Beowulf’s funeral, it is possible to read the ‘unnyt’ treasure as juxtaposed with the activities of the funeral and the memorial promised by Biowulfes Biorh (2807). But it is not simply that the stories or the laments are ‘nyt’ while the objects have fully lost their social functions and are therefore ‘unnyt’. It is that the work of the objects has changed. Both the burial of these objects and their eventual loss perform an important social function as part of the rituals of the funeral and, while lost, they continue to do that work, whether it is recognised or not.

56

57

R. Terdiman, Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis (Ithaca, 1993). On loss see especially pp. 106–48. See, for example, R. Hewison, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline (London, 1987).

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2 Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition1 Beth Whalley

Historical records of conquest, migration and contact in the North Atlantic archipelago abound with sea-crossings: from Bede’s account of Augustine’s arrival in Kent in the sixth century, to the Norse landings from the eighth to the eleventh centuries documented in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.2 Ships were, without doubt, familiar sights in the sea- and riverscapes of early medieval Europe. Yet the sea-going vessels responsible for these worldmaking journeys are relatively elusive in the material record. Constructed from organic matter, ships from this period were often left to disintegrate underwater, by accident or as a form of ritual deposition, or were deliberately broken up to be recycled.3 The archaeological record thus offers a fragmented picture of a complex maritime industry; in England, the high-status East Anglian ship-burials at Sutton Hoo and smaller burials at Snape hint at the spiritual and economic significance of ships and seafaring for elite communities, but these survivals can only represent a fraction of the wrought vessels which once criss-crossed the seas, estuaries and rivers of the archipelago. This chapter explores some of the challenges and opportunities of locating the material cultures of watercraft in and through the literary record. As Roberta Frank’s influential essay on the ‘odd couple’ of Beowulf 1

2

3

My immense gratitude to Mike Bintley, Jennifer Neville and Denis Ferhatović for sharing resources and ideas, and to James Paz, Charlotte Rudman, Fran Allfrey and the editors and anonymous readers of this volume for their invaluable feedback on this work. This research could not have been undertaken without the support of the ‘Temporal Communities’ Cluster of Excellence at Freie Universität Berlin, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy in the context of the Cluster of Excellence Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective – EXC 2020 – Project ID 3900608380. See S. S. Klein, ‘Navigating the Anglo-Saxon Seas’, in The Maritime World of the Anglo-Saxons, ed. W. Schipper, S. S. Klein and S. Lewis-Simpson (Tempe AZ, 2014), pp. 1–20. See K. Thier, ‘Steep Vessel, High Horn-ship: Water Transport’, in The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World, ed. M. Clegg Hyer and G. R. Owen-Crocker (Exeter, 2011), pp. 49–72 (p. 49); and S. Brookes, ‘Boat-Rivets in Graves in Pre-Viking Kent: Reassessing Anglo-Saxon Boat-Burial Traditions’, Medieval Archaeology 51 (2007), 1–18.

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Beth Whalley and Sutton Hoo has shown us, when we take texts and objects to ‘illuminate’ one another, the affinity between them can become ‘exaggerated’.4 Yet the process of constructing worlds from absences can also provide occasion for thinking critically about the diverse material, cultural and political forces that shape any object in the past or present. Here, I look to depictions of ship-making and ship-breaking in Latin and Old English riddles from the fourth to the tenth centuries.5 Tracing the material maritime pasts and networks that are archived by riddle collections, I argue that the ship riddles articulate the ultimate paradox of watercraft; wooden vessels are simultaneously the pinnacle of human craftmanship and technological achievement, and enigmatic, breakable entities which evade complete human understanding and recovery in the present. Watercrafts, in weaving their way through the literary record, stand witness to the skill of their makers, but they also ultimately demand an engagement with the lost and the fragmentary by resisting present-day desires to find origins and fixed solutions.

Riddles and material culture Judging from the surviving evidence, riddling was a major international literary genre in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Collections of Latin riddles by the north African poet Symphosius (fourth century) and the anonymous, possibly Italian, Bern riddler (seventh century) inspired the English Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, to write 100 of his own Latin enigmata (c. 695).6 These collections circulated together throughout Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries,7 in turn inspiring Anglo-Latin collections by Boniface, Tatwine and Eusebius in the eighth century, and the nearly 100 Old English riddles of Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501 in the tenth century.8 The riddle texts range from one to more than 100

4

5

6

7

8

R. Frank, ‘Beowulf and Sutton Hoo: The Odd Couple’, in Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo, ed. C. B. Kendall and P. S. Wells (Minneapolis, 1992), pp. 47–64 (p. 47). There is a burgeoning body of scholarship on the relationship between Latin and vernacular riddles. See especially M. Cavell and J. Neville ed., Riddles at Work in the Early Medieval Tradition: Words, Ideas, Interactions (Manchester, 2020). On Symphosius as an African writer, see E. Sebo, ‘Was Symphosius an African? A Contextualizing Note on Two Textual Clues in the Aenigmata Symphosii’, Notes and Queries 56:3 (2009), 323–4. In this chapter, I take both Latin texts and modern English translations from Symphosius, The Aenigmata: An Introduction, Text and Commentary, ed. and trans. T. J. Leary (London, New York, 2014); and (for Bern) Variae Collectiones Aenigmatum Merovingicae Aetatis, ed. and trans. by F. Glorie, CCSL 133a (Turnhout, 1968), pp. 541–610. The Bern collection takes its name from the earliest surviving manuscript, Bern, Burgerbibliothek MS 611. Thomas Klein lists the manuscripts where the Symphosius, Bern and Aldhelm riddles appear together in ‘Pater Occultus: The Latin Bern Riddles and their Place in Early Medieval Riddling’, Neophilologus 103 (2019), 399–417 (p. 403). Dieter Bitterli addresses the relationship between Latin and vernacular riddles

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Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition lines, and, invoking subjects as wide-ranging as bibles, swords, needles, bridges, rain, and several different types of ship and ship-parts, they paint a vibrant picture of sacred and secular material culture. Many riddles are written in the voice of the objects themselves, enacting extraordinary shifts in perspective and tone. In these texts, everyday objects are brought centrestage to tell the stories of their creation, destruction and transformation. They demand to be listened to and interacted with in ways little seen elsewhere in the literary corpus. Riddles have historically been taken as useful counterparts to the archaeological record, with Erika von Erdhardt-Siebold arguing in 1932 that riddle-texts ‘can supplement and even substitute archaeological finds’.9 More recent scholarship, however, has warned against reading riddle-texts in this way. As Jennifer Neville puts it, riddles are ‘a precarious source of insight into material culture’ that ‘need to be treated with more caution than is usually accorded them’.10 For one thing, Latin and Old English riddles are part of a tradition which draws upon a matrix of classical learning, scriptural teachings and oral enigmatography from across multiple cultural contexts.11 We might think, for example, of the international riddle-type number 828, ‘Dead Bears the Living’, which plays upon the paradox of a dead tree (a ship) carrying living passengers. Folklorist Archer Taylor identifies distinguishable types of riddles across temporal and geographical boundaries, assigning each a unique number; ‘Dead Bears the Living’ appears in the Latin Bern Enigma 11, the Old English Rune Poem, Exeter Book Riddle 74, and Jamaican and Lithuanian analogues.12 Riddling motifs and formulae are global phenomena; we

9

10

11

12

in Say What I am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the AngloLatin Riddle Tradition (Toronto, 2009), pp. 13–34. The number of surviving Old English riddles can only be asserted as ‘nearly 100’ because the Exeter manuscript is unclear and, accordingly, the numbering of different editions of the riddles varies dramatically; Craig Williamson suggests 1–91 (The Old English Riddles of The Exeter Book (Chapel Hill, 1977)), Bernard J. Muir makes the case for 1–94 (The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry (Exeter, 2006)), while Jennifer Neville appealingly proposes that we get rid of the numbers altogether and title them using memorable words from within the riddle-texts instead (Jennifer Neville, ‘A Modest Proposal: Titles for the Exeter Book Riddles’, Medium Ævum 88:1 (2019), 116–23). Here, I use the most widely recognised 95-riddle system suggested by George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie in their edition: The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (London and New York, 1936). All quotations from the Old English riddles are from this edition; translations are my own. E. von Erhardt-Siebold, ‘An Archaeological Find in a Latin Riddle of the AngloSaxons’, Speculum 7:2 (1932), 252–6 (p. 255). J. Neville, ‘The Exeter Book Riddles’ Precarious Insights into Wooden Artefacts’, in Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World: Medieval History and Archaeology, ed. M. G. Shapland and M. D. J. Bintley (Oxford, 2013), pp. 122–43 (p. 122). Mercedes Salvador-Bello traces the classical influence on the riddles in Isidorean Perceptions of Order: The Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata (Morgantown, 2015). See A. Taylor, ed., English Riddles from Oral Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles,

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Beth Whalley cannot, therefore, take for granted that they reflect the author’s, or the scribe’s, lived reality. For another thing, these playful, metaphorical texts are designed to deceive. Familiar objects are veiled in defamiliarising language, so that an object, as we will see, can effortlessly shift between tree, ship, horse, iceberg and bird. This slipperiness is compounded in the Old English riddles which, unlike the Latin riddles, were not recorded with their solutions. Moreover, it is notoriously difficult to demarcate where each riddle begins and ends in the Exeter manuscript, and even to identify what is intended as a riddle and what is not.13 There are two Latin ship riddles from the western European tradition, perhaps seven more in the English vernacular, and several others which are at play with seafaring culture and maritime technologies.14 It is important to enter into dialogue with these ship riddles thoughtfully, remaining alert to the nuanced cultural, religious, political, economic and material networks that both contribute to and emerge from any literary text’s creation. However, though these riddles might not be able to function as von Erdhardt-Siebold proposed, as ‘supplements’ or ‘substitutes’ to the ships buried at Sutton Hoo or Snape, my wager is that, read carefully, the textual traces can be brought into constructive dialogue with the material remains. Riddle-texts, as particular forms of knowledge which emerge from a matrix of languages, environments and cultural and religious contexts, offer important flashes of insight into how writers from the fourth to the tenth centuries might have conceived of themselves in relationship to maritime materialities.

Crafting watercraft Several riddle-scholars, deploying critical work on thing theory and new materialism, have paid close attention to how the riddling corpus explores the material transformations of manmade objects over time, collectively making a convincing case for moving away from understanding riddling objects as inert artefacts, and towards inquiring into what literary texts can tell us about the agencies of more-than-human matter.15 James Paz’s

13

14

15

1951), pp. 309–11; P. Sorrell, ‘Oaks, Ships, Riddles and the Old English “Rune Poem”’, Anglo-Saxon England 19 (1990), 103–16; J. D. Niles, ‘Exeter Book Riddle 74 and the Play of the Text’, Anglo-Saxon England 27 (1998), 169–207. For instance, the relationship between Exeter Riddle 60 and The Husband’s Message, which immediately follows it in the manuscript, has been the source of extensive discussion. See Williamson, Old English Riddles, pp. 315–18. From the Latin riddles: Symphosius’s Enigma 13 (navis, ship) and Enigma 61 (ancora, anchor), Bern Enigma 11 (de naue, ship), Aldhelm’s Enigma 91 (farus editissima, tall lighthouse). From the Old English riddles: 3 (storm), 16 (anchor), 19 (ship), 32 (ship), 33 (iceberg), 36 (ship), 64 (ship), 74 (ship, water) and 95 (ship, book). Foundational critical work on the cultures of more-than-human things includes: A. Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986); B. Brown ed., Things (= Critical Inquiry 28:1) (2001); K. Barad,

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Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition important contribution, for instance, has demonstrated how riddling subjects assert themselves as fluid ‘things’ rather than as ‘objects’, thus ‘den[ying] us a solid object to scrutinise’.16 ‘Thingness’, according to Bill Brown, is that which is beyond intelligibility, temporalised as the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of the object and yet simultaneously coexisting with it.17 As both Paz and Kellie Robertson have pointed out, modern English ‘thing’ has its origins in Old English and Old High German þing, which originally meant ‘meeting, assembly’; as such, we might conceive of ‘things’ as assemblages, as Paz puts it, with ‘the ability to gather other elements – material goods, bodies, words, ideas – to [them]’.18 Some medieval European texts, in short, have been shown to be alive with the agencies, movements and voices of things, which in turn serve to destabilise familiar binaries between human and more-than-human, society and nature, medieval and modern, subject and object.19 This rings true for the cluster of Latin and Old English ship riddles which, as I shall show, are particularly invested in the tension between vessels as created objects of human craft, and vessels as elusive, agential and organic þings. This tension is made clear in the seventh-century Bern Enigma 11 (de naue, ship), which uses the ‘Dead Bears the Living’ motif to articulate something of the vessel’s ‘thingness’, its unintelligible life preand post- object:20 Mortua maiorem uiuens quam porto laborem. Dum iaceo, multos seruo; si stetero, paucos. Viscera si mihi foris detracta patescant, Vitam fero cunctis uictumque confero multis. Bestia defunctam auisque nulla me mordit, Et onusta currens uiam nec planta depingo. (Dead, I bear a greater labour than when living. When I lie dead I preserve many; if I remain standing, few. If my insides are exposed, pulled away outside, I bring life to all and collect sustenance for many. No beast or bird bites me when I am dead, and running along loaded down, I do not mark the way with my foot.)

Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Durham, 2007); and J. Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, 2009). 16 J. Paz, Nonhuman Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Material Culture (Manchester, 2017), pp. 59–97 (p. 63). 17 B. Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, Critical Inquiry 28:1 (2001), 1–22 (p. 5). 18 Paz, Nonhuman Voices, pp. 3–9; K. Robertson, ‘Medieval Things: Materiality, Historicism, and the Premodern Object’, Literature Compass 5 (2008), 1060–80. 19 See also H. Estes, Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination (Amsterdam, 2017), pp. 145–72; and P. A. Koppinen, ‘The Materiality of Fire in Legbysig and Ligbysig (R.30a and b) and an Unexpected New Solution’, in Cavell and Neville ed., Riddles at Work, pp. 265–76. 20 It is possibly the earliest extant version of the ‘Dead Bears the Living’ riddle, according to Sorrell, ‘Oaks, Ships, Riddles’, p. 103.

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Beth Whalley This riddle finds parallels in Symphosius’s fourth-century Enigma 13 (navis, ship), most visibly through the reference to the speaker’s many paths and the impermanency of its traces: longa feror velox formosae filia silvae, innumeris pariter comitum stipata catervis. curro vias multas, vestigia nulla relinquens. (Long, fast daughter of a handsome wood, I am carried, pressed at the same time by numberless crowds of companions. I run along many courses leaving behind no footprints.)

In both riddles, the vessel’s footprints sink without trace into the watery path upon which it travels: an important point to which I will return shortly. However, the means by which the vessels become vessels differ markedly. In Enigma 13, the makers are absent. The ship is a formosae filia silvae (daughter of a handsome wood) (1); it transitions from organism to powerful longship fluidly and seemingly spontaneously, coming into being through a naturalised process of gestation. By contrast the Bern riddler, in characteristic fashion, makes visible the moment of the speaker’s death and violent re-creation.21 The tree, speaking in the first person, explains how it is gutted of its viscera (internal organs, entrails, womb) (3), hollowed out, and subsequently enters into a life of labour as a small dugout logboat. This visceral metaphor, absent from Bern’s late antique source but used frequently in Aldhelm’s enigmata, draws attention to the power relations at work in any act of making, especially when that making is performed within a Christian context.22 As Corinne Dale argues, riddling depictions of humankind’s exploitation of useful natural resources correspond with theological notions of postlapsarian creation: humans are compelled to use their God-given skills of making to improve a fallen and imperfect world.23 Indeed, ship technology is depicted as one of the ultimate manifestations of such skills; in the fifth-century De civitate Dei xx.24, St Augustine lists navigation as one of the wondrous divine gifts attributed to humans by God.24 The modest merchant logboat of the Bern riddle and the imposing warship of the Symphosius riddle both become, in part, expressions of humankind’s dominance over the more-than-human world. This proximity between ships and virtuous crafting finds expression in the Exeter riddles, too. Most editors solve Exeter Riddle 32 as ‘ship’,

Klein, ‘Pater Occultus’, draws on several examples, including the ‘broom’ and ‘vine’ enigmas, to illustrate the Bern riddler’s comparative occupation with transformation, death and betrayal (pp. 405–8). 22 See Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, ed. and trans. M. Lapidge and J. L. Rosier (Cambridge, 1985), p. 64. 23 C. Dale, The Natural World in the Exeter Book Riddles (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 7–8. 24 Augustine, The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, ed. and trans. M. Dods, 15 vols. (Edinburgh, 1871), II, 525; Paz, Nonhuman Voices, also discusses this passage in relation to the candle-clock in Asser’s Life of Alfred (p. 71). 21

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Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition although ‘millstone’ and ‘wagon’ have also been suggested.25 As with Bern Enigma 11, this riddle emphasises the subject’s capacity for labour and provision – it ‘fereð foddurwelan, folcscipe dreogeð’ (ferries an abundance of food and performs for the people) (10) and provides to both ‘rice ond heane’ (rich and poor) (13) – which has led John Niles to the convincing conclusion that what is described might be more accurately described as a ceap-ship (merchant ship).26 Though the text moves away from the visceral spectacle of the Bern riddle, it too realises a sense of the ship’s material transformation through repeated references to the subject’s craftedness: Is þes middangeard missenlicum wisum gewlitegad, wrættum gefrætwad. Siþum sellic ic seah searo hweorfan, grindan wið greote, giellende faran. Næfde sellicu wiht syne ne folme, exle ne earmas; sceal on anum fet searoceap swifan, swiþe feran, faran ofer feldas. (This middle-earth is formed in diverse ways, made lustrous with ornaments. I saw a marvellous machine wander on journeys, grind into the grit and go, screeching. The strange creature had neither sight nor hands, shoulders nor arms; on one foot must the curious contraption wend, swiftly ferry, to travel over fields.) (1–8a)

Across six lines the subject is described as a ‘wræt’ (work of art, ornament) (2), a ‘sellic […] searo’ (strange machine) (3) and a ‘searoceap’ (crafted possession) (7). Searu is a semantically rich word which translates as ‘art, skill, machine’ as well as ‘artifice, wile, treachery’.27 The riddle establishes its strange, one-footed subject as a servile, crafted artefact which functions as a cipher for humankind’s ability to shape the material world to its own ends. This brings us to the modern English word ‘watercraft’. ‘Craft’ has its origins in Old English cræft (‘strength, skill, wisdom’; ‘cunning, guile’).28 With roughly the same semantic range as searu and Latin ars, it is complexly associated with material and intellectual excellence, with terrestrial and divine knowledge, with virtue and vice.29 It is not clear, however, whether cræft was ever used to refer specifically to vessels in this period. In her survey of Old English words related to seafaring, Katrin Thier claims that Williamson, Old English Riddles, p. 236. J. D. Niles, Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts (Turnhout, 2006), p. 146, n. 11. 27 ‘searu’, J. Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, ed., An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, digitised by O. Tichý, et al. (Prague, 2010), http://www.bosworthtoller. com/ (accessed 10.11.2020). 28 ‘cræft’, A. dePaolo Healey, et al., ed., Toronto Dictionary of Old English: A to I Online (Toronto, 2018), https://tapor.library.utoronto.ca/doe/ (accessed 10.11.2020). 29 See S. Kroesch, ‘The Semantic Development of OE “Cræft”’, Modern Philology 26:4 (1929), 433–43. 25 26

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Beth Whalley the only attestation of cræft as ‘ship’ is in the ninth-century poem Andreas, which contains a seafaring sequence in which Andreas praises the skill of the helmsman (Christ in disguise): ‘Ic georne wat ðæt ic æfre ne geseah ofer yðlāde on sæleodan syllicran cræft’ (498b–500).30 The Bosworth-Toller An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary cites this line in its entry for cræft in the sense of ‘ship’, translating it as ‘I never saw a more wonderful craft sailing on the sea’.31 However, a closer translation would read: ‘I know for sure that I have never seen a craft more amazing on the ocean amongst sea-goers’. It is not altogether clear, but cræft appears to refer to the seafaring skill of the Christ-helmsman here, rather than to the ship itself; after all, cræft is attested twenty-seven times in Andreas, in various collocations, and in no other instance can it be understood as referring to a ship.32 Nevertheless, that it is possible for ‘ship’ and ‘skill’ to be mistaken for one another in Old English sources is itself significant. Ship technologies are affirmations of skilled production, but more than that, the cræft of navigation and shipbuilding is unambiguously associated with spiritual journeying and virtuous Christian knowledge, which are together imagined to triumph over the cunning cræft of hell.33

Wreckages and remains If we read Riddle 32 in relation to the riddle that immediately follows it in the Exeter manuscript, however, the picture changes from ships as servile objects of Christian cræft to ships as agential things which move through and beyond human frames of reference. Mercedes SalvadorBello has observed that Riddles 32 and 33 are a ‘suggestive riddling doublet’ in that they compare things that float (ships and icebergs); I would further argue that the pairing illustrates a vessel’s making and subsequent unmaking.34 While Riddle 32 describes an artfully-made vessel functioning as its human maker intended, the first half of Riddle 33 recounts a hostile encounter between a ship and an iceberg which culminates in the ship’s destruction: Thier, ‘Steep Vessel’, p. 71; R. North and M. D. J. Bintley, ed. and trans, Andreas: An Edition (Liverpool, 2015), p. 144. 31 ‘cræft’, Bosworth and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. 32 A similar conflation of ‘ship’ and ‘skill’ is found in Benjamin Thorpe’s 1840 translation of the Old English Geþyncðo, an eleventh-century legal tract associated with Wulfstan of York. Thorpe translates ‘be his agenum cræfte’ as ‘by his own means’, but adds in the footnotes that ‘it is possible that cræft may here, as at the present day, signify a vessel’, referring to the same lines from Andreas to support his claim (Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1840), I, 192–3). 33 Several compound words are used to articulate this devilish cræft in Andreas, including dwolcræft (foolish craft) (34), morðorcræft (murder-craft) (177) and hellcræftum (hellish art) (1102). 34 M. Salvador-Bello, ‘Patterns of Compilation in Anglo-Latin Enigmata and the Evidence of a Source-Collection in Riddles 1–40 of the Exeter Book’, Viator 43:1 (2012), 339–74 (p. 365). 30

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Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition Wiht cwom æfter wege wrætlicu liþan, cymlic from ceole cleopode to londe, hlinsade hlude; hleahtor wæs gryrelic, egesful on earde, ecge wæron scearpe. Wæs hio hetegrim, hilde to sæne, biter beadoweorca; bordweallas grof, heardhiþende. Heterune bond (A creature came sailing wondrously over wave. The comely thing called from keel to land, resounded loudly; her laughter was ugly, fearsome on earth. Her edges were sharp. She was hate-savage, sluggish to battle, fierce in fighting; the hard-plunderer engraved shield-walls and bound them with a hate-rune) (1–7)

Here, the voices, skills and desires of human shipbuilders and seafarers are, as in Symphosius’s Enigma 13, absent. The ship in Riddle 33 is not a wræt, searu or cræft; instead, it is described metonymically as a bordweallas (shield-wall) (6). Rather than being defined in terms of its craftedness, the ship is understood in relation to, and as made up of, shields: other morethan-human things, which have their own tale to tell, in fact, in Exeter Riddle 5. Moreover, the ship is ultimately plundered, engraved and bound not by human hands, but by the powerful subject of the riddle, an iceberg, who is herself described in terms of her ship-like qualities, in that she is liþan (sailing) (1) and is, or has, a ceole (ship or keel) (2).35 In line 8, the subject is also described as searocræftig (skillful, cunning), a poetic adjective usually reserved for skilled craftspeople.36 The term marks a transference of craftiness from the human to the more-than-human, pushing back against anthropocentricity and making space for a more capacious realm of shaping and crafting. Denis Ferhatović has proposed a new grouping of ‘plunder riddles’ in the Exeter Book which draw attention to moments of ‘spoliation’, described by Ferhatović as a process whereby artefacts are relocated to a new, physical context highlighting their difference.37 Ferhatović shows that humans are plunderers of more-than-human things, as in Riddle 14 (horn), but that sometimes things plunder other things, as in Riddle 29 (moon and sun). In this chaotic world, creative and destructive energies are multidirectional. Riddle 33 could be readily added to this cluster, as a text which sees the ‘hard-plundering’ iceberg transform the tree, which had already undergone an earlier transformation to a ship. The plundered and engraved hulk of the wrecked ship reminds us that there are forces at work in the world beyond those set in motion by people, or by the divine, and that when things are plundered, they are not necessarily lost, but can be remade. 35

36 37

Ceol usually translates as ‘ship’, but it is closely related to its Old Icelandic cognate kjóll (keel); see Niles, Old English Enigmatic Poems, p. 233. Williamson, Old English Riddles, argues for amending ceole to ceolan (gorge, throat), which downplays the iceberg’s ship-like appearance but emphasises its noisiness (pp. 239–40). ‘searu-cræftig’, Bosworth and Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. D. Ferhatović, Borrowed Objects and the Art of Poetry: Spolia in Old English Verse (Manchester, 2019), pp. 36–45.

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Beth Whalley This brings me back to the curious attention paid to footprints in the Latin ship riddles. In both, the maritime subject travels vias multas (many paths), but leaves no vestigia (footprint, traces, ruins) behind. Yet the Exeter riddles call attention to the fact that, despite being materially elusive, ships and ship-like things, even in the Latin riddles, do create records of themselves, both in their transformed and inscribed material remains, as well as orally and textually, through the medium of the riddles. This becomes clear in the obscure final riddle of the Exeter collection, Riddle 95, which most critics now agree should be solved as ‘book’ or ‘writing’, but which Karl Persson argues could possibly be ‘ship’.38 The riddling subject is familiar to both ricum and heanum (high- and low-born people) (2), it fereð wide (travels widely) (3), and it does not sprecað (speak) (9) but brings wisdom (9) to many, leaving lastas (steps, tracks, traces) (11) in its wake. Persson draws upon Riddle 95’s close linguistic parallels to Riddle 32 to support his argument, and although he does not refer to either the Symphosius or Bern ship riddles, these could only strengthen his claim; vestigio, the term for ‘track’ used by Symphosius in Enigma 13, is glossed by last in both the early ninth century Corpus Glossary, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 144, and the mid tenth century First Cleopatra Glossary, British Library Cotton MS Cleopatra A III.39 In following the vestigia of the Latin riddles through and into the Old English texts, we find that, in fact, textual traces abound. However, there is a striking difference between the absent tracks in the Latin enigmas and the hidden ones in Riddle 95. The closing lines of the Old English text read: þeah nu ælda bearn londbuendra lastas mine swiþe secað ic swaþe hwilum mine bemiðe monna gehwylcum. (Though now children of men, land dwellers, seek my tracks very much, I at times conceal my traces from all people.) (10b–13)

This riddle’s subject is at a remove from the obedient, artfully-made vessel of Riddle 32 which ‘performs for the people’. Remaining constantly in motion, this shifting speaker – whether book or ship, singer, soul, riddle, sun or quill – steers itself away from the desires of ‘land dwellers’ to track it, pin it down, define it.40 Dieter Bitterli has made a strong argument for why Persson’s ‘ship’ solution to Riddle 95 is probably not the intended 38

39

40

K. Persson, ‘Scip: A Proposed Solution to Exeter Book Riddle 95’, in Schipper, Klein and Lewis-Simpson ed., The Maritime World of the Anglo-Saxons, pp. 227–45. W. M. Lindsay, ed., The Corpus Glossary (Cambridge, 1921), p. 68; T. Wright, ed., A Second Volume of Vocabularies (n.p., 1873), p. 29. For a full list of proposed solutions, see M. Korhammer, ‘The Last of the Exeter Book Riddles’, in Bookmarks from the Past: Studies in Early English Language and Literature in Honour of Helmut Gneuss, ed. L. Kornexl and U. Lenker (New York, 2003), pp. 69–80 (p. 69).

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Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition one, and on the balance of evidence I would be most inclined to understand the speaker as a book or some form of writing technology.41 Yet I think it is important not to allow competing (and complementary) solutions, including ‘ship’, to fade from view. In its deployment of hwilum (sometimes), the riddle suggests that the subject’s tracks are not wholly absent, but are shifting and multiple, sometimes hidden, sometimes in plain sight. The riddle articulates anxiety, but also possibility; lost and wrecked objects often resist complete reconstruction, but also make room for diverse interpretations and multivalent, interwoven human and morethan-human narratives.

Books and ships It is no coincidence that Riddle 95 can so readily be solved both as ship and book. That the paradoxical conveyance of non-verbal wisdom and the creation of difficult-to-interpret tracks can apply equally to ships and books suggests a close conceptual relationship between navigational technologies and scribal technologies, centring on the shared investment in modes of communication and contact. Indeed, Riddle 95 is not the only riddle which has ships and books in its orbit. Likewise, Riddle 19 – along with its close companion Riddle 64 – has at times been solved as both writing and ship. Both deploy challenging runic clues which scholars have debated extensively, but if we follow the critical consensus and decode the rune-groups as hors (horse), mon (man), wega (waves or way) and hafoc (hawk) then Riddle 19 yields a subject made up of a horse (ship or hand), man (helmsman or pen) and hawk (sail or pen-plume) travelling swiftly together along a path (the sea or a manuscript page). In Riddle 64, the addition of a set of runes in lines 5 and 6 which Craig Williamson decodes as ea-spor (water-track) and Norman Eliason as ea-sporu (ink-track) once again invokes the notion that ships and words alike leave watery footsteps as they move through the world.42 This simultaneity of craftedness and elusiveness in books and ships is also – to turn to an example from another cultural milieu – borne out in skaldic poetry. As Judith Jesch has pointed out, skaldic poems often use verbs of ‘cutting, slicing and inscribing’ to describe a sea-captain’s progress through water. The verb rísta (carve), Jesch argues, is used to describe both inscribing runes and travelling through the sea, implying 41

42

D. Bitterli, ‘Exeter Book Riddle 95: ‘The Sun’, a New Solution’, Anglia 137:4 (2019), 612–38 (p. 620). See N. E. Eliason, ‘Four Old English Cryptographic Riddles’, Studies in Philology 49:4 (1952), 553–65 (p. 560); Williamson, Old English Riddles, pp. 186–92, 325–30; Bitterli, Say What I Am Called, pp. 86–91. Victoria Symons notes the overlap of sea-travel and writing metaphors in ‘Commentary for Riddle 64’, The Riddle Ages: Old English Riddles, Translations and Commentaries, ed. M. Cavell, with V. Symons and M. Ammon (2017) https://theriddleages.bham.ac.uk/riddles/ post/commentary-for-exeter-riddle-64/ (accessed 10.11.2020).

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Beth Whalley ‘the same kind of knowledge and mastery in the sea-captain as in the runecarver’. She adds, however, that the ship is sometimes described in these terms without the intervention of humans; Þjóðólfr Arnórsson’s eleventhcentury Sexstefja, for instance, includes the line ‘eikikjǫlr reist ǫrðigt vatn’ (the oaken keel carved the steep water).43 For Jesch, this is unique to skaldic poetry and is merely metaphorical. To me, however, it is part of a broader literary culture which takes account of the creative agencies of more-thanhuman things. Furthermore, as shown here, this culture crosses multiple geographies, languages and times. Ships are like books, perhaps, but they also behave as scribes, and engravers: they are, or are subject to, cræft, but they are crafters too. These texts also attest to the idea that ships and books alike are the material products of collaborative endeavours. Much riddle scholarship has focused upon riddling books as assemblages of calfskin, ink, knowledge, tools and craft, made manifest in the much-discussed Exeter Riddle 26.44 Ships, too, are revealed to be socio-natural þings or assemblies, to return to Paz’s term. Maritime archaeologist Jonathan Adams has argued that ships are the most complex machines produced in any given period of history; shipbuilding is ‘a complex social activity involving organisation, co-operation and investment’ and requires ‘a synthesis of the skills of many different crafts’.45 A reading of the riddles reveals that for ships to function they in fact require the co-operation of actors both human and more-than-human, from the builders and crew to the constituent parts of keel, hull, sail, oar and anchor, and even the water upon which they move. In Symphosius’s Enigma 13, the speaking subject explains that it is carried along with ‘innumera pariter comitum stipante caterva’ (numberless crowds of companions) (2). It is not clear who these comites are; scholars have suggested fish, passengers, other ships and the other timbers of the ship, but it is quite possible that the riddle could mean of all these things at once.46 In Riddle 33, the ship is shaped, broken and re-shaped by shield and iceberg. In Riddles 19 and 64, the ships are envisioned as groupings of horse, man, bird, and the passage upon which they move. All these curious contraptions – carriers of knowledge, creators of crossings – are profoundly resistant to singular interpretations. Finally, if ships are like books, then books are like ships; always in motion, they cross boundaries and move through time as networked things. This seems especially relevant in reference to shapeshifting riddletexts which travel and transform across languages, voices, genres and times in a thoroughly ship-like way. By way of conclusion, I look to the work of contemporary poet and translator Miller Wolf Oberman, who

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44 45

46

J. Jesch, Ships and Men in the Late Viking Ages: The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse (Woodbridge, 2001), p. 177. See Dale, The Natural World, pp. 87–102. J. Adams, A Maritime Archaeology of Ships: Innovation and Social Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Oxford, 2013), p. 22. Symphosius, The Aenigmata, pp. 87–8.

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Lost Craft: Tracing Ships in the Early Medieval Riddling Tradition explores precisely this sense of maritime craftiness and mobility in his recent translation of Exeter Riddle 84 (water).47 Rather than attempting to fill in the gaps in this long and heavily damaged riddle, Oberman chooses to prioritise and preserve missing language – using square brackets and empty white spaces – in order to foreground how materials and texts move through, change, and are changed by, the world in complex ways. In his commentary, Oberman draws attention to the fragmentary phrase dyre cræft (dear craft) (13), which he imagines as a chance ‘floating raft of remaining language’ in a sea of burned manuscript.48 Playing on the intersections between watercraft and the craft of the poet and emphasising the agency of poems as things, Oberman writes that poems are ‘made up of action, of movement, of things that are not just made, but makers. We can set them off and let them make their own way, crafts that are crafts’.49 Oberman’s work is important because it reemphasises the notion, articulated through the elusive traces and tracks of the ship riddles, that material and textual cultures of the past – ‘odd couplings’, to return to Roberta Frank’s phrase – can never be straightforwardly recovered or reassembled in the present.50 Scholarship on the riddles has shown that all objects are porous, multiple and open to radical reinterpretation, but in this chapter I have begun to register how ships, texts, and texts about ships might be especially elusive. Ship riddles from across multiple periods and languages are not interested in complete material or textual reconstruction of the objects they depict, but in complex questions of creation, ruination, fragmentation and memory. Pre-modern ship riddles are challenging and disruptive sources, therefore, but careful cross-disciplinary and multi-linguistic readings can offer compelling insights into how human communities both shaped and were shaped by maritime matter. For that, they deserve to be taken seriously in studies of the material cultures of the past.

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48 49 50

M. Wolf Oberman, ‘Dyre Craeft: New Translations of Exeter Riddle Fragments Modor Monigra (R.84), Se Wiht Wombe Haefde (R.89), and Brunra Beot (R.92), Accompanied by Notes on Process’, in Cavell and Neville, ed., Riddles at Work, pp. 277–87. Ibid., p. 277. Ibid., p. 287. Frank, ‘Beowulf and Sutton Hoo’, in Kendall and Wells, ed., Voyage to the Other World pp. 47–64.

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3 Typological Exegesis and Medieval Architecture in Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae Karl Kinsella

In 1226, the French cardinal Odo of Châteauroux gave a sermon in which he recounted an experience from his boyhood. He described how, when looking at a window, he could not identify the subject in the stained glass, only that it was some sort of ‘parable or story’.1 A young man nearby explained that it illustrated the Good Samaritan, and continued his commentary by saying that the story demonstrated that lay people and not priests were more likely to offer charity. Odo’s sermon was no doubt rhetorically inflected for the sake of his audience, and perhaps the young man’s comment was made with his tongue in his cheek, but the memory raises questions about medieval audiences’ engagement with visual and architectural material in their church buildings. The young man’s novel interpretation subverts the institutional space for which the window was made, since we can assume that the local priest would not want his flock to think so little of him. The subversive reading works, and indeed is perhaps a little more humorous, because the interpretive act parallels contemporary intellectual systems used by clerics. The window has a plain meaning in so far that it shows a biblical story, but it has a deeper allegorical significance, one that our young man deliberately misreads. This type of material exegesis together with the systems put in place to institutionalise meanings and specifically to recall historical objects in the context of the medieval church are the subjects of this chapter. The Good Samaritan is a biblical character, part of a narrative about the past, but this chapter is concerned with how lost objects, the things of the past that can no longer be perceived, became present in the medieval church through material exegesis; that is, the act of engaging with the imperceptible significances embedded in architecture and church fittings. At the beginning of the twelfth century, there was a surge in liturgical commentaries that outlined the many meanings given to the Mass, the

1

F. Iozzelli, ‘Francesco d’Assisi “Buon Samaritano” nella predicazione di Odo da Chateauroux’, in Litterae ex quibus nomen Dei componitur. Studi per l’ottantesimo compleanno di Giuseppe Avarucci, ed. A. Horowski (Rome, 2016), pp. 269–90 (p. 286).

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae liturgical vessels and the church building. The commentaries from this period explicitly spell out the significance of these objects and while they are interesting in their own right, this chapter is primarily concerned with how some medieval liturgical objects and spaces were substitutions for historical objects. Underlining the importance of these commentaries, Emile Mâle argued ‘for the historian of art there are no books of greater value than the liturgical treatises, as through them he may learn to understand the spirit which moulded plastic art’.2 The supposed importance of these commentaries has, in some regards, been taken for granted, since scholars frequently evoke them in support of certain iconographical readings of churches, their parts or the furniture.3 To use the commentaries in this way is to take the meanings they describe out of context, thus obscuring their overall content, which is non-definitive and frequently contradictory. Mâle is certainly correct in highlighting their importance, but without critical analysis of the commentaries as a whole and especially the way in which they frame the material world, the modern reader is left with little sense of how twelfthcentury audiences interpreted the objects in the church. The commentaries were not iconographical dictionaries, but were, in fact, seen to uncover the very real but invisible meanings that lay under a thin veneer of stone, wood and glass. Overall, my argument is that at least one commentary by the author known as Honorius Augustodunensis took contemporary exegetical systems and applied them to the built environment, and in doing so transformed the inner natures of medieval structures and objects into historical objects that came to life. The text accomplishes this by revealing and understanding not just the simple appearance of these structures and objects but, more importantly, their inner nature. In my reading, I deploy a holistic approach to the commentary, taking into account its purpose and context, ensuring that it is not used as a simple like-for-like dictionary, but a complex source in its own right.

Honorius Augustodunensis and the Gemma animae Honorius Augustodunensis’s liturgical commentary known as the Gemma animae was written between 1110 and 1120.4 Honorius gave it the title of Gemma animae (‘Jewel of the Soul’) because ‘since gems clearly decorate a hall, the soul is decorated by the divine offices’, thus foregrounding the objects of material culture in the church from the beginning of the 2

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E. Mâle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, trans. D. Nussey (trans of 3rd edition of L’art religieux de XIIIe siècle en France, 1910; New York, 1913, repr. 1972), p. 20. For example, H. Lunnon, ‘Inventio Porticus – Imagining Solomon’s Porches in Late Medieval England’, British Art Studies 6 (2017), https://doi.org/10.17658/ issn.2058-5462/issue-06/hlunnon (accessed 10.11.2020). Honorius Augustodunensis is sometimes referred to as Honorius of Autun but as Endres has shown, he does not have any connection with the city: J.-A. Endres, Honorius Augustodunensis (Kempten and Munich, 1906).

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Karl Kinsella work.5 Honorius’s biography is shrouded in doubt, not least because he deliberately withheld his real name, afraid that his critics, such as Gilbert de la Porrée, would accuse him of heresy.6 One aspect which is certain is that Honorius had a close relationship with Anselm of Canterbury and probably spent time with him in Britain. V. I. J. Flint goes further and argues that Honorius was born in northern Italy or Savoy and possibly had familial ties with Anselm. He travelled to Canterbury with Anselm when the latter became archbishop and after his death in 1109 Honorius moved to Regensburg, where he spent most of his life.7 There are over thirty works ascribed to Honorius, making him a particularly prolific author for the period.8 His works show a concern for amalgamating other works and condensing them into encyclopædic collections that were dispersed widely throughout Europe during the twelfth century. The Gemma was most likely completed after Honorius moved to Regensburg, but much of it may have been written during his stay in Britain prior to 1109.9 Some of the earliest copies are found in southern Germany, which suggests that the work was distributed from there relatively early in the twelfth century.10 The preface includes a request from Honorius’s ‘brothers’ to write the work and to send it on to them. Honorius may have sent a copy back to Britain and to the monks at Canterbury since other twelfth-century copies were made in Britain, such as that recently discovered at York, Minster Archives MS XVI.1.II. Either way, it appears to be a work belonging to the earlier part of Honorius’s career, placing it between the years 1109 and 1120. Any reconstruction of the Gemma’s inception remains speculative until more work is carried out on its manuscript tradition. Liturgical commentaries provide a historical and allegorical rationale for the Mass and the feast days that take place during the year. Around the 5

6

7

8

9

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‘Quia videlicet veluti aurum gemma ornatur, sic anima divino officio decoratur’, Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, PL 172, cols. 541–738 (543). I have taken V. I. J. Flint’s final work as the main source for Honorius’s life; there is, however, significant disagreement over even the most basic aspects of his life. See V. I. J. Flint, ‘Honorius Augustodunensis’, in Authors of the Middle Ages. Vol II, Nos 5–6, ed. P. J. Geary, C. Mews, and V. I. J. Flint (Farnham, 1995), pp. 89–183. M.-O. Garrigues argues for a strong French connection in Honorius’s life, although there is little evidence either way. M.-O. Garrigues, ‘Qui était Honorius Augustodunensis?’, Angelicum 50 (1973), 20–49 and M.-O. Garrigues, ‘Quelques recherches sur l’œuvre d’Honorius Augustodunensis’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 70 (1975), 338–45. At the end of his De luminaribus ecclesiae, Honorius lists the titles of twentytwo works of which he claims authorship. Flint argues that these works are in chronological order; the Gemma animae appears as number six in the list. See V. I. J. Flint, ‘The Career of Honorius Augustodunensis. Some Fresh Evidence’, Revue Bénédictine 82 (1972), 63–86. Ibid., p. 83. For the Gemma animae’s English connections, see V. I. J. Flint, ‘The Chronology of the Works of Honorius Augustodunensis’, Revue Bénédictine 82 (1972), 215–42 (p. 219). For example, Munich, Bayern Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 2592 was held in Alderspach and shares features, such as similar titles and rubrics, with other manuscripts produced in that area in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae time Honorius wrote the Gemma, several such texts had been written and his contemporaries were in the process of writing their own commentaries, suggesting a particular demand for this type of work in the first half of the twelfth century. The Gemma was not the first liturgical commentary, but its content endured throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries because later authors copied from it extensively.11 Earlier examples include Amalarius of Metz’s work, the Liber officialis, which offered an allegorical reading of the Mass and the liturgical objects used during it. At the end of the eleventh century, Bernold of Constance wrote his Micrologus de ecclesiasticis observationibus, which did the same, but emphasised a historical reading of the Mass instead.12 Similarly, Odo of Cambrai and Rupert of Deutz both wrote commentaries in the first decade of the twelfth century, around the time Honorius probably left Britain for Regensburg, and, as Flint suggests, by the time he had already begun the Gemma animae.13 Rupert’s work was particularly well known in Regensburg and it is possible that Honorius knew of the De divinis officiis, although Mary Schaeffer suggests that this does not necessarily need to be the case since the content and approaches are quite different.14 While Odo’s and Rupert’s works were possibly written a little earlier than the Gemma, Honorius’s text influenced commentaries produced in the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. For example, the Gemma’s content was copied extensively by John Beleth in his commentary, the Summa de ecclesiasticiis officiis.15 Perhaps more important is the extent to which William Durand used the Gemma’s content for his well-known Rationale divinorum officiorum, written in the thirteenth century, where William repeats and expands upon Honorius’s reading of the church.16 One of the important differences between the Gemma and Odo’s and Rupert’s commentaries is the presence in Honorius’s text of a section devoted to the church building and its parts, which is repeated in the later 11

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14

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G. Macy, ‘Commentaries on the Mass during the Early Scholastic Period’, in Medieval Liturgy: A Book of Essays, ed. L. Larson-Miller (New York, 1997), pp. 25–59 (p. 27). Bernold of Constance, Micrologus de ecclesiasticis observationibus Opusculum, PL 151, cols. 973–1022B. Odo of Cambrai entitled his work Expositio in canones missae (PL 160, cols. 1053–70) and Rupert of Deutz’s work is called the Liber de divinis officiis (PL 170, cols. 9–333). M. Martin Schaefer, ‘Twelfth Century Latin Commentaries on the Mass: Christological and Ecclesiological Dimensions’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 1983), p. 75. In their other commentaries, Rupert of Deutz and Honorius Augustodunensis share similar approaches to visual exegesis; see M. Curschmann, ‘Imagined Exegesis: Text and Picture in the Exegetical Works of Rupert of Deutz, Honorius Augustodunensis, and Gerhoch of Reichersberg’, Traditio 44 (1988), 145–69. Macy, ‘Commentaries’, p. 28; Jean Beleth, Summe der kirchlichen Offizien, ed. L. Weinrich, CCCM 41a (Turnhout, 2012). William Durand, The rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One, trans. T. M. Thibodeau (New York, 2007).

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Karl Kinsella commentaries of Beleth and Durand, suggesting that the subject found an interested audience in the century after Honorius wrote the Gemma. The Gemma is divided into four books: book one focuses on the Mass, book two on the canonical hours, book three on the feasts of the liturgical year and book four on the offices and special feast days. Honorius further divides book one into two sections: the first considers the objects and people of the Mass and the second the church building. As in much of the commentary, the section on the building is broken into relatively small chapters headed by a title that gives the subject discussed in the chapter (e.g., ‘On the Windows’, ‘On the Columns’, ‘On the Doors’). The architectural section runs from chapter 122 to chapter 149, where it ends when attention turns to the ceremony for the dedication of the church.17 There is no explicit ending to the architectural section since it moves on to other topics without introducing them, but Honorius does mark the start of the section. Chapter 129 is preceded with the short sentence, ‘Here we briefly spoke about the Mass, now we will see a few small things about the church in which it happens’, and so attention clearly turns from the Mass, a subject common in earlier commentaries, to the church, which seems to be one of Honorius’s innovations.18 Having prioritised the Gemma in our search for how the twelfth-century church embodied a variety of meanings, it remains to be seen what type of intellectual tools Honorius had at his disposal to engage with the materiality of architecture. Most significantly, typological exegesis allowed Honorius and others to demonstrate that liturgical vessels and objects contained an objectively true identity derived from historical objects, where their inner identity echoed things that had ceased to exist long ago.

Material Exegesis in the Twelfth Century During the twelfth century, Hugh of Saint Victor described an exegetical system in his curriculum for students known as the Didascalicon. Hugh wrote, ‘Sacred Scripture has three ways of conveying meaning – namely, history, allegory, and tropology’.19 Ideally biblical exegesis should occur in this order, beginning with the foundational step of history, on which everything else relies, followed by an understanding of Scripture’s inner allegorical meaning, and finally tropological exegesis that demonstrates the moral implication of scripture’s parts. Exegetical works often focused only on one of these approaches, such as Richard of Saint Victor’s literal commentary on Ezekiel’s vision of the Temple or his allegorical reading of

17 18

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Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, cols. 583D-589D. ‘Haec breviter de missa dixerimus, nunc pauca de ecclesia, in qua agitur, videamus’, ibid., col. 583D. Hugh of Saint-Victor, The Didascalicon of Hugh of St Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. J. Taylor (New York, London, 1961), pp. 120–1.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae history in the Liber exceptionum.20 The system, as Hugh describes it, is deceptively simple, but is complicated by several subcategories that fall under allegorical modes of analysis, such as anagogical or typological readings.21 Anagogy treats the final things of life and the world; as a result it is eschatological in focus, but its source is Scripture’s allegorical content and as such falls under the second mode of exegesis for some medieval exegetes.22 Typological exegesis unearths parallels between the Old and New Testaments, seeing the latter as an allegorical fulfilment of the former, where the objects, events, people and places in biblical history were taken as ‘types’ for the post-Incarnation and sometimes post-biblical eras. Christopher Hughes suggests that typological exegesis was simply referred to as ‘allegoria’ in ‘medieval usage’, but in fact Honorius interprets the Old and New Testament parallels as ‘types’ (typum) of one another.23 For example, in book one chapter 124, in a discussion of the Israelites’ tabernacle, Honorius writes, ‘The tabernacle, that the people had in exile, held the form of the world, and carried the type (typum) of the church’.24 By doing so, Honorius clearly signals that certain objects somehow correspond in form and hence nature to one another. This form of engagement with scripture was particularly important in artistic programmes of the central and later Middle Ages and so a twelfth-century monastic audience, such as that intended for the Gemma animae, would probably have been literate in reading visual material in this way.25 One definition of exegesis is specific about sources to which exegesis (including typological exegesis) may be applied, concluding that it should concern ‘the interpretation of sacred scripture’.26 The assessment is not entirely accurate, since Hugh of Saint Victor tells us that ‘even things have meaning’.27 Hugh goes even further to say that ‘the significance of things is far more excellent than that of words, because the latter was established by usage, but Nature dictated the former. The latter is the voice of men, the former is the voice of God speaking to men’.28 For Hugh, objects retained the meaning that God invested into them at the moment of creation. Since words and objects may be subject to the same type of analysis, it follows 20

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25 26 27 28

Richard of Saint Victor, In visionem Ezechielis, PL 196, cols. 527A-600C; Richard of Saint Victor, Liber exceptionum: texte critique avec introduction; notes et tables, ed. J. Châtillon (Paris, 1958). In some exegetical models there are four stages, where anagogical exegesis is seen as the final step. D. Robertson, Lectio divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading (Collegeville MN, 2011). C. G. Hughes, ‘Art and Exegesis’, in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. C. Rudolph and D. Arnold, 2nd edn (Hoboken, 2019), pp. 267–86 (p. 271). ‘Tabernaculum, quod populus in itinere habuit, formam mundi tenuit, et typum ecclesiae gessit’, Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, col. 584C. Curschmann, ‘Imagined Exegesis’. Hughes, ‘Art’, p. 173. ‘sed etiam res significare habent’ (5.III), Hugh of Saint Victor, Didascalicon, p. 121. Ibid.

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Karl Kinsella that the same techniques apply, including typological exegesis, where the objects of Scripture speak to another time, including the present. Hugh even gives a description of how one begins this approach, writing ‘Analysis takes place by separating into parts or through examination. We analyze through separation into parts when we distinguish from one another things which are mingled together’.29 Any exegetical approach, even material exegesis, relied on separating the words or objects into its constituent parts as an initial step. Since Honorius’s source is the church building, he distinguishes between its parts in two ways. The first is by identifying the individual objects: the altar, choir, window, door, etc. He separates each part of the building from its neighbour and then focuses on the individual elements. The approach is plain to see in the titles for the Patrologia Latina edition, and although the chapter titles tend to change in different manuscript witnesses, they often focus on a particular object, and then the text explains its significance in the context of Christian history.30 By ordering the architectural chapters in a particular manner, Honorius disentangles the different parts of the church and encourages his readers ‘to see’ the building according to a certain order. In other parts of the Gemma, there is a clearly recognisable structure to the chapter order. For example, chapter 150 considers ‘The Dedication of the Church’ and is followed by chapters that consider the ritual in chronological order, from the discussion of the unconsecrated building to chapter 152 which considers the entrance of the bishop into the church, and so on.31 In this instance, the ritual itself provides the structure for the chapter sequence, but there is nothing so obvious when dealing with a physical building. Looking closely, however, it is possible to discern a loose structure for the architectural section, one that is defined by the space itself, and encourages the reader to move from east to west before stepping into the choir and, ultimately outside to the towers, cloister and cemetery.32 Honorius begins the architectural section with the altar, and the following chapters continue by referring to the altars in the tabernacle

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Ibid., p. 156. For example, the titles in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 319 (fol. 114v) combine many different elements under one heading such as De templo and De capellis, where they tend to appear as separate chapters in the PL edition. Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, cols. 590D-591B. Honorius seems to describe a particular church, but many of the forms he references would have appeared in churches across western Europe. In his Rationale divinorum officiorum, William Durand explained that ‘The reader should not be disturbed if he reads about things in this work that he finds are not observed in his own church, or if he does not find something that is observed there. For we shall not proceed to discuss the peculiar observances of any particular place but the rites that are more common and more ordinary, since we have labored to set forth a universal teaching and not one of particular bearing; nor would it be possible for us to examine thoroughly the peculiar observances of all places’, William Durand, The rationale divinorum officiorum, prol. 14, p. 5; for the Latin see Guillaume Durand, Gvillelmi Dvranti rationale divinorum officiorum I-IV, ed. A. Davril and T. M. Thibodeau, CCCM (Turnhout, 1995), prol. 14, p. 9.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae and Solomon’s temple, as if Honorius wishes to focus on the different types of altars associated with the worship of God. Many of the following chapters concern objects throughout the church, the columns, windows, and pictures in it, and the text then reverts to a discussion of the parts around the altar, such as the cross placed upon it. Moving on from the east end, Honorius writes two separate sections discussing the lighting for a church, which suggests that he in fact discusses two different lighting fixtures. The first concerns ‘The Chandelier in the Church’ (‘De corona in ecclesia’ I.133) and the second is simply named ‘On the Chandelier’ (‘De corona’ I.141). The second of these chapters comes after his discussion of the choir, while the first comes in the context of the altar. The relative placement of them suggests that the first concerns the lighting in the east of the church and the second in the choir or at least further to the west. After discussion of the choir, Honorius gives an allegory for the towers and the bells within them, ending with a discussion of the cockerel placed on top of the tower. His attention then moves outside, to the cemetery and finally to the cloister.33 All this suggests a movement from the holiest part of the building – the altar – towards the west before the discussion of the spaces and structures outside the building.34 The second way Honorius separates the church’s elements is by breaking down the materials from which an object is made and giving each its own significance. By doing so, Honorius gives the reader a sense of how the object was made, separating its parts into the individual components. For example, in chapter 143, titled ‘On the Towers’, Honorius separates the bells into their parts: the clapper, the chain from which it is suspended, and the wood to which it is attached, giving each their own meanings. Embedded within this chapter, Honorius explicitly employs a typological approach to the rope from which the bell is suspended. He writes, ‘The wood is fastened from above because the cross and Christ’s passion were previously preached by the prophets’.35 In this passage, having separated the wood from the rest of the bell structure, Honorius understands the structure’s material – the wood – as a type, which brings Christ’s crucifixion into the present. In fact, Honorius goes further and breaks down some parts of the bell into the metals from which they are made. In the same chapter, for instance, he tells his readers that ‘the clapper was made from iron, by which all hard things are mastered, it is their [the preachers’] language, with

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Elsewhere Honorius writes a short allegorical reading of the cloister as a metanomic symbol for the monastic life, Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, cols. 1247A–1248C. For a lengthier discussion of the chapter order, see K. P. Kinsella, ‘Teaching through Architecture: Honorius Augustodunensis and the Medieval Church’, in Horizontal Learning in the High Middle Ages: Peer-to-Peer Knowledge Transfer in Religious Communities, ed. M. Long, T. Snijders and S. Vanderputten (Amsterdam, 2019), pp. 141–62 (pp. 152–3). ‘Lignum a superioribus continetur, quia crux et passio Christi a prophetis ante praedicatur’, Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, col. 589A.

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Karl Kinsella which all adversities are conquered’.36 The most elaborate separation of the objects into the materials appears in the chapter ‘On the Chandelier’ (I.141). Honorius writes that it was made from four metals: gold, silver, brass and iron. He then gives meanings for each of the metals within the context of the chandelier, writing, ‘the brilliant wise people are gold, silver the shining eloquence, brass the sweet singing in heavenly learning, and iron is the taming of sin’.37 He goes on to give even more meanings for these materials in different parts of the object. The exegetical preamble of separation is key to how Honorius engages with material exegesis; he and his readers first need to distinguish between the parts of the church, focusing on one at a time, before coming to a fuller understanding of the whole. Building on this way of separating the objects before commenting on them, many of the meanings Honorius gives to the objects are not necessarily historical, although they could easily be interpreted as such. For example, the columns ‘which support the building, are the bishops, who support the church’s lofty scaffolding with correct lives’.38 It is not clear whether Honorius refers to past bishops, such as those present when the church was built, or contemporary bishops; indeed, the ambiguity is useful and so may have been intentional, giving his work a sense of timelessness. At other points, Honorius is explicit in seeing the church and its furnishings as a way of remembering the past. For example, in chapter 132, directly after considering the column, he reflects on the purpose of ‘pictures’ (pictura) in the church. He writes that they are there for three reasons, ‘First, as the literature for the laity; second, so the building is suitably decorated; third, that the lives of past people are remembered.’39 Honorius draws on Gregory the Great’s well-known aphorism of pictures being the literature of the laity, but also historicises the purpose of pictures, implying that the picture will stimulate an observer’s memory and prompt that observer to emulate the actions of the saint, thus bringing those actions into the present.40 As a result, the past is very much centred throughout the Gemma and the church becomes a vessel to perceive it. Honorius’s use of material typological exegesis is most explicit when discussing the building more generally. Having organised the architectural 36

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‘Plectrum fit ex ferro, quod omnia dura domat, est illorum lingua, quae omnia adversa superat’, ibid., col. 588D. ‘Aurum sunt sapientia fulgentes: argentum, eloquio nitentes: aes, in doctrina coelesti dulciter sonantes: ferrum, vitia domantes’, ibid., col. 588B–C. ‘Columnae, quae domum fulciunt, sunt episcopi, qui machinam Ecclesiae vitae rectitudine in alta suspendunt’, ibid., col. 586B. ‘primo, quia est laicorum litteratura; secundo, ut domus tali decore ornetur; tertio, ut priorum vita in memoriam revocetur’, ibid., col. 586C. L. G. Duggan, ‘Was Art Really the “Book of the Illiterate”?’, in Reading Images and Text: Medieval Images and Texts as Forms of Communication, ed. M. Hageman and M. Mostert (Turnhout, 2005), pp. 63–108 (p. 71). Also, H. L. Kessler, ‘Gregory the Great and Image Theory in Northern Europe During the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. C. Rudolph and D. Arnold, 2nd edn (Hoboken, 2019), pp. 221–44.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae section of the Gemma in a way that reflects contemporary practice, as defined by Hugh of Saint Victor, Honorius invokes historical objects and transforms the present in doing so. Honorius never states why he begins with the altar, but in the context of the liturgy it is the most important part of the church and is the focus of the Mass. In fact, the altar is discussed throughout the Gemma not just in the second part of book one. Its most common association is with Christ. For instance, Honorius likens the sacrifice that takes place on the altar to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross (I.134).41 The Gemma offers a wide variety of meanings for the altar however, including humanity (I.136), the early Church in Jerusalem (I.160 and 162), the place of the soul (I.165) and the body of Christ resting in the sepulchre (I.64). The sheer variety of meanings that Honorius gives the altar should be a reason to pause and question Mâle’s enthusiasm for seeing the commentary tradition as a store of iconographical meaning. While polyvalence is a necessary part of iconography, the chosen meaning for the object is too uncertain to offer much of value in terms of how the altar could be allegorically interpreted during the twelfth century in any general way. We will return to this important point below. This is not to suggest that Honorius’s treatment of his architectural subject matter is ad hoc; instead, he often carefully manages his content in a systematic way. Honorius begins the architectural section writing, ‘Noah built the first altar to the Lord, next Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are read to have built altars which were nothing more than piled up stones.’42 The passage first lays out the sequence of the earliest altars referred to in scripture from Abraham and then turns to their appearance. The key part for Honorius seems to be the material from which they are constructed (i.e. stone) and not any other details nor their simple appearance. Honorius then goes further back in time, drawing on Cain’s murder of his brother Abel, telling his reader that the brothers made their respective sacrifices on an altar, even though none is explicitly mentioned in Scripture. At that point, Honorius offers a literal exegesis of the altar, writing ‘There is a difference between an altare and an ara, an altare is like a tall object […] an ara is like a space, that is flat, from the word ardor, as that which the priest sacrifices. Ara is named from the Greek, in Latin [it is] a curse’.43 This short section contains what is necessary for the first stage of exegetical inquiry. Honorius clarifies what he means by the word itself and disambiguates it from similar 41

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There are a large number of other examples, for example I.106, I.197, II.83, II.86, In his work on the altar, J. Braun, Der Christliche Altar in seiner Geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Munich, 1924), p. 752 focuses on Honorius’s assignment of Christ to the altar’s primary meaning. ‘Noe primus altare Domino construxisse; deinde Abraham, Isaac et Jacob altaria aedificasse leguntur, quae non aliud quam lapides erecti intelliguntur’, Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, col. 583D. ‘Haec autem differentia est inter altare et aram, quod altare quasi alta res vel alta ara dicitur, in quo sacerdotes incensum adolebant. Ara vero quasi area, id est plana vel ab ardore dicitur, eo quod in ea sacrificia ardebant. Ara enim Graece dicitur, Latine imprecatio’, ibid., col. 584A.

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Karl Kinsella sounding terms by focusing on its etymology. In his discussion of the term altare, Honorius is concerned about aequivocatio: similar sounding words that may confuse the reader since literal exegesis required absolute clarity regarding the word under discussion.44 Alongside this literal analysis, Honorius gives historical and biblical precedents for the object itself, tracing its presence through time, from Cain’s murder of his brother to Noah’s and Abraham’s time. Each historical moment is a link in a chain that leads to the twelfth-century altar residing in a Christian church. One of the most extended sections that Honorius writes concerns the church choir, between the nave and the chancel at the east end. Discussion of the choir takes place over two chapters (I.139–40), and the first sentence speaks to its apparent ancient beginnings, since it was established by antiquitas in praise of their gods.45 The practice of singing and dancing in worship of God is linked to the Israelites fleeing Egypt, and afterwards David writing the psalms, which were accompanied by music. After this, Solomon established that singers were arranged around the altar with musical instruments. Having shown the importance and precedent of singing and music in the worship of God, Honorius moves on to a discussion of the choir as the twelfth-century monk would have known it. He traces the history of the choir’s split configuration with a specific reference, writing, ‘For at one time they stood around the altars in a circle, like the corona, singing; but bishops Flavianus and Diodorus established choirs to sing alternately. The two choirs singing the psalms represent the angels’.46 The source is Theodoret’s Historia ecclesiae, which details the history of the Arian debate in the fifth century. Theodoret writes that the bishops ‘first divided the length of the church into two choirs, and taught them to sing the psalms of David, each choir in his course: which custom was first begun at Antioch, and came from thence into all the world’.47 Like the altar, the choir in the Gemma is a complicated and multifaceted structure that reaches back to various moments in the past, from David’s singing of the psalms in worship to the post-biblical period when the choir began to take the form recognisable to Honorius and his monastic readers. Despite looking very different in David and Solomon’s time, their form of worship in the tabernacle and temple acted as a type for what would eventually become Christian practice in the choir space. The core act of worship was the defining part of the space’s identity, even if its appearance was not. In regard to the overall form of the building, chapters I.123, I.124 and I.125 demonstrate that the church is part of God’s creation. It was made according to God’s plan given to King David and built by David’s son 44

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D. Coulter, Per visibilia ad invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor (d. 1173) (Turnhout, 2006), p. 107. Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, col. 587C. ‘Olim namque in modum coronae circa aras cantantes stabant; sed Flavianus et Diodorus episcopi choros alternatim psallere instituebant. Duo chori psallentium designant angelos’, ibid., col. 588A. Theodoret, The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, trans. R. Cadwallader (1612; Ilkley, repr. 1976), 2.24.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae Solomon. As the product of the divine imagination, it is an object that speaks with ‘God’s voice’ in Hugh’s words. In the Patrologia Latina edition, the three chapters are titled ‘De tabernaculo Moysi’, ‘De tabernaculo populi’, and ‘De templo’ respectively. The first sentence in chapter 123 (‘De tabernaculo Moysi’) makes it clear that the tabernacle was God’s invention and not Moses’: ‘When the Lord led his people out of Egypt, he showed the Tabernacle to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the plan [exemplar] showed him how to make it with the materials.’48 Honorius reinforces this distinction several sentences later, when he insists that Moses completed the building according to the ‘plan shown to him’.49 The tabernacle is then replaced by the temple, and Honorius tells us that ‘God ordered the temple to be made’, and that is was done so according to the ‘design’ (chartam) so it is also, quite directly, one of God’s creations. This chapter ends with Honorius creating a typological association between the destroyed tabernacle and temple by linking it with the church, writing that ‘both prefigured the church’.50 We can see that the altar, the choir, and the church itself form part of a nexus that stretches back in time, its composition prefigured in the Old Testament and brought to life in front of the viewers’ eyes as they ‘see’ the Mass and the space ‘in which it takes place’. The application of typological techniques to architecture has consequences for how the objects themselves performed their historicity and hence how a twelfth-century audience may have engaged with it. They are not similes brought to life, they are not even metaphors, but are the component parts of Christian history brought into the present, transformed before the eyes of the twelfth-century monk. Understanding Honorius’s presentation of this material as the discovery of objective truths about the nature of church materiality brings to light the twofold nature of objects in the Middle Ages, and the fact that the church is not just iconographically related to the tabernacle and temple, but is instead a substitute for both those structures.

Meaning and Architecture To understand the twin nature of exegetical objects, we can return to Odo’s sermon, with which we began. The young man’s interpretation is a deliberate misreading, but not one that goes against the story’s literal narrative; indeed, it could be argued that his allegorical commentary is truer to the narrative because the Samaritan is not a priest but a layperson. As we have seen, the nature of allegory assumes the presence of a veiled significance behind an object’s appearance, and while we can assume

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‘Quando vero Dominus populum suum de Aegypto eduxit, speciale tabernaculum Moysi in monte Sinai ostendit, ad cujus exemplar materiale fieri praecepit’, Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, col. 584A–B. Ibid., col. 584B. ‘Quod quia utrumque Ecclesiam praefiguravit’, ibid., col. 584C.

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Karl Kinsella Honorius would have disagreed with the man’s reading, he would have acknowledged that the process that took him there was sound. But how can we know when a valid deduction is made about the inner truth of an object? First, we must have some idea about how meaning resides in objects, thus making sense of typological material exegesis in the first place. By doing so, we can see that so-called lost objects are not lost but are very much present for those able to engage with the church in the way the Gemma demonstrates. Like many rationalised intellectual tools, twelfth-century exegesis relied on a Neoplatonic view of the universe that was, for the most part, articulated by St Augustine.51 As Marie-Dominique Chenu stated, ‘the key to this order was at once the distinction and the intimate relationship between the intelligible and the sense-perceptible worlds into which the universe was divided’.52 Both scripture and the objects that God made were constructs comprising two components, what one could see, known as its “form”, and what one could not see, its inner truth or “nature”. The Gemma asks the reader to ‘see’ the church in its twelfth-century form, but to understand its imperceptible inner reality as something connected to its appearance but a very different part of its substance. No matter how hard one looks, the twelfth-century altar is not the ‘piled up stones’ described by Moses, but its inner significance is one and the same.53 The invisible nature of objects was a key concern for earlier commentators on the Mass, since a question remained over the status of the Host during the ceremony and whether it became Christ or represented him in some way. To make sense of Christ’s presence, there needed to be separation between what the person saw and the inner reality of the object. In the ninth century, the abbot of Corbie, Ratramnus (d. c. 868), gave the two concepts a lexicon by writing that veritas was the ‘manifest appearance of things with none of the shadows in the veiling of images, but that which is pure and open’.54 The other side of veritas is what Ratramnus called figura, which refers to the inner truth of the object; veritas and figura speak to a universal dialectic, where objects have two components defined by their appearance and inner nature, the latter being the more important in a hierarchy of substance. Both veritas and figura are echoed in twelfth-century Victorine works, although the taxonomies change. Hugh of Saint Victor tells us that the object and buildings to which Scripture refers are ‘the language of God’, but it is not enough to simply understand the words, the exegete must also know the object to which the word refers.55 He calls these objects res, 51

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M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, ed. J. Taylor and L. K. Little (Toronto and London, 1997), p. 62. Ibid., p. 62. Deuteronomy 27. 2. Ratramnus Corbeiensis, De corpore et sanguine Domini Liber, PL 121, cols. 125–70 (col. 130A–C). Coulter, Per visibilia, p. 92.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae similar to Ratramnus when he calls veritas the ‘clear manifestation of a thing [rei]’. For Hugh, res contain two parts: form and nature.56 Form corresponds to the exterior appearances of things, and nature refers their inner qualities, the innate qualities that remain invisible to the eye. In this sense, res do not rely on consensus to mean something, ‘for their meaning […] is God’s language, his vehicle of communication and instruction through his created world’.57 Richard of Saint Victor, Hugh’s student, adopted the same terminology and offered examples of how form and nature correspond to one another. In chapter five of his Liber exceptionum, Richard gives the following example: first, that the nature of snow is cold, and can mean the ‘annihilation of desire’. The form, ‘because it is white, designates cleanliness of good works’.58 Richard continues to give seven circumstantial meanings of snow, demonstrating the flexibility of the semantic system. There is little sense that Richard is reading a language signified through creation, but instead, that the significance of snow, in this instance, is intrinsic and not in any way arbitrary. The flexibility and presence of numerous meanings for an object such as snow can be problematic if we understand the church as an object to be “read” and the commentary as an interpretive aid. By requiring some sort of correlation between the two sides of res, Honorius imposes boundaries on meaning by the way he relates forma to natura. There are many examples where Honorius can be seen trying to relate the outward appearance and purpose of an object to its natura. For instance, chapter I.130 states that the ‘clear windows, which keep out the storm, and let in the light are the doctors, who resist the whirlwind of heresy, and let the light of Church teaching pour in’.59 Honorius continues to discuss the glass, noting that it lets in ‘rays of light, that is the mind of the teachers’. Honorius first identifies the objects under discussion and identifies important and distinguishing characteristics associated with them, namely that they are ‘clear’ (perspicuae). He then draws the reader’s attention to the windows’ purpose: they keep out storms. Building on these two parts of their forma, Honorius tells us that they also ‘are’ (sunt) the doctors of the church who share a purpose with the windows in so far as they keep the people safe. Honorius uses the same approach repeatedly, relating the perceptible characteristics of object to their inner significance. For instance, in the following chapter, we are told that ‘the roof tiles, which repel rain from the building, are

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‘formam et naturam’, Hugh of Saint Victor, De Sacramentis christiane fidei, PL 176, cols. 173–618 (col. 185B). G. Evans, ‘Hugh of St. Victor on History and the Meaning of Things’, Studia Monastica 25 (1983), 223–34 (p. 228). Richard of St Victor, Liber exceptionum, p. 116. ‘Perspicuae fenestrae, quae tempestatem excludunt- et lumen introducunt sunt doctores, qui turbini haeresum obsistunt, et lumen doctrinae Ecclesiae infundunt. Vitrum in fenestris, per quod radius lucis jaculatur, est mens doctorum’, Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, col. 586B.

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Karl Kinsella soldiers, which protect the Church from pagans and enemies’.60 The approach is similar to Richard’s explanation of snow’s purpose in a particular context, building on its plain form and using that to uncover an objective sense of truth that lay within it. When Honorius writes that the columns ‘are’ the bishops or describes the many different objects in the church, it should be noted that he does not say that they are “like” each other, or that they “prefigure” things; instead, they are one and the same. Alexander Nagle and Christopher Wood, in an expansion of Richard Krautheimer’s theory of iconography in the pre-modern period, take such phrasing literally, writing that such objects acted as ‘substitutes’ for the past, interpreted by a contemporary audience and engaged with as if they were, quite literally, these lost objects.61 In this sense, the church is the tabernacle and temple, the twelfth-century altar is the altar on which Abraham attempted to sacrifice Isaac, and all other altars to God in a line leading up to the present. The result is a very real and tangible interaction with these lost objects, one that relies on contemporary exegetical symbols and engages audiences in a manner far more literal than iconographical analysis suggests. If meaning resides in an object and the exegete unveils it, how then can there be more than one meaning within the same object? The ambiguity of that meaning echoes Krautheimer’s description of pre-modern architectural iconography. He recognised that there were significant differences between a building and the exemplar from which it was copied, noting that ‘[it] would seem as though a given shape were imitated not so much for its own sake as for something else it implied’.62 And so the looseness of the copy was not a bug but a feature, calling on a historical monument, such as the Holy Sepulchre, without being enslaved to its original form.63 Krautheimer also acknowledged that the meanings these stones exuded were not singular, but layered and ran in parallel with one another, a result of the ‘medieval pattern of “double-think” or “multithink”, wherein multiple meanings “vibrated simultaneously in the mind of educated Early Christian and medieval men”’.64 Mâle acknowledged the issue in his discussion of the commentaries, writing that, ‘Christian liturgy like Christian art is endless symbolism, both are manifestations

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‘Tegulae tecti, quae imbrem a domo repellunt, sunt milites, qui Ecclesiam a paganis et hostibus protegunt’, ibid., col. 586B. A. Nagel, and C. S. Wood, ‘Toward a New Model of Renaissance Anachronism’, The Art Bulletin 87 (2005), 403–15 (p. 405). R. Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an “Iconography of mediaeval architecture”’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942), 1–33 (p. 8). On the possible changes made to an original see N. Bodner, ‘The Baptistery of Pisa and the Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre: A Reconsideration’, in Visual Constructs of Jerusalem, ed. B. Kühnel, G. Noga-Banai and H. Vorholt (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 95–105. R. Krautheimer, ‘Postscript to ‘introduction to an Iconography of Medieval Architecture’, in Studies in Early Christian, Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York, 1971), pp. 149–50.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae of the same genius’.65 Liturgy and art are subject to the same multivalent interpretations, but Mâle’s observation verges on the hyperbolic since such symbolism cannot be endless – if it were there would be no correct or incorrect way of interpreting either art or the liturgy, thus making Odo’s young man correct, even in Honorius’s eyes. Indeed, part of the commentaries’ purpose was to circle off such boundless interpretation and locate it within the confines of a church-defined orthodoxy. The bounding of meaning within the church was a vital part of what the Gemma and other commentaries set out to do. By defining the meaning, based on existing exegetical systems and the reliance of similarities drawn between forma and natura, a believable and robust system could be referred to in, for example, sermon literature.66 But the emphasis on similarity of the visible and invisible aspects of the material implies then that a lack of similarity negates certain meanings from being valid. Honorius’s criteria of appearance and purpose demonstrate a fixed idea of what exactly constitutes similarity. The presence of similarity criteria parallels Umberto Eco’s criticism of endless post-structuralist textual readings.67 Eco argues that there must be an end to such readings, otherwise we are left with an endless void, an ever-deepening belief in objects and texts having one more final meaning, but this would stand in contradiction to twelfthcentury ideas about God’s creation.

Conclusion St Augustine once asked the apparently simple question, ‘what is time?’68 Although he was unable to answer the question, he went some way in describing how one experiences time, writing, ‘Take the two tenses, past and future. How can they “be” when the past is not now present and the future is not yet present?’ Neither the past nor the future exists because they cannot be located in the present; they are only relatively understood from the point of view of the present, and not as temporal entities in their own right. Concerning this point, Calvin Troupe writes, ‘Augustine has progressed in his project by moving the common-sense past, present, and future into the mental present, satisfying his concern that these three aspects of temporality exist in the face of the realisation that the past and future do not exist as times separate from the present’.69 Augustine’s conclusion from this conceptual predicament was that:

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Mâle, Gothic, p. 15. Some of Honorius’s sermons repeat the meanings that appear in the Gemma. See, Kinsella ‘Architecture’, pp. 157–60. U. Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, ed. S. Collini (Cambridge, 1992). ‘Quid est enim tempus?’, Augustine, St Augustine’s Confessions, xi.14, trans. W. Watts, 2 vols. (Cambridge MA, 1912), II, 238–9. C. L. Troup, Temporality, Eternity, and Wisdom: The Rhetoric of Augustine’s Confessions (Columbia SC, 1999), p. 100.

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Karl Kinsella Perhaps it would be exact to say: there are three times, a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things to come […]. The present considering the past is the memory, the present considering the present is immediate awareness, the present considering the future is expectation.70

There was then a limitation on how one could experience the past; it could be done only by means of a memory in the present. The result is a somewhat abstracted relationship between time and materiality, but the Gemma animae, and the liturgical commentaries more broadly, are able to embrace the two-fold nature of objects to bring the past into the present. Objects are not just what can be seen, but also contain the inner significance of God’s creation, their natura, which extends across time and can be experienced by Honorius’s audiences. Accessing the past in this way required an interpretative model for the present that built on contemporary exegetical systems, systems which were developed in the first place to make sense of Scripture. Extracting the contextual limitations of the exegetical approach to Scripture and using it on architecture, or indeed any object, reflects twelfth-century interpretations of the material world, which Hugh of Saint Victor describes as ‘the voice of God speaking to men’.71 The result might be startling to the modern reader. In the Gemma animae, the church building is a microcosm for the universe and everything in it, each of its parts extending not only outwards but backwards and forwards. As this material metaphor of the universe extends, it draws those times in on itself, collapsing history within the confines of a column, an altar, a window, a roof tile or anything else. It was not a passive experience, but relied on a memory that could recall the inner significance of the objects and the ability to meditate on their link between past and present. There are two ways to explore the identities of Honorius’s historical objects: as typological structures that parallel exegetical methodologies of twelfth-century biblical commentators, and also through the lens of Wood and Nagle’s theory of pre-modern anachronism where certain things are presented as substitutive objects that are present and perceived by the twelfth-century viewer, but still retain the “realness” of their past types. Part of the commentary’s purpose is to collapse the distance of time – between the biblical period and Honorius’s – and to bring the past into the ‘immediate awareness’ of the present.72 This is not to say that Honorius or the author of any other liturgical commentary invented this mode of interaction with architecture; instead, it seems 70

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‘Sed fortasse proprie diceretur: tempora sunt tria, praesens de praeteritis, praesens de praesentibus, praesens de futuris, sunt enim haec in anima tria quaedam, et alibi ea non video: praesens de praeteritis memoria, praesens de praesentibus contuitus, praesens de futuris expectatio’, Augustine, Confessions, xi.20, II, 252. Hugh of Saint Victor, Didascalicon, p. 121. Ibid.

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Honorius Augustodunensis’s Gemma animae likely that these commentaries are attempts to control the proliferation of interpretive acts and processes already taking place in the church space, and this could at least partly explain their popularity into the later twelfth century and beyond.

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4 Lost Objects and Historical Consciousness: The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely1 Katherine Weikert

In the mid twelfth century, the monks at the wealthy Benedictine monastery at Ely, located deep in the fens of East Anglia, composed and compiled what is now called the Liber Eliensis, which survives, in different forms, in six manuscripts.2 Like a typical chronicle-cartulary of the period,3 it was a combination of Ely’s charters relevant to the monastery’s extensive properties with a historical narrative derived from several sources, including hagiographies and Bede. Liber Eliensis covers the years from the monastery’s initial foundation by St Æthelthryth in 673 to the mid twelfth century, and, although intensely localised to Ely’s East Anglian concerns, it also provides a lens through which we can view pre- and postConquest England and the tensions encountered through times of distress. The eleventh century saw direct action of the Norman Conquest in East Anglia, including the Isle itself being besieged by William I in 1071, and it is from this region that we also receive the resistance stories of Hereward 1

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Many thanks to Laura Cleaver, Nicholas Karn, Karl Kinsella, Lesley Milner, Charles C. Rozier and the audience of the Medieval History Seminar at Trinity College Dublin for helpful discussion on points of this chapter. Remaining errors are, as always, my own. For the most complete overview of manuscripts, see E. O. Blake, ‘Introduction’, in his edition of Liber Eliensis (London, 1962), pp. xxiii–lx. The main manuscripts including parts of LE are the late twelfth/early thirteenth-century BL Cotton MS Titus A I (G), the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century BL Cotton MS Domitian A XV (B); the late-fourteenth-century version O (Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 647) with continuations up to the late thirteenth century; the latethirteenth-century M (Cambridge, University Library, Ely Diocesan Registry, Liber M); Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.1 (E) from the late twelfth century; and Cambridge, University Library EDC 1 (F) from the thirteenth century. Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.41 (C) further contains parts of an Ely inquisition, as does BL MS Cotton Tiberius A VI (D) (discussed briefly below.) The online E has primarily been used for this chapter alongside the F MS. See D. Walker, ‘The Organisation of Materials in Medieval Cartularies’, in The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford, 1971), pp. 132–50; M. Home, The Peterborough Version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Rewriting Post-Conquest History (Woodbridge, 2015), pp. 23–9; L. Tollerton, Wills and Will-Making in Anglo-Saxon England (York, 2011), pp. 37–40.

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely the Wake, some of which are preserved in Liber Eliensis. Ely also adapted the Domesday survey technique to its own uses to demarcate the monastery’s lands in the 1080s in the Inquisitio Eliensis, indicating strife between pre- and post-Conquest land issues.4 In the twelfth century, the civil war between Stephen and Matilda affected Ely as a result of Bishop Nigel’s (d. 1169) machinations and factions fighting in and around Ely.5 And it was within this time, at the tail end or just after the conclusion of the civil war, that the monks of Ely were at work on the Liber Eliensis. Within this context, the twelfth-century compilers of Liber Eliensis included three significant inventories mainly of moveable goods: pieces of art and material culture that belonged to the monastery, the brothers, and, later, the bishopric. This may come as no surprise; the Inquisitio Eliensis was copied about this time in its twelfth-century manuscript too.6 Ely had a keen sense of what was or should be theirs. With the struggles surrounding the monastery in both the late eleventh century transition of power and the mid twelfth century war, Ely was (like many post-Conquest monasteries) attempting to both lay and keep claims to property, real and moveable. The Ely inventories of their material treasures were taken in 1075, updated in 1081, with a second inventory after 1093, and a third from 1134 which was updated after 1143. Within these three inventories we can see the spectacular wealth of Ely in the lovingly described golden and bejewelled objects that were a part of their liturgy, processions and ritual. As is the case with so many medieval inventories, these texts offer only an echo of the colourful past with most, if not all, of these pieces now lost to the modern world.7 While these inventories can tell us about times of difficulty and lost materiality, the meaning of these inventories had a much deeper impact within the context in which they were created. An inventory was not just a rote list but a process, a performance and a transformative and constructivist act. The materiality of the place, and the experience of these objects through the act of the inventory, were a crucial part of maintaining Ely as a site of legitimate monastic rule in times of distress. Furthermore, the sense 4

5

6

7

D. C. Douglas, ‘Odo, Lanfranc and the Domesday Survey’, in Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait, ed. J. G. Edwards, V. H. Galbraith and E. F. Jacob (Manchester, 1933), pp. 47–58 (p. 56). This inquisition survives in Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.41. See R. H. C. Davis, ed. and trans., Gesta Stephani (Oxford, 1976), pp. 48–53, 65–7. Nigel, nephew of the powerful Bishop Roger of Salisbury, was previously treasurer for King Henry I before being elected bishop of Ely in 1133, which office he held till his death in 1169. Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.41; M. R. James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge: A Descriptive Catalogue, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1900–4), III, 145. Simon Keynes and Alan Kennedy are currently preparing a work on the treasures of Ely. See also S. Keynes, ‘Ely Abbey 672–1109’, in A History of Ely Cathedral, ed. P. Meadows and N. Ramsey (Woodbridge, 2003, reprinted 2008), pp. 3–58 (p. 48); P. Sawyer, The Wealth of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2013), p. 30 n. 88.

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Katherine Weikert of performance in the latter two inventories was a method of shaping the memory culture of the community. These two performances were done by those in power, in response to, and probably exacerbating, existing tensions within the monastic community, and done as a means to produce knowledge of the monastic body itself as an institution. ‘Knowledge’, Iwan Rhys Morus notes, ‘is always tailored to specific audiences and circumstances – it is the possession of particular social groups […]. If we want to know what knowledge is, we need to look at its producers’.8 In this instance, the creators of knowledge were those with authority over the monastery, and the audiences and circumstances were also specific to the moments when the three inventories at Ely were compiled, as we will see. Morus also notes that ‘public performances have been acted out as instantiations of political power’, and here it is no different.9 This chapter argues that these inventories were ultimately acts of knowledge construction, encoding ideas about institutional identity and history. They also served as performances of authority intended to shape the monastery’s historical consciousness by creating links to the past that would strengthen the monks’ sense of community and self in the present and future. Following a discussion of the earliest extant Liber Eliensis manuscripts and their relationships, the chapter briefly discusses each inventory, noting how we might understand the process of creating these inventories as well as some of the objects included within them in order to understand the circumstances of these individual performances. The remainder of the chapter contextualises the inventories as performative, authoritative and transformational acts, with the ultimate aims of creating knowledge, strengthening historical consciousness, and performing authority.

The early Liber Eliensis manuscripts and the inventories The materials which we call Liber Eliensis contain three sections commonly referred to as Books, telling the story of Ely from its foundation to approximately 1173. Although a few versions survive, the manuscripts denoted by modern scholars as E and F are the only ones which contain the inventories, and these are the focus of my discussion here. The E manuscript, part of the Gale collection that found its way to Trinity College Cambridge by the early eighteenth century (MS O.2.1), is 23.5 × 17 cm, small and portable, and though there are occasional images, it is certainly not a display copy.10 The contents of the whole codex include, in order, a calendar and lists of bishops and abbots; Liber Eliensis; Inquisitio Eliensis and finally vitæ of Ely’s earliest female saints.11 The slightly later F manuscript (Cambridge,

8

9 10 11

I. R. Morus, ‘Placing Performance’, Isis 101:4 (December 2010), 775–8 (p. 778); see also E. Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York, 1959). Morus, ‘Placing’, p. 777. James, Western Manuscripts, pp. 79–82. Blake, ‘Introduction’, p. xxiv; R. Love, ‘The Manuscripts’, in her Goscelin of

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely University Library MS EDC 1) with its (supposedly) stabilised text, which stayed at Ely until 1970, is only slightly larger at 26.7 × 18.5 cm. The contents of F include notes, the Liber Eliensis, a charter of Prior Hugh and a following memorandum.12 While the F manuscript shows no signs of wear or use which would indicate it was a manuscript in regular rotation for refectory or other reading,13 the E codex may have been brought out for refectory or chapter use, particularly for consultation of the vitæ, which includes that of the monastery’s founding St Æthelthryth herself. The binding of E is an early modern one, so use or wear to the cover is impossible to assess for a medieval context. Manuscript E is the earliest known version of the Liber Eliensis, dating from the late twelfth century, but it is not the archetype.14 The primary manuscript used by both E. O. Blake in his 1962 edition and Janet Fairweather in her 2005 translation is the thirteenth-century F manuscript. The relationship between E and F is not precise nor is it generational; Blake suggests that two lost manuscripts provided the archetypes for Liber Eliensis’s Book I and Book II (the manuscript for Book II containing some of Book III as well), and that these were the basis of the E manuscript in the late twelfth century. E further extended Book III, seemingly independently and possibly contemporaneously or near-contemporaneously to the events it was recording. Around the same time, a revised Book II was made from the archetype Book II. In the early thirteenth century, F was compiled from this revised Book II, the archetype Book I and the E manuscript (Fig. 1).15 The F manuscript displays a keenness to correct chronological discrepancies found in the earlier versions.16 For example, E preserves the 1075 inventory in the margins of fols. 92v–93r in a different hand from that of the main text and without rubrication or inclusion in the manuscript’s own indexing (fols. 43v–46r).17 However, F records the same 1075 inventory but rubricated as Book II, Chapter 114, and positioned within the text in such a way that it aligns with contemporary events (fols. 88v–89r). The original placement of the 1075 inventory inserted in the margins of E at a later date may be a result of the compiler’s source text, which was in the archives at Bury St Edmunds rather than at Ely itself.18 The compiler of E may

12 13

14 15

16 17 18

Saint-Bertin: The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely (Oxford, 2004), pp. xlviii–lviii (p. lii). Blake, ‘Introduction’, p. xxiv. See T. Webber, ‘Reading in the Refectory at Reading Abbey’, Reading Medieval Studies 42 (2016), 63–88 (p. 71), for an example of wear indicating regular reading. See Blake, ‘Introduction’, pp. xxiii–xlvi. For all of which, see Blake, ‘Introduction’, p. xlvi. The difficult relationships of what are called the Liber Eliensis MSS have long been known, and it is possible that modern editorial standards have created a book out of the contents of the materials, indicating a stability to the text that may not have been known or needed in the medieval period. Blake, ‘Introduction’, p. xliv. Ibid., p. xliv; Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.1. Blake, ed., LE, ii:114; J. Fairweather, trans., Liber Eliensis; a History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 233 n. 576. Links

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Figure 1: The development of the Liber Eliensis.

The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely have felt the need to insert the 1075 inventory as a comparison to the 1093 inventory, whilst the later F manuscript had the opportunity to smooth over the chronological discrepancy. Other instances such as this can be found, including the sections incorporating the lost text History of Seven Illustrious Men into Liber Eliensis, when the compiler noted that he had changed the source text as the narrative demanded chronological order.19 The third inventory, taken in 1134 though ultimately recorded and witnessed with interpolations after 1143, is indexed as iii:50 and appears in the main text in both the E manuscript, fols. 128r–132r, and the F manuscript, fols. 130v–133v. The scribal hand of the E text, Blake suggests, may have been the compiler of the Liber Eliensis at this stage, hence its inclusion within the regular narrative.20 Although the date of the inventory was given as 5 January 1134, the activities of Bishop Nigel in 1143 are accounted for here, and the original documentation of this inventory would have been updated after 1143 before ultimately being copied into the E manuscript.

The 1075 Inventory The 1075 inventory was made at the time of the caretaker governance of Godfrey after the death of the Abbot Theodwine in that year. Godfrey was one of the Norman monks at Ely who had come with Theodwine and he was appointed by William the Conqueror to the post. The update to the inventory in 1081 is likely to date to Godfrey’s departure from Ely in that year to take the abbacy of Glastonbury.21 At this time, Ely was attempting to regain properties and land that had been taken during the process of the

19

20 21

between the Bury and Ely archives have long been known though the relationship between the two is yet to be fully unpicked. Some connection is known from at least the late pre-Conquest period with Bury storing charters relating to Ely and, as indicated in LE, incidents such as the post-Conquest archiving of Ely’s 1075 inventory at Bury, discussed briefly below. Sarah Foot in particular noted the ‘particularly enthusiastic archiving’ at Bury (Tollerton, Wills, p. 17). Eadmer of Canterbury also records the loss of records at Canterbury in 1067 due to fire and subsequent reconstruction of documents via copying other archives, so the practice is not unknown: see B. W. Scholz, ‘Eadmer’s Life of Bregwine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 761–764’, Traditio 22 (1966), 127–48 (pp. 144–5). K. Weikert, ‘Ely Cathedral and the Afterlife of Ealdorman Byrhtnoth’, in The Land of the English Kin: Studies in Wessex and Anglo-Saxon England in Honour of Barbara Yorke, ed. A. Langlands and R. Lavelle (Leiden, 2020), pp. 555–81 (p. 559); Blake, ed., LE ii:87. The lost History of Seven Illustrious Men (as called by Fairweather) is generally accepted as sort of vitae about seven famous pre-Conquest patrons of Ely which was composed roughly contemporaneously to their translation into the new cathedral in the 1150s. There are no other known manuscripts of it, and its survival as a text comes from its rewriting into LE. See Fairweather, trans., LE, p. 62 n. 295; Blake, ed., LE, p. xxxviii. Blake, ‘Introduction’, p. xxiii. Blake, ed., LE, ii:115; Keynes, ‘Ely’, p. 48; J. Bentham, The History and the Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely from the Foundation of the Monastery, A.D. 673, to the year 1771, vol. 1 and 2, 2nd edn (Norwich, 1812), p. 106.

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Katherine Weikert Norman Conquest, having suffered losses of some of their estates further afield, as well as the indignity of having houses and properties placed in the hands of the ‘foreigners’.22 Because of its involvement with the English resistance during the Conquest years, and particularly in the aftermath of the siege of the Isle of Ely by William I in 1071, Ely was watched closely by the king.23 The period after 1071 saw extensive land inquests held as Ely attempted to regain properties and lands that had been alienated. Thurstan, the last English abbot at Ely (appointed 1066, d. 1072),24 began the process of attempting to recover the monastery’s resources, though apparently without much success.25 As Liber Eliensis states: ‘As soon as he learnt of the aforesaid abbot’s (Thurstan’s) death, the king sent to Ely and gave orders that the best items among the ornaments and various things that he had learnt were there should be taken away and put in his treasure-house’.26 Ely was placed under the leadership of a Norman: in the same year Theodwine, a monk from Jumièges, become abbot. Theodwine had tried to recover some of the properties that the king had taken from Ely and was remembered fondly by Liber Eliensis as someone who could have done more to restore the monastery to its former wealth had he lived longer.27 Against the backdrop of the flow of material culture between the abbey and the king’s treasury, and the climate of struggle as Ely and the king’s agents fought over claims at the land inquests, the king ordered this first inventory to be made after Theodwine’s death.28 Liber Eliensis tells only a little about the process by which this inventory was taken: ‘These are the items which Eudo the steward and William de Belfou and Angerus found in the church of St Æthelthryth according to a document of the Abbot of St Edmunds, witnessed by Ralph Taillebois, Picot, Hardwin de Scalers and Eiraldus’.29 The scribe at Ely had borrowed, or travelled to Bury St Edmunds to see, the record of the inventory taken in 1075, probably occasioning its addition to the margins of the earlier E and the later chronological correction in F. This inventory was a part of the important process by which the abbey was attempting to account for and make a reckoning of its properties. The land inquests have been noted as not only a great reckoning in Ely in the post-1071 phase of the abbey, but as a part of the greater ‘facet[s] of 22 23 24

25 26

27 28 29

Keynes, ‘Ely’, pp. 47–8. D. Bates, William the Conqueror (New Haven, 2017), pp. 345–8. Keynes, ‘Ely’, p. 48; P. Meadows, ‘Appendix One: Office Holders at Ely’, in A History of Ely Cathedral, ed. Meadows and Ramsey, pp. 387–91 (p. 387). Blake, ed., LE, ii:112; Keynes, ‘Ely’, p. 48. ‘Rex igitur citius cognito predicti abbatis decessu ad Ely misit et, quicquid optimum in ornamentis et variis rebus ibi fuisse didiscerat, in thesaurum suum iusserat asportari’, Blake, ed., LE, ii:113. Translations are from Fairweather, trans., LE, unless otherwise noted. Blake, ed., LE, ii:113. Ibid., ii:113–14; Keynes, ‘Ely’, p. 48. ‘Hec sunt que invenit Eudo dapifer et Willelmus de Belfou et Angerus in ecclesia sancte Æðeldreðe secundum breve abbatis sancti Ædmundi, Rodulfo Taillebois, Picoto, Hardewino de Escalers, Eiraldo, testibus’, Blake, ed., LE, ii:114.

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely how the political and economic interest of the newcomers were becoming embedded in pre-existing conditions and into the complexities of the local societies they had moved into’.30 Like the Penenden Heath trial of 1072 (also concerning ownership of land before and after the Norman Conquest), these inquests provided opportunities to think carefully through two differing legal traditions. The presence of Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, acting as the king’s delegate in both the Penenden and Ely inquests underlines the joint and comparative importance of these proceedings as the king and the powerful abbey used these moments to attempt to balance the royal power of a new regime and the history of rights, claims, and possessions surviving from the old one.31 Indeed Ely’s charter of liberty, issued at a similar time to the inventory update, includes the witnesses of not only Geoffrey of Coutances, but also Ivo Taillebois and Picot the sheriff, highlighting the complex tensions and interrelationships of royal authority, local Norman authority, and the authority of the monastery.32 Ivo Taillebois was the brother of the Ralph Taillebois, sheriff of Bedfordshire, who witnessed this first inventory;33 Picot was worse, a bane to Ely’s existence. Picot had been sheriff of Cambridgeshire from possibly as early as 1071 following the suppression of the rebellion of Hereford the Wake.34 He was remembered by Ely as a ‘starving lion, footloose wolf, deceitful fox, muddy swine and impudent dog’.35 A 1075 inventory witnessed by these men does not presage a comfortable position for the abbey: a sense of tension between royal and monastic control is high. In terms of the materials, this inventory can act as a control group of objects, a set that can be compared against future inventories to assess growth or the stability of the collection. The inventory contains what one would expect of a monastic inventory: chalices and vestments, books, and moveable goods and objects that are a part of the sacred rituals of the church. It is a list that, in form, looks like a narrative, though without great detail other than the basic descriptions of objects, such as ‘two stoles with silver embroidery and six maniples with silver embroidery’.36 This level of description, though, was to change in the later inventories.

30

31 32 33

34

35

36

A. Cooper, ‘Extraordinary Privilege: The Trial of Penenden Heath and the Domesday Inquest’, English Historical Review 116:469 (2001), 1167–92; the quotation is from Bates, William the Conqueror, p. 364. Bates, William the Conqueror, p. 363; Blake, ed., LE, ii:120–7. Blake, ed., LE, ii:117, 1080x1087, p. 199, n. 3. K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents 1066–1166, vol. 1: Domesday Book (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 260, 283. R. Fleming, ‘Picot (fl. 1071x5–1092)’, ODNB, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/52360 (accessed 16.4.2020). ‘leo famelicus, lupus oberrans, vulpis subdola, sus lutulenta, canis impudens’, Blake, ed., LE, ii:131. ‘ii stolas cum argentifriso et vi manipulos cum argentifriso’, ibid., LE, ii:114.

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Katherine Weikert The second inventory, after 1093 The Ely monks made the next inventory shortly after 1093, under new leadership at the abbey. The F manuscript notes the involvement of Ranulf Flambard, who was caretaker of Ely on behalf of William Rufus. Ranulf held this position perhaps from as early as 1087, with the growing incapacity of Abbot Simeon, though more likely from the date of Simeon’s death in 1093.37 Though E makes no mention of Flambard, F’s addition is in line with this manuscript’s sense of correcting chronology. Flambard had been previously known to Ely for a 1091 stint at the head of a group of royal justices sent to Ely to oversee complaints about local barons seizing the abbey’s land. Instead of overseeing justice, Flambard helped himself to money and fine textiles from the abbey.38 Ely was no fan of Ranulf, and the ‘Liber Eliensis was as hostile to Ranulf as to all other outsiders’, although in this case based on their previous experience, Ely had good reason for that.39 This second inventory was made under Ranulf’s tenure. F specifically states that the inventory was undertaken with ‘the assessment of the whole community, namely seventy-two monks, in whose presence all these articles were exhibited and described’.40 In essence, then, this inventory was a convocation in which the entire abbey observed and participated, some with more interaction than others – such as those who moved the objects, presumably from the sacristy and treasury to the place of inventory, those who would have held the objects up for view, and those who would have described them for the other monks to hear. The “visible” process of the inventory is, to some degree, borne out by the written text which, like the first one, contains descriptions of most of the objects: ‘forty-six copes, of which eight are well adorned with orphrey and jewels; the rest are in some way or other adorned with gold thread-work; two of them were completed in the time of Abbot Simeon’.41 The transformative nature of speaking objects into words is obvious here as the materiality of each object, seen by the monks, turned into an aural experience which would in turn have impacted the visual experience, the object becoming words in a pseudo-ritual act meant to construct memory as well as knowledge, as will be discussed below.

37 38

39 40

41

Ibid., LE, p. 220 n. 1, p. 223 n. 1; Meadows, ‘Appendix’, p. 387. Blake, ed., LE, ii:135; R. W. Southern, ‘Ranulf Flambard and Early AngloNorman Administration’, TRHS 16 (1933), 95–128 (p. 104). Keynes, ‘Ely’, p. 51. ‘iuxta estimationem totius conventus, septuaginta duorum videlicet monacorum, in quorum presentia hec omnia ostensa sunt atque descripta’, Blake, ed., LE, ii:139. ‘xlvi cappe, octo quarum bene sunt parate aurifriso et gemmis, cetere sunt utcumque parate de aurifilo, de quibus sunt due perfecte tempore Simeonis abbatis’, ibid.

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely The 1134x1143 inventory The final inventory took place on 5 January 1134, with interpolations made after Bishop Nigel lost several of the accounted possessions at Wareham in 1143. This inventory was ‘completed and witnessed by Prior William;42 Henry, the former prior;43 Denys; Benedict; Byrhtmær; Robert of Drinkstone; Adam; William the nephew of Denys; Peter the son of Geoffrey the constable; Herbert; Ralph the sacrist; Ælfstan the subsacrist;44 Ælfric the succentor;45 witnessed by Archdeacon William;46 Ranulf of Salisbury; Richard of St Paul; Alexander, a cleric; Hubert, a cleric; Henry of Ely, a layman’.47 Here too, with this witness list, it is clear that the monastery is noting problems with authority. Bishop Nigel of Ely had been appointed in 1133 as only the second bishop of Ely, and his political machinations during the civil war caused much trouble to Ely. He had supported Stephen to begin with, though his position as a royal ally was shaken by his escape in 1139 from the infamous arrests of the bishops, and the king’s own attack on Ely later in the same year. Nigel fled to Empress Matilda’s side, though he was received back into the king’s circle in 1142, and in 1143 (whilst possibly returning to Matilda’s faction) had the unfortunate accident of being robbed of monastic property in Wareham whilst en route to the empress. Geoffrey de Mandeville took Ely at this time in the name of Empress Matilda, and only at length and with great payments was Nigel slowly reconciled to the king.48 The monastic community was troubled by Nigel’s political positioning, which caused active military presence at the Isle, and his liberal use of church property to make fees and payments. In this, more narrative, inventory, the preponderance of Nigellian allies is indicative of this tension. Hubert the cleric and Alexander had advised Nigel to ‘accommodate himself out of the Church treasury’ in order to travel 42

43 44

45

46 47

48

c. 1133–c. 1135x37; D. E. Greenway, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300: Volume 2, Monastic Cathedrals (Northern and Southern) (London, 1971), p. 47. Through c. 1133; ibid. The office of sacrist at Ely existed from the Conquest period though the location of the sacristy is speculative. The sacrists’ rolls survive from 1291. N. Ramsey, ‘The Library and Archives 1109–1541’, in A History of Ely Cathedral, ed. Meadows and Ramsay, pp. 157–68 (p. 163); Cambridge, University Library EDC 1/F/10/1–45. Blake notes Aelfric as the later cantor who received a grant from Bishop Nigel for the scriptorium; Blake, ed., LE, p. 289, n. 3, citing BL Add. MS 9822, fol. 61. William Brito c. 1110–c. 1152; Greenway, Fasti, p. 50. ‘his subscriptis presentibus et testibus: Willelmo priore, Henrico olim priore, Dionisio, Benedicto, Brismero, Rodberto de Drinchestune, Adam, Willelmo nepote Dionisii, Petro filio Gaufridi constabuli, Hereberto, et Radulfo sacrista, et Alstano subsacrista, et Alurico subcentore, qui hec omnia subscripta ostenderunt; et his clericis: Willelmo Archidiacono, Rannulfo de Salesb[eri], Ricardo de Sancto Paulo, Alexandro clerico et Huberto clerico et Henrico de Ely laico’, Blake, ed., LE, iii:50. J. Hudson, ‘Nigel (c. 1100–1169)’, ODNB, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/20190 (accessed 11.06.2020); Blake, ed., LE iii:86. This included Nigel surrendering his son, Richard fitzNigel, as hostage to Stephen.

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Katherine Weikert to Rome after the loss of valuable objects at Wareham in 1143, for example.49 Ralph the sacrist was mentioned elsewhere in the Liber Eliensis as an enemy of St Æthelthryth and thus probably one of Bishop Nigel’s supporters.50 Ranulf of Salisbury was described as a ‘renegade monk of Glastonbury’.51 Nigel made use of the council of these men, ‘to the repeated detriment of the church’.52 Alexander, Hubert and possibly Ralph were also complicit in the partial deconstruction of the shrine of St Æthelthryth and the removal of property from the monastery to pay off the king in 1144.53 This inventory was a more intimate and thorough one than that of c. 1093. Rather than the whole monastery witnessing the performance of the inventory, these men presumably went to the treasury and undertook the task. As with the previous inventory, there was probably a cleric or two taking notes during the process, possibly under the direction of Ralph the sacrist, and ultimately the inventory notes were copied into the E manuscript.54 There are some key elements to highlight in this inventory. One, this inventory lists far more objects than either previous inventory. This was not an uptick in acquisition, however; many of the items listed were acquired before the twelfth century, as noted by their provenance. The method of inventory-taking is partly to credit, as a more formalised process within the sacristy and treasury was used, rather than displaying selected objects to a large audience, as in 1093. In 1093, those selected for exhibit were objects made of precious materials with a direct link to Ely’s past (and largely their tenth-century refoundation and pre-Conquest history at that). Under more controlled conditions – fewer people, and with the watchful eyes of Nigel’s men – a fuller accounting was possible. This inventory is also much more than a list; it creates smaller narratives within the whole. In the previous inventories, descriptors were more limited. Here, however, the description of not just the materials but the objects’ histories came to the fore. For example, a particular cross is described thus: There is a cross which King Edgar gave as an offering to St Æthelthryth in witness of his donations, completely of gold on its front side, and with three golden images and with precious stones, and silver-gilt all over on the other sides, But the foot of this cross is three-quarters silver with gilding in places.55

49 50 51

52

53 54

55

Bentham, History, p. 139. Blake, ed., LE, iii:92. N. Karn, ‘Introduction’, in his English Episcopal Acta 31: Ely 1109–1197 (Oxford, 2005), p. cix. ‘quibus usus est in omnibus consilio Achitofel in dampnis ecclesie’, Blake, ed., LE, iii:78. Ibid., iii:89. Blake, ‘Introduction’, pp. xxiii–xxiv, xlvi. This also indicates a compilation date of manuscript E as after 1152x1158. Blake notes that the hand of LE iii:50 is, in the latter half, that of Scribe B who was probably the compiler of the E manuscript from ii:90 through to iii:92 or 103. ‘Ibi i crux in anteriori parte tota de auro et cum iii ymaginibus aureis et cum

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely The descriptions give details and histories of things that are lost to us. Given the nature of the witnesses to the inventory, one can also imagine greedy looks over those precious stones and golden images.

Objects of performing, creating and containing knowledge In much the same way that any given cartulary had its own sense of audience as well as being a ‘shared space for many members of the community’,56 the inventories highlight performance and audience in unexpected ways. A physical shared space is particularly evident from the second inventory, and a different, more selective one is clear from even the third, with its (ostensibly, comparatively) non-performative nature. The second inventory was a tour-de-force performance that created a series of meanings for those enacting and witnessing it. The entire community was present as the objects were both exhibited and described: they were shown to all, as proof of existence; their properties were spoken aloud, and these properties and objects written down – probably on site, as part of this process of display and proof – and then copied into the E and ultimately F manuscripts. The performance was ‘designed to consolidate group solidarity […] self-fashioning […] playing to one’s peers’.57 The process of the inventory, though, is as important as the objects displayed to the monks called to witness them. This process involved bodily and object movement, speech, sight and sound. Rather than walking around the sacristy, treasury, library or church, there was a convocation, and the portable objects were brought to the monks. Each item was held up and viewed; each item was described; each description listed and scribbled down. Each object was imprinted into the memory of the seventy-two monks through visual, audial and textual means, and for those holding them, tactile ones as well. There were seventy-two witnesses to the inventory: their memory was influenced two-fold and in some cases threefold, preparing for a potential defence against anyone who might try to remove any of the objects, an action they might well have expected from Ranulf Flambard. The sensory experience of this inventory cannot help but stand out. Encompassing sight, sound and touch, the object and the event would have acted significantly upon the memory of the monks. As Mary Carruthers points out, based on the works of Aristotle, medieval concepts of memory stated they were ideally meant to be ‘composed of input from all five of the

56

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lapidibus pretiosis et in aliis partibis circumquaque de argento deaurata, quam rex Ædgarus in testimonium donorum suorum optulit sancte Æðeldreðe. Pes vero huius crucis est in iii partibus de argento cum deauratura per loca’, Blake, ed., LE, iii:50. J. Tucker, Reading and Shaping Medieval Cartularies: Multi-Scribe Manuscripts and their Patterns of Growth (Woodbridge, 2020), pp. 25, 222. Morus, ‘Placing’, p. 777.

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Katherine Weikert senses’.58 The process of this second inventory excluded taste and smell, or did so at least as far as we can tell from the available evidence, but, as Carruthers also notes, the ‘visual was regarded as the primary instrument of knowing for most people’.59 These objects, based on their descriptions, would certainly have made a strong visual impact, especially perhaps the metalled and jewelled gospel-books. Thus, for most of the audience of the display, their ‘primary instrument of knowing’ was the display of the pieces, compounded by the spoken narrative of the inventory-takers. Those taking the dictation were also affected by the sensory process: ‘Writing was [an] act of endurance, requiring three fingers to hold the pen, two eyes to see the words, one tongue to speak them, and the whole body to labour’.60 The clerics, themselves a ‘medium between the speaker […] and the document’, perhaps frantically scribbling the notes that were later transcribed into E, as well as seeing and hearing about the items, had the physicality of continuous writing to influence the memory, a bodily event that had active participation in, rather than a passive reception of, knowledge.61 The second inventory was a performance of monastic belongings as well as a creation of historical consciousness amongst the men of the abbey. This inventory was a blend of business and ritual. All of the monks may have been involved in this show-and-tell as appropriate: per the Benedictine Rule, all property was common, and further, Chapter III of the Rule indicates that any ‘special business’ of the monastery should be conducted with the whole community.62 At this time, the only places large enough to have held a convocation of the whole of the abbey community would have been the chapter house, refectory, dormitory or the church itself, though the chapter house, as the place generally used for monastic business, seems likely.63 The location of the sacristy and treasury at this time in the southern bay of the south transept and a room above the slype (the passageway between transept and chapter house) also suggests the chapter house, as the objects could be more easily taken from the sacristy and treasury through the slype to the chapter house.64 All of this, including the objects used for this inventory, strongly indicates a procession of objects, a pseudo-liturgical ritual. The objects in this inventory are valuable, but many are also processional: twenty-seven

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59 60

61 62 63

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M. Carruthers, ‘How to Make a Composition: Memory-Craft in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages’, in Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, ed. S. Radstone and B. Schwartz (New York, 2010), pp. 15–29 (pp. 18–19). Ibid., p. 19. M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 3rd edn (Chichester, 2013), p. 271. Ibid., pp. 118, 271, 273. Benedictine Rule, Chapters III and XXXIII. P. Dixon, ‘The Monastic Buildings at Ely’, in A History of Ely Cathedral, ed. Meadows and Ramsay, pp. 143–56; J. E. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300, (Cambridge, 1994), p. 166. L. Milner, ‘Secret Spaces: English Sacristies, Vestries and Treasure Rooms, 1066–1300’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2015).

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely ornamented crosses, twenty reliquaries, fourteen gospel-books, thirtythree chalices, three thuribles, and so forth. These objects, when used for the liturgy, would have left the sacristy and treasury by the door on the south wall into the monastic church.65 Here, though, they would have left through the slype to the chapter house, moving outwards rather than inwards to the ecclesiastical sanctuary, moving through a different procession to a ritual different from those for which they were intended. Stephan Feuchtwang rightly points out that an action such as this is a ‘boundary marker, marking itself out as different from other action’,66 which gives a further sense that the monks experienced this inventory as something different from their proscribed and ritual-filled lives. They were encountering these objects, filled with sacred meaning, in a place and a series of actions that were marked out as different from the usual. This would have also been an interruption of their highly scheduled lives, a ritualised difference with a different “ritual”.67 The ritual message would have been further stressed for the parts of the inventory that, by necessity, took place in the church for the stationary objects such as the shrines of Æthelthryth and her sisters. In a similar way that reading scripture during meals was meant to be a transformative experience, and that reading aloud of literary texts was meant to ‘do work upon being received’,68 seeing a reversed procession of ritual objects, or hearing this inventory, impressed meaning about not just the object, but the monastery itself, upon those hearing and seeing the inventories. Those undertaking this inventory, those performing it, were creating historical consciousness and ensuring identity-creation for the monastery. As Amos Funktenstein has pointed out, ‘in the collective memory of the past, people, events, and historical institutions […] are links in an ongoing past’ rather than being individual or unique circumstances.69 Historical consciousness creates a sense that the past is intimately connected to the present through the transmitters of institutional history. Objects in the second inventory, whilst not recorded in the detail we see in the 1134 one, still contain seeds of information to build historical consciousness and collective memory of the monastery’s powerful and important history. For example, the fourteen gospel books in the c. 1093 inventory were surely a part of the seventeen recorded in 1134, and the later inventory tells us their provenance: some were given by King Edgar, Abbot Ælfsige, the monk Tosti, Ælfric cantor and Siward of Maldon (companion of Hereward).70 65 66

67 68

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Ibid. S. Feuchtwang, ‘Ritual and Memory’, in Memory: History, Theories, Debates, ed. S. Radstone and B. Schwartz (New York, 2010), pp. 281–98 (p. 285). Karl Kinsella, personal communication. E. Gatland, Women from the Golden Legend: Female Authority in a Medieval Castilian Sanctoral (Woodbridge, 2011), p. 99; V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford CA, 1984), pp. 14–17. A. Funkenstein, ‘Collective Memory and Historical Consciousness’, History & Memory 1:1 (1988), 5–26 (p. 9). ‘socius Ærewardi’; Blake, ed., LE, ii:139, iii:50; see also T. Webber, ‘Monastic

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Katherine Weikert All of these men save Siward and Tosti were associated with Ely’s tenth-century refoundation. Siward was connected to their post-Conquest rebellion, and Tosti, whilst more difficult to place, was probably an AngloScandinavian monk (or at least a monk with an Anglo-Scandinavian name) in the eleventh century. These gospel books were imbued with meaning beyond their textual message; they were physical and tangible links to the monastery’s illustrious history via their donors and their own object histories. These objects became, in essence, a metonym for the institution itself.71 This sense of the abbey’s historical consciousness was a constructed one: ‘a shared experience and its interactive procession form the historical consciousness of members of a community’.72 This was a historical consciousness specific to the time and place for Ely and the ongoing tension between post-Conquest royal and monastic powers. The objects of the inventory broadened the monks’ temporal horizons to include their institutional past as a part of their present being. The performance of inventories was also one that held authority. As a performative act, and one that was most certainly ‘wrapped up in ritual and ostentatious display’,73 those performing the inventory as well as those who ordered and witnessed them – William I, Ralph Tallebois, and Picot the sheriff in 1075, William Rufus, and Ranulf Flambard in c. 1093; the string of Nigellian allies in the twelfth century – were stating their own power over the community. Those ordering and performing the inventory for the audience of monks were producers of this knowledge and carried their audience with a particular sense of order or even choreography.74 The inventory itself confirmed the monks’ historical consciousness of their own place in the past and present, and influenced their sense of identity in the face of a tense new authority. In this, the performative aspects of the inventory were reminiscent of the presentation or performance of early charters.75 The act of the performance was ceremonial, symbolic, meaningful to those involved, and cemented the act of the gift – or in this case, the display of the object – into the memory of those witnessing it, who then could be called to remember and testify if needed. The transformative nature of this, too, should be noted. Gemma Watson has commented that the act of taking an inventory is one in which

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Space and the Use of Books in the Anglo-Norman Period’, ANS 36 (2014), 221–40 (p. 226). P. Buc, ‘Conversion of Objects’, Viator 28 (1997), 99–143 (p. 142). S. Ahonen, ‘Historical Consciousness: A Viable Paradigm for History Education?’ Journal of Curriculum Studies 37:6 (2005), 697–707 (p. 700). Morus, ‘Placing’, p. 777. Ibid. Clanchy, From Memory, pp. 157–8, 255–6; L. Roach, ‘Public Rites and Public Wrongs: Ritual Aspects of Diplomas in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century England’, Early Medieval Europe 9:2 (2011), 182–203; C. Insley, ‘Charters, Ritual and Late Tenth-Century English Kingship’, in Gender and History: Studies in the Earlier Middle Ages in Honour of Pauline Stafford, ed. J. L. Nelson, S. Reynolds, and S. Johns (London, 2012), pp. 75–89.

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely objects become words as they are written or spoken aloud.76 In this case, the objects were transformed by both processes, speaking and writing; the words ‘are like objects and its objects are symbols, emotive and with multiple meanings understandable in the context of the occasion or event of ritual performance’.77 The process of understanding came with the creation of meaning as the monks described the pieces for the community; those with the authority created their meaning in a performance for the monastery. The performance of the second inventory meant that a memory community was being created, a generation of monks were visually and audibly influenced by hearing about and seeing the gold-embroidered pall cloths, the silver thurible with its gilding and silver chains, and so forth. The memory of this event – and these items – would be passed along to monks who joined them at Ely through telling the story of the exceptional day when the men of the community saw its treasures brought out for display. The inventory was not simply an act of displaying material possessions, but an act of memory creation. The third inventory was a smaller process, but still relied on a particular display to a precise audience. In this mid twelfth century inventory, the people involved went to the objects instead of the objects being brought to them in procession. By this time, the sacristy had been established, probably in the 1120s, in the three west bays of the south transept, so the inventory would have largely taken place there.78 It was not an everyday occurrence that someone could go into the cathedral’s treasury and view the whole collection; it would no doubt have created a powerful memory for these men. But what that memory might have been, is perhaps a little different from the previous one. With Nigel’s men as the primary enactors and witnesses of this inventory, there is a sense of the proprietary. It was not a monastic event; it was an event for the bishop, a figure of high authority even if the interpolations noted in the text after the incident at Wareham pointedly chastised him. The event of the inventory, if not the text of the inventory, was made for Nigel’s benefit. Here, by displaying objects such as the cross given by King Edgar, Nigel and his men were calling back to the past to demonstrate the ‘originating authority’ of the place, and to demonstrate the bishop’s place within the monastery to do such a thing.79 ‘Donated objects’, Phillipe Buc states, ‘serve both as genealogies and as signs of authority’.80 Here, the inventory demarcated both very clearly. It is crucial to remember that what was recorded in these three inventories was not simply a list of what was there, but what was chosen for remembrance at those times and circumstances. An ‘inventory’ gives the

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G. Watson, ‘Objects Across Boundaries’, unpublished conference paper, University of Chester, 2018. Feuchtwang, ‘Ritual’, p. 282. Milner, ‘Secret Spaces’. Feuchtwang, ‘Ritual’, p. 298. Buc, ‘Conversion’, p. 125.

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Katherine Weikert idea of something complete, and while the process of the third inventory might seem less selective, we should remember that the objects listed were specifically chosen to be remembered. This calls attention to the existence, at the time of writing, of precious objects which are today unknown to us because they were not chosen for these acts of memory creation and to more commonplace items too. At all three inventories, objects would have likely been taken out of storage materials which are not noted: plain boxes and covering cloths were not important enough to write down in an inventory of the special treasures of the monastery. At the end of the 1134 inventory, the author notes, ‘in the cupboard a large number of books, which would cause great annoyance to the reader, if he were to be kept in suspense by the giving of an account of them’.81 This note should remind us that an inventory, no matter the process, was not exhaustive. Despite Nigel’s sense of fostering and conserving books, witnessed by giving the profits of several properties to Ely’s scriptorium for the creation and repairing of books, the books in the cupboard, probably the working library rather than the special, shiny books of the treasury, were not worth listing.82 Memory is a process of selection, a conscious act of remembering as well as forgetting. So is an inventory. Nonetheless, these inventories would not have been made if there were not a perceived need or use for them in the present and the future, as the monks extended their historical consciousness to thread the past, present and future of the monastery together. In the future, reading these inventories or portions thereof, using them in chapter as a reminder of property as well a ‘reinforce[ment of] the identity of the community’, allowed the past to be present to the members of the monastic community, encouraging them to understand their role as keepers of not just treasure, but knowledge and history.83 In later monastic readings of these inventories, all three would have continued to instill a sense of historical consciousness within the monastery to connect their past with their place in the present. Where Liber Eliensis was read must be speculation. It is unlikely to have been a part of the regular rotation of refectory readings, but may have been, at times, useful as a part of chapter business or as a means of learning their own monastic history.84 In addition to this, there is very little evidence of the reading practice of cartularies in monastic settings, though there were certainly occasions when charters, at least, could be read in chapter in circumstances such as the confirmation or dispute of property.85 Joanna Tucker has recently pointed out the importance of the physicality of the copy of a cartulary itself as an indication,

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82 83 84

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‘et in armario numerum librorum valde, qui lectorem fastidiret si narrando suspenderetur’, Blake, ed., LE, iii:50. Karn, Acta, nos. 32 and 44. Webber, ‘Monastic Space’, p. 232. Webber, ‘Reading in the Refectory’; Webber, ‘Monastic Space’, pp. 236–8; Tucker, Reading and Shaping, p. 217. Tucker, Reading and Shaping, pp. 216–17.

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The Post-Conquest Inventories at Ely in part, of its use.86 Both Liber Eliensis manuscripts are small and portable, but they do not show indications of wear as would be expected in books often used for refectory reading. This lack of wear should not, however, rule out their occasional use for chapter business or consultation as works related to institutional history. However they were read, just as the reading of scripture during meals was meant to be a transformative experience, hearing this inventory read aloud later impressed upon those hearing it meaning about the monastery itself.

Conclusions A medieval inventory is far more than a list of objects. An inventory can be a performance, an act of creating a memory community surrounded and framed by objects that tell an institutional narrative. Beyond knowledge of the individual objects they record, many of which are now lost to modern researchers, we should recognise inventories as the record of a particular process, itself an important event with enduring consequences. The selection and rejection of objects is meaningful and is part of the careful crafting of a memory culture and community. The members of the community at Ely, as at many other institutions, used their inventories to reaffirm the memory of their pre-Conquest greatness and wealth, and establish their place in a long-term narrative of struggle and strife. Each of the three inventories discussed here contributed to Ely’s sense of historical consciousness. In tying together the gifts (and people) of the past with the present in the late eleventh and mid twelfth century, the monastery confirmed its sense of identity rooted in this deep past, filled with notable people such as King Edgar, Ealdorman Byrhtnoth and, of course, their founder St Æthelthryth. In weaving knowledge of its own past into its identity in the present, the monastery could find authority – as well as perhaps comfort – in its deep history whilst bringing that past to the present and recording it for the future. A sense of historical consciousness creates a ‘trans-generational mental orientation to time’.87 These inventories were constructions of knowledge about the past and present, and ultimately future, with a deeply-felt sense of longevity and continuity. With these three inventories, Ely was defining, even creating, itself and its past for certain specific audiences: the internal community, external allies, and perceived enemies. Morus has noted that ‘Performances of these kinds, wrapped up in ritual and ostentatious display, have succeeded by emphasizing the distance rather than the intimacy that existed between performer and audience […]. Bringing the audience into the picture, making audience members not just witnesses but collaborators in the artful production of nature, makes

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Ibid., p. 217. Ahonen, ‘Historical’, p. 699.

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Katherine Weikert the work of performance less immediately visible’.88 Consideration of the meaning of the inventories’ careful display and choreographed performance has been neglected in favour of the extensive list of riches. Within these inventories, the vast wealth of Ely – known, but no longer extant – comes to us from the past. The lost material items will probably remain lost. But in realising the things remembered, and the things forgotten, we can find greater meaning in what, at first glance, looks only like a list. These “simple” lists were acts of creation, acts of commemoration, acts of transformation, acts of power: acts of knowledge construction. They were symbolic, performative, and ultimately deeply meaningful to those who shared in the community of memory they created.

88

Morus, ‘Placing’, p. 777.

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5 Fire! Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds in the Late Twelfth Century1 Laura Cleaver

On 15 April 2019 a fire started in the roof of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. As the flames spread, Parisians massed on the streets and many more people around the world watched the destruction on screens. Members of the clergy, together with the ministry of culture and the fire brigade, acted quickly to remove relics, art works and the sacrament from the building. As the fire was extinguished and the sun rose the following morning the initial horror was tempered with widespread astonishment at how much of the building and its contents had survived. In the following days, an investigation was launched into the cause of the fire and pledges were made to ensure the reconstruction of the cathedral. Commentators attempted to compare this fire with those at other major sites, including, in Britain, fires at Windsor Castle in 1992 and York Minster in 1984. In all of this, the coverage of the Notre-Dame fire had parallels in medieval accounts of fires in major churches. Such fires were not uncommon in the Middle Ages. Detailed written accounts of fires described the fate of relics, showed interest in the causes, demonstrated a desire to contextualise events and combined the creation of a record of the damage with an argument for reconstruction. In many cases the emphasis was on what was saved rather than lost. Some fires, like that at Reims in 1210, prompted complete reconstruction of a church. Other fires left parts of the structure intact, as at Canterbury Cathedral in 1174 and Chartres Cathedral in 1194. Written accounts of these events have therefore been of interest to architectural historians studying the surviving fabric of medieval buildings. Fires discovered and extinguished more promptly damaged the contents of a church without impacting the structure. Such a fire in 1198 was recorded in Jocelin of Brakelond’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds.2

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I began to think about the texts discussed here as part of the MA programme taught by Paul Crossley, who died in 2019. I am grateful to Paul and the class of 2004–5 for shaping my views on this subject. Jocelin of Brakelond, The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond Concerning the Acts of Samson Abbot of the Monastery of St. Edmund, trans. H. E. Butler (London,

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Laura Cleaver However, much of what survived medieval fires has since been destroyed, in an English context typically as a result of the Reformation. The great monastic complex at Bury St Edmunds, for example, is now in ruins, with its contents destroyed or dispersed to museums and libraries. Although medieval accounts of fires at shrines have been used by historians of art and architecture to understand surviving material, my aim here is to approach these texts as pieces of historical writing, in which accounts of recent events were set into narratives with a broader historical perspective. In doing so, repeated motifs are identifiable, providing insights into medieval writing about destruction of the built environment and interactions with objects that no longer exist. This chapter will focus on the accounts of fires at two of England’s most popular shrines: those in 1174 at Canterbury, recorded by Gervase of Canterbury, and in 1198 at Bury St Edmunds, described by Jocelin of Brakelond. It will contextualise these texts through comparison with other authors’ accounts of these and other fires to argue that the texts were shaped not only by the authors’ experiences of fires and contemporary local politics, but also by earlier accounts of fires, together with a worldview rooted in their familiarity with the Bible and hagiography. In 1993 Peter Kidson advanced what he called ‘the arson theory’; that the monks of Christ Church Canterbury were responsible for the fire that destroyed the east end of their church in September 1174, motivated by a desire to build an improved setting for the cult of the recently canonised Thomas Becket.3 A central plank in Kidson’s argument was his belief that Gervase’s account of the fire and rebuilding was exceptional. Kidson felt that Gervase was protesting too much and asserted that ‘any experienced insurance assessor would sense that something was amiss’.4 Two accounts of the fire by Gervase survive. One is a sentence in Gervase’s Chronicle, which is preserved in three thirteenth-century manuscripts and which Gervase claimed was created for the community at Canterbury and his brother Thomas, presumably Thomas Becket.5 In the entry for 1174, Gervase noted ‘on the fifth of September Christ Church Canterbury with certain of the monastic buildings was burned in a wonderful and pitiable fire’.6 This is in keeping with other statements about fires in Gervase’s chronicle, including for 1171, ‘in this year the

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1951); Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, trans. D. Greenway and J. Sayers (Oxford, 1989); see also A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 2 vols. (London, 1974–82), I, 380–5. P. Kidson, ‘Gervase, Becket and William of Sens’, Speculum 68 (1993), 969–91 (p. 969); for some logical objections see C. Davidson Cragoe, ‘Reading and Rereading Gervase of Canterbury’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 154:1 (2001), 40–53 (p. 48). Kidson, ‘Gervase, Becket and William of Sens’, p. 971. ‘Me autem inter cronicae scriptores computandum non esse censeo, quia non bibliotecae publicae sed tibi, mi frater Thoma, et nostrae familiolae pauperculae scribo’, Gervase of Canterbury, The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., RS (London, 1879), I, p. 89; see also Gransden, Historical Writing, I, 253–4. ‘ecclesia Christi Cantuariae tam mirabili quam miserabili incendio sui parte

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Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds church at Norwich with its associated buildings was miserably burned by fire, and the monks were dispersed’, which is also a reminder that major fires were not uncommon.7 Gervase’s second account is longer and more detailed, and is preserved in the three manuscripts with his chronicle.8 It occupies fols. 1–10r of British Library Cotton MS Vespasian B XIX, pages 1–18 of Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.4.11, and fols. 1–10 of Cambridge, University Library MS Ff.1.29.9 In two of the manuscripts (those in the British Library and Trinity College) the text has the rubric ‘Tractatus de combustione et reparatione Cantuariensis ecclesie’ (Treatise on the combustion and restoration of the church of Canterbury), and in all three manuscripts it is followed by short texts (Imaginationes), some of which are explicitly attributed to Gervase. These are largely about conflict between the monastic community and Archbishop Baldwin (r. 1185–90) and the rights of the monks of Christ Church and St Augustine’s at Canterbury.10 These works are placed before Gervase’s chronicle. All three manuscripts present the texts in the same order, suggesting that they were compiled in this manner at a fairly early date, although the manuscripts all date to the thirteenth century, with the earliest (the manuscript now in the British Library) probably produced c. 1250. The text’s editor, William Stubbs, argued that the treatise about the fire was not written before 1185, and was created in the context of the final events described in that text, but before the creation of the chronicle, which extends to 1199.11 If so, it was written at a time of conflict between the monastic community and their new archbishop. Indeed, the treatise ends with the claim that Baldwin ‘did many evils, many perils, many adversities to the church of Canterbury in his first years, which will appear in the following to the judicious reader’, although this was presumably phrased

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8 9

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potiori cum quibusdam officinis curiae nonis Septembris combusta est’, Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 250. ‘Hoc anno ecclesia Norwicensis cum officinis suis misero conflagravit incendio, et monachi dispersi sunt’, ibid., I, 237. Ibid., I, 3–29. I am very grateful to Laura Slater for her help in accessing the Cambridge University Library manuscript. In BL Cotton MS Vespasian B XIX, and Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.4.11 the texts have the rubrics: ‘Imaginatio Gervasii quasi contra monachos Cantariensis ecclesie’; ‘Imaginatio Gervasii quasi contra .B. archiepiscopum’; ‘Persecutio cause contra .B. archiepiscopum’; ‘Replicatio operum Baldewini archepiscopi’; ‘Litterae Urbani papae archiepiscopo per monachos’; ‘Cassatio fraternitatis. B. litere Urbani papae prelatis Anglie’; ‘Indulgentia ne teneatur sententia pendente lite’; ‘Littere Urbani de restitutione ablatorum’; ‘Sententia data in invasores rerum ecclesie Christi’; ‘Littere eiusdem ad archiepiscopum de eodem’; ‘Littere Iohannis legati ad conventum’; ‘Item littere Iohannis’; ‘Testimonium Iohannis de gravaminibus conventus’; ‘Cassatio operum .B. archiepiscopi’; ‘Item cassatio’; ‘Imaginatio Gervasii contra .R. abbatem sancti Augustini quasi in consistorie papae Alexandri’; ‘Imaginatio cause quasi pro abbate’; see also Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I. Ibid., I, xv; see also Gransden, Historical Writing, I, 253–4.

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Laura Cleaver as part of the combination of the different treatises into a single volume.12 Carol Davidson Cragoe has argued instead for a date of composition for the treatise on the fire and reconstruction in 1199, when another archbishop, Hubert Walter (r. 1193–1205) sought to revive some of Baldwin’s plans, to the potential detriment of the monastic community.13 Certainly, as we now have it, the account of the fire is part of a collection of works compiled after 1199. The three manuscripts contain little evidence of provenance and have been associated with Canterbury, but the production of multiple copies raises the potential of an intended readership wider than Gervase’s initial claim that he wrote for the community, albeit some time after the works’ initial creation.14 This is a reminder of the potential for accounts of local events to resonate in other communities. Gervase’s account of the fire and rebuilding records that the fire started outside the monastery precinct during ‘an extraordinarily violent south wind’.15 Three houses were damaged and the wind carried sparks to the roof of the cathedral where ‘half rotten planks’ caught light.16 The fire spread through the wooden structure of the cathedral’s roof, causing the ceiling of the choir to collapse onto the monks’ choirstalls. The reliquaries that had been on a beam fell to the pavement and broke, with the monks managing to rescue the relics.17 Gervase emphasised the distress of the community, claiming that some of the lay people and monks would rather have died than seen the church ruined, and drew comparisons with the lamentations of Jeremiah at the destruction of Jerusalem.18 Indeed, the book of Lamentations provides a model, in very general terms, for Gervase’s treatise as it begins with a description of the deserted and ruined city and ends with a plea for restoration. It was this version of the Canterbury fire that aroused Kidson’s suspicions that Gervase was protesting too much. Yet while Gervase’s claims may seem hyperbolic, in 2019 people also put themselves at risk entering Notre Dame to remove its treasures.

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16 17

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‘Qui quanta mala, quot pericula, quot adversitates in primis annis suis Cantuariensi fecerit ecclesiae, quaerenti sedulo in subsequentibus patebit’, Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 29; Davidson Cragoe, ‘Reading and Rereading’, p. 45. Davidson Cragoe, ‘Reading and Rereading’, pp. 49–50. See Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, l–lii; M. R. James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge: A Descriptive Catalogue, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1900–4), II, 140; Davidson Cragoe, ‘Reading and Rereading’, p. 41. ‘austro fere ultra humanam aestimationem furente’, Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 3; translation from R. Willis, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1845), p. 32. ‘ligneis semiputridis’, Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 3. ‘Scrinia reliquiarum de sublimi trabe deorsum in pavimentum dejecta confracta sunt et reliquiae dispersae. Veruntamen ne ab igne consumerentur, a fratibus collectae et repositae sunt’, ibid., I, 4. ‘Fuerunt etiam tam laici quam monachi qui se mallent morte carnis decedere, quam sic ecclesiam Dei miserabiliter deperire’ and ‘Non puto aerumpnas Cantuariae minus esse flebiles quam Jerosolimae sub fletu et planctu Jeremiae’, ibid., I, 5.

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Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds Gervase’s text provides a dramatic account of the fire, but this represents only about ten percent of his treatise, the rest of which turns to rebuilding, beginning with the establishment of an altar in the nave so that the church could continue to function. While Kidson concentrated on what he believed to be the exceptional account of the fire, therefore, as a whole the text does find parallels in other accounts of building, most famously Abbot Suger’s accounts of the rebuilding at Saint-Denis, which was justified on the account of the decrepit state of the old church.19 Moreover, Gervase’s awareness of other accounts of fires is demonstrated by his reference to three previous fires at Canterbury and his use of a long quotation attributed to his predecessor Eadmer from an account of the relics of St Audoen. This described the cathedral’s altars, tombs and relics before a fire to which the author claimed to have been an eyewitness, and which had destroyed all the ‘ornaments and utensils’, sparing almost nothing.20 Eadmer’s life of St Bregwine (written in 1123) also described a fire at Canterbury in 1067 that necessitated the translation of the saint.21 That fire began in the city (civitatem Cantuariam), rather than the monastic precinct, before spreading to the church. In this text Eadmer emphasised the damage as the fire consumed the church, the monastic buildings and the church of John the Baptist, where the remains of the archbishops, including Bregwine, were located.22 Eadmer also dwelt on the damage to the buildings’ contents, recording the loss of items in gold and silver and sacred and secular books, although he observed that items that could be replaced were less grieved over.23 Unlike Gervase, Eadmer did not dwell on the rebuilding, but he did link the fire to the need for reconstruction, in this case of the monastery’s archive.24 Thus although Eadmer’s accounts of the fire occur in hagiographies rather than a chronicle, they also provide a 19

20

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23

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For Suger see E. Panofsky and G. Panofsky-Soergel, ed. and trans., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and its Art Treasures, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1979); see also P. Frankl, The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries (Princeton, 1960), p. 24. ‘occulto nostris diebus sed justo judicio Dei, incendio consumpta est, et cum omnibus ornamentis et utensilibus suis in nichilum pene redacta’, Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 7–9. B. W. Scholz, ‘Eadmer’s Life of Begwine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 761–764’, Traditio 22 (1966), 127–48 (p. 133). ‘Combusta est total cum officinis monachorum ibi degentium pene omnibus, simul et ęcclesia beati Johannis baptistę, ubi ut prędictum est archiepiscoporum reliquię iacebant humatę’, Scholz, ‘Eadmer’s Life of Begwine’, p. 144; see also Willis, Architectural History, p. 9. ‘Ut tamen quędam inde tangamus, quicquid in auro, in argento, in diuersis aliarum specierum ornamentis, in diuinis ac sęcularibus libris pręciosius habebat, fere totum uorans lingus ignis absobuit. De his tamen quia fuerunt recuperabilia, minus est fortasse dolendum’, Scholz, ‘Eadmer’s Life of Begwine’, p. 144; see also Willis, Architectural History, p. 9. ‘Si qua autem sunt ex illia recuperata, diversis in locis ubi contrascripta fuerunt reperta sunt et accepta, bullia atque sigillis quę alia fieri nequibant cum ęcclesia in qua seruabantur igne consumptis’, Scholz, ‘Eadmer’s Life of Begwine’, p. 144; see also Willis, Architectural History, p. 9.

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Laura Cleaver precedent for the kind of short text about the church that Gervase produced in his account of the fire and reconstruction.25 Indeed, as Davidson Cragoe noted, Gervase’s text also includes a passage on the life and miracles of Becket, as well as an account of the discovery of the remains and translation of the earlier archbishops Lanfranc and Theobald.26 Thus Gervase’s text was not without precedents. In the early twelfth century Eadmer’s work was known to those writing histories at Durham and Worcester.27 Eadmer visited Worcester, where he found material for a life of one of that community’s saints: Oswald (d. 992).28 In his life of Oswald, Eadmer evoked the potential of objects associated with long-dead saints to inspire, claiming that when he held Oswald’s chasuble he was ‘overwhelmed and greatly struck with awe by the miracles of God and the praiseworthy merits of blessed Oswald, the friend of God’.29 At Worcester, Eadmer’s Historia Novorum (which made reference to the Canterbury fire of 1067 as the reason for Lanfranc’s building work) was used in the creation of a Latin chronicle developing that by Marianus Scotus.30 Fires had been described in the earlier part of the Worcester chronicle, occurring as accidents and as a weapon of war, or with their causes unrecorded. Several were noted in the twelfth-century section of the chronicle, including a fire at Worcester in 1113. In the Worcester chronicle this was only briefly described, as follows: ‘The city of Worcester with its principal church and many others as well as the castle was consumed by fire on Thursday, 19 June. One of the monks, who had rendered many services to the monastery, with two servants and fifteen citizens, perished in the flames’.31 This may be the fire described by William of Malmesbury in the context of the era of Bishop Wulfstan II (d. 1095) in William’s Gesta Pontificum. William attributed the fire, which began in the city, to negligence. It spread to the cathedral and destroyed the roof, which collapsed. ‘Anything inside the church that 25 26

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29 30

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See also Davidson Cragoe, ‘Reading and Rereading’, p. 47. Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 17–19, 25–6; Davidson Cragoe, ‘Reading and Rereading’, p. 47. M. Brett, ‘John of Worcester and his contemporaries’, in The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis and J. M. Wallace-Hadrill with R. J. A. I. Catto and M. H. Keen (Oxford, 1981), pp. 101–26 (pp. 111–13); D. Rollason, ‘Symeon of Durham’s Historia de Regibus Anglorum et Dacorum as a Product of Twelfth-century Historical Workshops’, in The Long Twelfth-Century View of the Anglo-Saxon Past, ed. M. Brett and D. A. Woodman (Farnham, 2015), pp. 95–111 (p. 106). R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer (Cambridge, 1966), p. 283; Brett, ‘John of Worcester’, p. 113; Eadmer of Canterbury, Lives and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, ed. and trans. A. J. Turner and B. J. Muir, OMT (Oxford, 2006), pp. 306–7. Eadmer of Canterbury, Lives and Miracles, pp. 306–7. Eadmeri, Historia Novorum in Anglia et Opuscula duo de Vita Sancti Anselmi et quibusdam Miraculis ejus, ed. M. Rule, RS (London, 1884), p. 13; Brett, ‘John of Worcester’, pp. 111–13. John of Worcester, The Chronicle of John of Worcester, ed. and trans. R. R. Darlington, J. Bray and P. McGurk, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1995–8), III, 132–3.

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Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds managed to escape the fire shattered with a terrible noise as the masonry collapsed’.32 However, William’s interest in the fire lay not in the damage, but the astonishing survival of Wulfstan’s tomb (since destroyed), which he claimed was ‘untouched by the furious flames, neither discoloured by the smuts nor covered in ash’, together with a rush mat in front of the tomb.33 For William, this was a sign of Wulfstan’s sanctity. It is possible that the earliest surviving copy of the Worcester chronicle, Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 157, was begun in the aftermath of this fire, as the bishop lists (pp. 39–45) provide a terminus post quem of c. 1114 for the production of that part of the manuscript.34 Yet Orderic Vitalis claimed that the project had been initiated by Wulfstan, and if so the source materials used for its production must have survived the fire, so there is no particular reason to link the manuscript’s creation with that event.35 Indeed, in the entry for 1133 the chronicle notes, ‘In November Worcester was consumed by fire, a frequent occurrence’.36 Fires and their consequences could be interpreted by medieval writers as having religious significance, but they were also a fact of life. Copies of the Worcester chronicle were made for other Benedictine houses across central England, including one for Bury St Edmunds probably produced before 1143, which is now Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 297.37 That volume would have been available to Jocelin of Brakelond, who entered the monastery in 1173.38 Jocelin’s chronicle ends in 1202 and was probably substantially completed before Abbot Samson’s death in 1210.39 It is therefore possible, but unlikely, that he had seen Gervase’s work, although there are some striking parallels.40 The chronicle survives in a mid thirteenth century copy as part of British Library Harley MS 1005 fols. 121–63. A second copy, British Library Cotton MS Vitellius D XV, was damaged in the Ashburnham House fire. Excerpts were also added to Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 297 in the thirteenth

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33 34 35

36 37

38 39

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William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: The History of the English Bishops, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom with R. M. Thomson, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2007), I, 438–9; see also R. Gem, ‘Bishop Wulsftan II and the Romanesque Cathedral Church of Worcester’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Worcester, BAACT 1 (Leeds, 1978), pp. 15–37 (p. 20). William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, I, pp. 438–9. John of Worcester, Chronicle, II, xxxiv–xxxv. Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1969–80), II, 186–7. John of Worcester, Chronicle, III, 210–11. See Brett, ‘John of Worcester’, pp. 107–9; John of Worcester, Chronicle, II, xlvi–liii. Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, pp. xiii, 1. See Gransden, Historical Writing, I, 381; D. Gerrard, ‘Jocelin of Brakelond and the power of Abbot Samson’, Journal of Medieval History 40:1 (2014), 1–23 (p. 2). For connections between Canterbury and Bury earlier in the twelfth century see R. M. Thomson, ‘The Library of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Speculum 47 (1972), 617–45 (pp. 631–2, 642).

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Laura Cleaver century, and used in a fourteenth-century collection of saints’ lives (now Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 240). Jocelin presented the fire of 1198 as an instruction by the abbey’s saint, the martyred East-Anglian King Edmund, to treat his body with greater care. Like Gervase, Jocelin provided details about the origins of the fire that broke out in the shrine. Here carelessness was coupled with poor maintenance: There was a wooden dais between the shrine and the high altar, on which there stood two candles which the wardens of the shrine used to patch up, piling wax on top of wax and crudely joining them. Under the dais many items had been put most inappropriately – flax, thread, wax, various implements, indeed anything that came into the hands of the wardens was stored there, the doors and walls being of iron. While the wardens slept on the night of St Etheldreda [22 June 1198], it happened, so we believe, that part of a repaired candle burned out on the said dais, which was covered with hangings, and began to ignite all about it, above and below, so that the iron walls glowed all over with fire.41

Once the fire was noticed the monks sprang into action, fetching water and attempting to extinguish the flames with their habits. Jocelin noted that a beam behind the high altar, with a cross and statues of the Virgin and St John, had been taken down for renovation, together with the relics that had been placed on or hung from the beam, preventing their destruction.42 A painted hanging (pannus), which had been put in the place of the beam, was destroyed.43 The implication here is that the hanging was only supposed to be temporary and therefore no great loss. Like the mat in front of Wulfstan’s shrine, such an object would be extremely unlikely to have survived into the twenty-first century, providing hints as to the more ephemeral objects associated with shrines.44 However, Jocelin’s main concern was the damage to St Edmund’s shrine, including the

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Translation from Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 94. ‘Erat quidam ligneus tabulatus inter feretrum et magnum altare, super quem duo cerei, quos solebant custodes feretri reclutare et cereum cereo superponere et indecenter conjungere. Erant sub tabulato illo multa reposita indecenter, linum et filum et cera et utensilia uaria, immo quicquid ueniebat in manus custodum, ibi reponebatur hostio et parietibus ferreis existentibus. Cum ergo dormierent custodes nocte sancte Aleldrethe, cecidit ut credimus, pars cerei reclutati iam conbusti super predictum tabulatum pannis opertum, et cepit omnia proxima que supra et subtus erant accendere, ita quod parietes ferrei omnino igne candescerent’. For the Latin text, with an alternative translation and useful notes see Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, pp. 106–7. ‘Contigit et crucem et Mariolam et Iohannem, et loculum cum camisia sancti Aedmundi, et philateria cum reliquiis, que ab eadem trabe pendere solebant, et alia sanctuaria que super trabem steterant, omnia prius sublata esse’, ibid., p. 108. ‘pannus depictus conbustus fuit, qui in loco trabis pendebat’, ibid., p. 108. See also the Introduction to this volume, pp. 4–5.

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Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds displacement of precious stones and sheets of silver and damage to the wood of the reliquary ‘which was burnt to the thickness of my finger’.45 He claimed that ‘the golden Majesty on the front of the shrine, with some of the stones, remained stable and intact, and was more beautiful after the fire than before, because it was solid gold’.46 This evoked the idea that metal is refined by fire, which appears in the Bible as a metaphor for God purifying his people.47 Jocelin’s account of the fire included biblical quotations, attributing the fire to God’s wrath, but also acknowledging His mercy, and as the monks investigated they discovered that the damage was not so extensive as they had feared.48 Like Gervase, Jocelin commented on the emotion of the monks, in this case that they ‘wept for joy’.49 The wooden box containing St Edmund’s cup (an item associated with miraculous healing) was reduced to its metal fittings and lock, but the cup itself was found.50 Similarly, although the shrine was damaged, its contents were declared to be unharmed. However, Jocelin recorded that ‘a flagrant lie was put about that the Saint’s head had been burnt – some said only the hair’.51 These details again resonate with the idea of trial by fire.52 Like gold, the saint and his cup emerged unscathed from the fire, with his reputation potentially enhanced by it. Indeed, the account of the fire is followed by a description of the opening of the saint’s tomb five months later, shortly after the body’s elevation to the new shrine. On that occasion the body, when uncovered except for a linen wrapping, was found to be incorrupt, including a discernible nose, fingers and toes. Far from destroying the

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47 48

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Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 95; ‘ligno subtus conbusto ad spissitudinem digiti mei’, Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, p. 107. Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 95; ‘Aurea quidem maiestas in fronte feretri cum quibusdam lapidibus remansit firma et intacta, et pulcrior post ignem quam ante, quia tota aurea fuit’, Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, p. 107. For example: Malachi 3. 2–3, 1 Peter 1. 7. Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 94; quotations from Numbers 11. 33; Habbakuk 3. 2. Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 96; ‘omnes lacrimati sumus pre gaudio’, Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, p. 108. See T. Arnold, Memorials of St. Edmund’s Abbey, 3 vols., RS (London, 1890–96), I, 191, 374. Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 96; ‘Fingebat tamen fama mendax caput sancti esse conbusstum: quidam dicebant capillos tantum esse conbustum: quidam dicebant capillos tantum esse conbustos’, Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, p. 109. T. Head, ‘Saints, Heretics, and Fire: Finding Meaning through the Ordeal’, in Monks & Nuns, Saints & Outcasts: Religion in Medieval Society, ed. S. Farmer and B. H. Rosenwein (Ithaca, 2000), pp. 220–38; see also M. Widner, ‘Samson’s Touch and a Thin Red Line: Reading the Bodies of Saints and Jews in Bury St Edmunds’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 3 (2012), 339–59 (p. 351).

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Laura Cleaver relics, therefore, the account of the fire in Jocelin’s narrative served to underline the holy nature of the remains.53 Jocelin provided an explicit interpretation for the significance of the fire in 1198, beyond the immediate carelessness of the attendants, concluding: All this happened, by the will of God, so that the area round the shrine might be more carefully supervised and the abbot’s plan carried out more speedily and without delay: this was to place the shrine, with the body of the holy martyr, more safely and more spectacularly in a higher position. Before this unfortunate accident the canopy of the shrine had been half completed and the marble blocks for raising and supporting the shrine had for the most part been prepared and polished.54

Although Jocelin did not give a detailed account of subsequent building work, his text thus parallels Gervase’s in linking the destruction with a need for continuing plans to develop the shrine. Jocelin’s account of the fire also circulated separately from the rest of the chronicle. Unlike Gervase, Jocelin does not seem to have written a separate account of the events of 1198, but passages were excerpted from his chronicle and added to the copy of Worcester’s chronicle that had come to Bury (Bodleian MS Bodley 297, pp. 423–5). The excerpts in MS Bodley 297 are the account of the fire up to the lies about the destruction of the saint’s head and Abbot Samson’s inspection of the body, omitting the section about building the shrine and the disputes about costs. The result is therefore to cast the account of the fire more explicitly as a proof of Edmund’s sanctity. The text in MS Bodley 297 contains slightly different wording about the candles that caused the fire, but poor maintenance is still identified as the cause. Jocelin’s account of the fire at Bury further echoes Gervase’s in its inclusion of an account of a vision of the saint. Gervase used the motif of destruction and renewal in his account of Becket’s miracles, suggesting that these confirmed Becket’s sanctity.55 This was followed by an account of a vision of the saint by a cleric named Thomas. In Jocelin’s work an anonymous, but important man visited the community and told Abbot Samson of a vision in which he saw St Edmund who ‘appeared to be lying outside his shrine, groaning, and seemed to say that he had been robbed of his clothes, and that he was emaciated from hunger and thirst, and that his

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Gransden, Historical Writing, I, 381. Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 96; ‘Hec omnia facta sunt, prouidente Domino, ut loca circa feretrum cum corpore sancti martiris securis et gloriosius in loco eminentiore poneretur; quia antequam hoc predictum infortunium accidit, iam crista feretri usque ad medietatem facta fuit, et lapides marmorei ad eleuandum et sustienendum feretrum ex parte magna parati et politi fuerant’, Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, p. 109. ‘Quoniam igitur per hujus gloriosi martyris opera sanctorum miracula quasi quadam vetustate consumpta quodammodo renovata et per fidem confirmata sunt, recte beatus iste Thomas sanctorum privilegium nuncupatur’, Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 18.

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Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds burial-place and the portals of his church were badly cared for’.56 Samson interpreted this as evidence that the community was not taking sufficient care of the saint, as further evidenced by the fire, but the community offered an alternative reading, identifying themselves as Edmund’s naked body starved by the abbot. As at Canterbury, therefore, the relationship between the community and their leader was strained, although Jocelin records that Samson sought to restore good relations with the monks.57 In the longer term the shrine prospered and in the sixteenth century Cromwell’s agents reported that ‘we founde a riche shryne whiche was very comberous to deface’ and that they took from the monastery 5,000 marks in gold and silver, together with ‘a riche crosse with emeraldes as also dyvers and sundry stones of great value’ as part of a process that would eventually see the removal of all traces of the shrine and its setting.58 Gervase’s account does not seek to apportion blame, although it notes the church’s rotten roof beams. Instead, Gervase contextualises the fire as one of a series, mentioning three earlier fires. In his chronicle, the mention of the fire of 1174 is part of a busy year that had seen the archbishop elect, Richard of Dover (r. 1173–84), a monk of Canterbury, go to Rome to be consecrated by the pope, which Gervase notes was done at great expense.59 Gervase records that in July Henry the Young King visited Becket’s shrine and received an ampulla of ‘Becket’s water’ as a relic. Henry II’s sons were in rebellion against him, but submitted to their father in September. In the middle of these events, the archbishop had not long returned to England when the fire occurred. Nevertheless, Gervase’s account of 1174 ends with Richard consecrating new bishops at Canterbury in October, suggesting that the fire was not as disruptive to the life of the cathedral as his separate treatise on the subject might imply. The fire at Canterbury was considered worthy of note by some other contemporary chroniclers. Roger of Howden claimed that the whole town of Canterbury together with all its churches and the cathedral were burnt by a raging fire, apparently overstating the scale of the damage.60 Ralph of Diceto, based at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, linked the return of 56

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Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 97; Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle of Jocelin, trans. Butler, p. 110. Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, trans. Greenway and Sayers, p. 98; Gransden, Historical Writing, I, 384. BL Cotton MS Cleopatra E IV, fol. 229 (alternative foliation fol. 273); A. Gillespie, ‘The Later Lives of St Edmund: John Lydgate to John Stow’, in St Edmund, King and Martyr: Changing Images of a Medieval Saint, ed. A. Bale (York, 2009), pp. 163–86 (p. 163). See also the illustrations in the introduction to this volume. ‘Coactus est hiis diebus peregrinationis suae quos nunquam habuerat thesauros effundere, ut vel sic malignantium insidias evitaret’, Gervase of Canterbury, Historical Works, I, 247. ‘Et eodam anno vehemens ignis invasit villam Cantuariensem, et eam combussit, et fere omnes ecclesias villae illius, et ecclesiam sanctae Trinitatis quae in ea est penius combussit’, W. Stubbs, ed., Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, 2 vols., RS (London, 1867), I, 81; see also Roger of Howden, Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ead. W. Stubbs, 4 vols., RS (London, 1884–89), II, 70.

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Laura Cleaver Archbishop Richard from Rome and the fire in his narrative, observing that because those who prosper often face adversity, shortly after his return (reaching London on 3 September), ‘oh sorrow!’, the church at Canterbury was burned by fire on 5 September.61 In describing Richard’s consecration, Ralph had likened the archbishop of Canterbury to being set on a candlestick to shine before men (paraphrasing Matt. 5. 16), setting up a journey from candlestick to conflagration as he apparently descended on fortune’s wheel.62 Ultimately, however, as in Gervase’s chronicle, the fire was a minor point in Ralph’s narrative as Richard resumed his business at Canterbury. Destructive fires were a fact of life in medieval communities reliant on flames for heat and light. They made regular appearances in a range of writings about contemporary and more distant history, in an environment in which writers often borrowed ideas and content from one another. Although Kidson thought that Gervase’s treatise on the fire and reconstruction at Canterbury was unusual, and therefore suspicious, it finds striking parallels with Jocelin’s account of the fire at Bury St Edmunds, with which it may be contemporary.63 The fire at Canterbury was much more destructive than that at Bury, but both did significant damage to two of the most popular pilgrimage sites in England. In writing about the fires both Jocelin and Gervase drew upon biblical models that emphasised purification through fire. Their focus was, pragmatically, on what survived rather than what was lost. The fires presented a moment of trial for relics, communities, and their leaders, from which the relics at least emerged with their reputations enhanced. In passing, these and other accounts made references to objects which were destroyed: a hanging and a box for Edmund’s cup at Bury and a beam and reliquaries at Canterbury. As Eadmer explicitly noted, such things were relatively easy to replace and therefore not greatly to be grieved over.64 Other accounts drew attention to miraculous survivals of highly vulnerable material, such as the mat at Worcester. Almost all such material has since been destroyed, either through deliberate means (including burning) at the Reformation, or decay over time. Such accounts, therefore, provide valuable hints about the ephemeral objects of the Middle Ages, albeit in the context of texts often designed to support particular agendas for rebuilding. Kidson was

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‘Sed quia se prosperis soleant inmiscere frequenter adversa, cum suae cursum peregrinationis feliciter consummasset, sub ipso reditu suo Cantuariensis ecclesia subito, proh dolor! Conflagravit incendio nonis septembris’, Ralph of Diceto, Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols., RS (London, 1876), I, 391. ‘Positus est Cantuariensis archiepiscopus super candelabrum ut luceat coram hominibus, et ad solatium cleri de clero assumptus est ad ecclesiasticae libertatis speciale subsidium, ad omnium regimen, ad munimen, ad tutamen Anglorum, cum in unam eandemque personam intra paucos dies tria concurrerint, archiepiscopus, primas, apostolicae sedis legatus’, ibid., I, 390. Kidson, ‘Gervase, Becket and William of Sens’, p. 971. Scholz, ‘Eadmer’s Life of Begwine’, p. 144.

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Accounts of Destruction and Survival at Canterbury and Bury St Edmunds not wrong to see Gervase’s text as part of a campaign to support the rights of the monks at Canterbury, including the possession of a fitting cathedral for their saints, and the manuscript evidence for his treatise on the fire suggests that this became part of a long-running assertion of rights and privileges. Yet the interpretations of the results of these fires do not provide compelling evidence that the monks of Canterbury or Bury were willing to risk setting fire to their churches, however great their faith in God and their saints may have been. They had too much to lose.

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6 Reweaving the Material Past: Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans1 Kathryn Gerry

Medieval textiles present a problem for twenty-first-century researchers: textual sources make it clear that textiles were ubiquitous and highly valued objects, that they played a starring role in practices of gift-giving, and that their presence must have inflected the visual experience of many European spaces in significant and powerful ways, but we have very few left to examine.2 Without the objects themselves, it is difficult to understand in any detail how textiles functioned within the nuanced visual economy of medieval Europe. This is true for many categories of medieval objects, and textiles – given their high importance and low survival rates – provide us with an extreme example that throws into high relief a significant obstacle faced by medieval art historians, the loss of so much medieval art. It is one thing to know that textile hangings were an elemental component of the medieval church space, a given within the immersive environment familiar to nearly everyone in medieval Europe, but it is another thing to be able to visualise that space as it would have been. We are familiar with the documentation – the inventories and lists of gifts – and with the frustrating lack of detail, clarity, and specificity in the language of those texts.3 The nature of this textual documentation makes it easy to skim over, 1

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A draft of this essay was presented at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 1 July 2019, as part of a series of sessions exploring the use of medieval resources in recovering the lost material past, and this chapter has benefitted enormously from the comments and questions I received, as well the ideas set forth in the other papers in the sessions, several of which are included in this volume; I am grateful to Sean Burrus, Laura Cleaver, Dallas Denery, Crystal Hall, Stephen Perkinson, and Emma Maggie Solberg for their comments at various stages of preparation; Daniel Hadas has assisted me with useful and erudite insight on relevant Latin passages. My interest in the questioning of and thinking on the issues surrounding lost works of art has been deeply shaped by my mentor and friend Herbert Kessler. For a general discussion of the importance of textiles within medieval European settings, see F. Pritchard, ‘The Uses of Textile, c. 1000–1500’, in The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, ed. D. Jenkins, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2003), I, 355–77. On some of the difficulties of working with the surviving resources, see M. Martiniani-Reber, ‘Tentures et textiles des églises Romaine au haut Moyen Âge d’après le Liber Pontificalis’, in Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 111 (1999),

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Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans to note in passing that a certain church owned some textiles, and then move on to the meatier possibilities offered by works of art that we can actually see. But that can leave us with a rather skewed picture of medieval European material culture, weighted more heavily towards those works which are more likely to survive into the modern period. Looking to works which do not survive has its practical challenges, as so many of the essays in this volume make clear, and it raises larger methodological issues as well. In the not-so-distant past, art-historical interest in hypothetical lost models and the resulting artistic stemmata (that in some cases purport to lead all the way back to Rome) have perhaps led us too far away from the surviving objects themselves, from the concrete remains that are still able to give us a first-hand account of themselves.4 Without going down that path, I think it is worth our time and effort to push the visualisation of certain lost works as far as we reasonably can, with the hope of gaining a better idea of the immersive and integrated environment that formed the background of the events, ideas, and practices that made up life in the Middle Ages. My intention in this essay is to see how far we might be able to envision the appearance of two lost twelfth-century textiles from the important Benedictine monastery of St Albans, both of which depicted the abbey’s patron saint, and to think through what might be gained from such an exercise. How might imagining these lost works – in terms of their formal elements as well as their subject matter – help us to understand better the function of works of art within a specific context? We are faced with a real dilemma, resulting from years of accumulated change, moments of iconoclasm, and other accidents of survival: the bare interiors of medieval churches, stripped of their hangings, glass, and wall paintings, with most of their precious metal long since melted down, do not reflect what most medieval people saw and experienced.5 That textiles were an important component of these interiors is wellestablished by textual sources as well as pictorial ones. Throughout the Middle Ages richly woven and embroidered textiles were a fixture in the material environment of both secular and spiritual elites, and textual

4

5

289–305. For an example of the number and variety of fine textiles which might be given to a specific church, see Matthew Paris’s account of the silk hangings owned by St Albans Abbey in the 1250s, with the names of some donors and some account of the decorative elements, but few of the details regarding production, scale, cost, and so on, that we might wish for: Liber additamentorum, London, BL Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 147v, Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols., RS (London, 1872–83), VI, 389–92. See, for example, Herbert Kessler’s recent comments on the relationship between the Cotton Genesis (London, BL Cotton MS Otho B IV) and the mosaics at San Marco, Venice, and the development of scholarly thought on the question of models, lost models, and copies: H. L. Kessler, ‘La Genèse Cotton est morte’, in Les stratégies de la narration dans la peinture médiévale: Ve–XIIe siècles, ed. M. Angheben (Turnhout, 2019), pp. 373–402. A. Klukas provides a useful perspective on this: ‘Durham Cathedral in the Gothic Era: Liturgy, Design, Ornament’, in Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, ed. V. Chieffo Raguin, K. Brush and P. Draper (Toronto, 1995), pp. 69–83.

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Kathryn Gerry documentation, pictorial evidence, and a handful of extant works attest to a rich array of materials, colours, decorative techniques, centres of production, and functions.6 The ubiquity of textiles within medieval church interiors was so widely known by the mid thirteenth century, that Matthew Paris, the monastic chronicler and historian of St Albans, could use it as a point of reference in his criticism of royal interior decorating practices, commenting that Eleanor of Castile had outfitted her apartments in Westminster with so many textiles that it looked like the inside of a church.7 Such textiles were highly valued objects in and of themselves, and by the twelfth century had come to embody a wide range of associations of power, luxury, and sacrality.8 Bringing textual and pictorial sources to bear, it is easy to imagine a general picture of a church decked out with wall hangings and altar 6

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Studies on particular aspects of the history of textiles in medieval Europe are numerous, and only a few examples are offered here, with some direct relevance to the subject of this essay. On English embroidery, see C. Browne, G. Davies, M. A. Michael, with M. Zöschg ed., English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum (New Haven and London, 2016). For textiles as part of church treasuries, see N. Morgan, ‘Embroidered Textiles in the Service of the Church’, in English Medieval Embroidery, pp. 25–39. On the importance of textiles as ecclesiastical gifts, see Martiniani-Reber, ‘Tentures et textiles’. For specific examples of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of donating textiles to the Church, see M. Budny, ‘The Byrhtnoth Tapestry or Embroidery’, in The Battle of Maldon, 991, ed. D. G. Scragg (Oxford, 1991), pp. 263–79; E. Plenderleith, C. Hohler and R. Freyhan, ‘The Stole and Maniples’, in The Relics of Saint Cuthbert, ed. C. F. Battiscombe (Oxford, 1956), pp. 375–432, plates XXIV-XXXII; and J. Backhouse, D. H. Turner and L. Webster ed., The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art; 966–1066 (London, 1984), p. 19, and plate III. On the roles that textiles might play in saints’ cults, see M. Martiniani-Reber, ‘Le role des étoffes dans le culte des reliques au Moyen Age’, Bulletin de CIETA 70 (1992), 53–8; H. K. Wickham-Crowley, ‘Buried Truths: Shrouds, Cults and Female Production in Anglo-Saxon England’, in Aedificia Nova: Studies in Honor of Rosemary Cramp, ed. H. Damico and C. Karkov (Kalamazoo, 2008), pp. 300–24; M. Bagnoli, ‘Dressing the Relics: Some Thoughts on the Custom of Relic Wrapping in Medieval Christianity’, in Matter of Faith: An Interdisciplinary Study of Relics and Relic Veneration in the Medieval Period, ed. J. Robinson, L. de Beer, with A. Harnden, British Museum Research Publications 195 (London, 2014), pp. 100–110. ‘Et cum venisset illa nurus nobilissima ad hospitium sibi assignatum, invenit illud, sicut electi Tholetani hospitium, olosericis pallis et tapetiis, ad similitudinem templi appensis, etiam pavimentum aulaeis redimitum, Hispanis secundum patriae suae forte consuetudinem hoc procurantibus, ita ut fastus superfluitas in populo sannas moveret et cachinnos’, Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, V, 513; cited and translated in Pritchard, ‘The Uses of Textile’, I, 355. For a discussion of the sacred and secular ideas associated with textiles and textile display in the Middle Ages, see Bagnoli, ‘Dressing the Relics’; D. M. Cottrell, ‘Unraveling the Mystery of Jan van Eyck’s Cloths of Honor: the Ghent Altarpiece’, in Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images, ed. D. G. Koslin and J. E. Snyder (New York, 2002), pp. 173–94 (pp. 174–6); and E. Cremeens, ‘Weaving Sanctity: The Textile Relics of St Cuthbert’, Peregrinations 6:4 (Autumn, 2018), 1–25. K. Rudy has argued that stitching itself could be an authoritative act, enhancing and nuancing the understood meaning of a given object: K. Rudy, ‘Sewing as Authority in the Middle Ages’, Zeitschrift für Medienund Kulturforschung 6 (2015), 117–31.

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Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans

Figure 1: The Precious Gospels of Bernward (sog. Kostbares Evangeliar). Hildesheim, Dom Museum, Domschatz 18, fol. 16v.

coverings, the liturgical actors dressed in layers of richly decorated vestments. A handful of depictions from the Middle Ages help with this, such as the well-known Mass of St Giles from about 1500, in which the saint participates in a miraculous event, ostensibly in early eighth century Orleans, but here set in an interior heavily dependent on the later medieval appearance of the abbey church of Saint-Denis, or the presentation miniature in the eleventh-century Bernward Gospels, showing Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim standing before an altar, with great visual attention paid to the rich patterns of the wall hangings, and the cloths

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Kathryn Gerry draping the altar and the prelate (Fig. 1).9 But it is harder to visualise any specific setting, to re-image our idea of any particular church space, for which we often have very limited information. The prevalence of textiles within the material landscape of the church is easy to overlook in favour of those works which have been more likely to survive, especially manuscripts and some types of sculpture. In the case of St Alban, England’s legendary first martyr and a citizen of the Roman British city of Verulamium, images of the saint have survived in several twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscripts, including the St Albans Psalter and the works of Matthew Paris.10 These visual accounts of St Alban have provided a key source for modern scholars seeking to analyse the pictorial construction of the saint, but illuminated manuscripts were intended for and available to only a very limited audience. Liturgical hangings such as those considered below, on display near the main altar at least on certain feast days, were essentially public art. Textile images displayed within a church, along with wall paintings and stained glass, would have reached a wider audience than illustrated books, and in a pilgrimage church like St Albans, viewers would have come from many classes and regions. These textile images would have been foundational to a shared experience of the saint among both the inhabitants of and the visitors to the monastery and, considering the layers of implication potentially embedded within any given textile, it is clear that such hangings could play a role in establishing, enhancing, and reinforcing the sanctity of relics and shrines. The display of the saint’s life in textile form would enhance the numinous aura of the church space, projecting a sense of both

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The Mass of St Giles, c. 1500, oil on oak panel, 62.3 × 46 cm, London, National Gallery of Art, NG 4681. See L. Campbell, The Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Paintings with French Paintings Before 1600, 2 vols. (London, 2014), I, 776–807; The Bernward Gospels, c. 1015, fol. 16v, ink, pigment, gold on parchment, 28 × 20 cm, Hildesheim, Dom Museum, Domschatz 18. See J. Kingsley, The Bernward Gospels: Art, Memory, and the Episcopate in Medieval Germany (University Park, PA, 2014). St Albans Psalter, 1120s (?), p. 416, Hildesheim, Dombibliothek MS St Godehard 1. For the manuscript, see O. Pächt, C. R. Dodwell and F. Wormald, The St Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter) (London, 1960); J. Bepler, P. Kidd and J. Geddes, The St Albans Psalter (Albani Psalter); Commentary (Simbach am Inn, 2008), pp. 108–9; K. Collins, P. Kidd and N. Turner, The St Albans Psalter: Painting and Prayer in Medieval England (Los Angeles, 2013). The Matthew Paris manuscripts in question are Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fols. 55v–63r, and Chronica majora, vol. 1, c. 1250 (?), Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26, fols. 58v, 59r. For Trinity MS 177, see M. R. James, Illustrations to the Life of St Alban in Trin. Coll. Dublin MS E.i.40 (Oxford, 1924); F. McCulloch, ‘Saints Alban and Amphibalus in the Works of Matthew Paris: Dublin, Trinity College MS 177’, Speculum 56:4 (1981), 761–85; N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 1190–1250, 2 vols. (London, 1982–8), pp. 130–3, cat. 85; Matthew Paris, The Life of Saint Alban by Matthew Paris, ed. and trans. J. Wogan-Browne and T. S. Fenster (Tempe AZ, 2010). For the Chronica majora, see S. Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987); the manuscript, along with full cataloguing details, is available online: https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/ catalog/rf352tc5448 (accessed 10.11.2020).

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Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans material and sacred wealth. Textiles from such a location then can widen our viewpoint, presenting us with ensembles that were created to appeal to a wide range of ‘interpretive communities’.11 Two specific textiles relevant to the cult of St Alban and the material environment of St Albans Abbey Church are mentioned in the Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, the main historical document of the monastery for this period, and these deserve further attention than they have so far received.12 These works were given to the monastery by the abbots Richard (r. 1097–1118) and Geoffrey (r. 1118–46) in the first half of the twelfth century. Both were figured with images of St Alban, and both were probably intended to be hung behind or near the main altar.13 (This was probably the main altar at the east end of the church, and not at the altar in the nave which served the laity, but their position near the shrine is likely to have made them visible to pilgrims.) Nothing survives of either of these works beyond a textual description in the Gesta abbatum, compiled by Matthew Paris in the mid thirteenth century. The Gesta’s description of the figured textile given by Richard is found within a long list of gifts that the abbot donated to the monastery. After listing several reliquaries and liturgical vestments, the text describes ‘dossale unum, sive tapecium, in quo Passio Sancti Albani figuratur’ (one dossal, or tapestry, on which is represented the martyrdom of St Alban).14 (A dossal is usually taken to refer to a textile suspended behind an altar.) The description of the textile given by Geoffrey falls at the end of a similar list, preceded by liturgical implements and illuminated manuscripts: ‘Dedit quoque dossale magnum, in quo intexitur Inventio Sancti Albani, cujus campus est aerius’ (He also gave a large dossal, on which is embroidered the invention of St Alban on a field of sky blue).15 11

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I borrow this phrase from N. Rowe, ‘Synagoga Tumbles, a Rider Triumphs: Clerical Viewers and the Fürstenportal of Bamberg Cathedral’, Gesta 45 (2006), 15–42 (pp. 17, 36 n. 20). H. T. Riley, ed., Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, 3 vols., RS (London, 1867), I, 70, 94; all subsequent citations reference volume I of this edition. An English translation is available: D. Preest, trans., and J. Clark, ed., The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani (Woodbridge, 2019), but, as the translator’s objectives are not centred on artistic terms and materials, all translations in this essay are my own unless otherwise specified. The subject matter of the dossals suggests that they were intended to be hung at the main altar dedicated to Alban, rather than in one of the subsidiary chapels. Riley, ed., GA, p. 70. Ibid., p. 94. The colour of the background of this textile is specified in Matthew Paris’s autograph manuscript, London, BL Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 40r, as aerius: heavenly or sky blue. The 1867 edition uses a later manuscript as its basis and thus gives aereus (either “copper-coloured” or a variant of aerius) and Preest has translated this as ‘gold’, presumably taking aereus as a variant of aureus (Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 180). In addition to the Alban textile, Geoffrey also gave two smaller textile hangings, one figured with the parable of the man who fell in with thieves (Luke 10. 30–7), and the other depicting the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15. 11–32). The description and grouping of these three objects in the GA suggest they were displayed together, and the proximity of

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Kathryn Gerry It is worth noting here that this text presents several problems when taken as evidence of these now lost works. The Gesta abbatum of St Albans is one of our most important, and often our only, near-contemporary textual source for works of art made or used at St Albans in the twelfth century, but this document was not created to serve the interests of twenty-first-century art historians, or even of medieval readers looking for an inventory of the abbey’s possessions.16 Matthew Paris compiled this text primarily as an instrument to document (and perhaps even to invent parts of) the long history of the monastery, to justify the institution’s claims to certain privileges and possessions and, to some extent, to present the abbey’s leaders as role models, both positive and negative, for the members of the monastic community, perhaps reinforcing a sense of community and shared purpose.17 Furthermore, the degree to which we consider Matthew Paris to be the “author” of this text is debatable, with Matthew declaring that he relied on an earlier, conveniently lost, source for the portions which pre-date his tenure at the monastery.18 Richard Vaughan put forth a compelling argument that we should probably take this claim regarding source material mostly at face value, but he noted a number of points in the text where Matthew has inserted new material into the twelfth-century account, so that in at least some portions of the text the history of twelfth-century events and objects is filtered through a thirteenth-century author, with his own thirteenth-century agenda. The extent to which Matthew might have edited the portion of the text with which I am here concerned, and the question of whether or not it accurately reflects an original account from the mid twelfth century, as Matthew claimed, is thus unclear.19 However, as the works would likely have been displayed in the church at least on St Alban’s feast days for some decades after their creation, the description was almost certainly penned by someone who had seen the two works of art.

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these biblical scenes undoubtedly influenced the medieval reception of the Alban textile. Space does not permit an exploration of the relationship between these three items, but I hope to comment on this in the future. On the abbey’s inventories, see Collard’s and Carter’s essays in this volume. The literature on Matthew Paris as an historian, never mind an artist, is extensive; fundamental accounts include R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris; for a recent discussion of his writings in relation to medieval historical writing more generally, see B. Weiler, ‘Historical Writing in Medieval Britain: The Case of Matthew Paris’, in Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500, ed. J. Jahner, E. Steiner and E. M. Tyler (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 319–38. A twelfth-century text authored by a predecessor of his, either Adam the Cellarer or Adam’s clerk Bartholomew. Vaughan, Matthew Paris, pp. 182–9, esp. 183. For other viewpoints, see M. Hagger, ‘The Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani: litigation and history at St. Albans’, Historical Research 81 (2008), 373–98; R. Reader, ‘Matthew Paris and the Norman Conquest’, in The Cloister and the World: Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. J. Blair and B. Golding (Oxford, 1996), pp. 118–47 (pp. 121–2 (n. 20)).

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Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans We can probably assume two important goals in the production and donation of these textiles. The first is related to self-promotion: as abbatial donations, the objects themselves, prominently displayed, would remind internal monastic viewers as well as visitors to the abbey, both elite and common, of the important role played by the abbot as benefactor; in each case the textiles would glorify the individual abbot who offered them, and the office of abbot more generally.20 The second goal is the promotion of the cult of St Alban, who was the patron and protector of the monastery, a figure worthy of veneration, and the embodiment of the abbey’s long history. In the case of each of these goals, a clearer idea of the appearance of the objects in question can help us to understand better how they were intended to achieve the desired outcomes. As noted above, the material nature of a fine textile, in and of itself, sent a powerful visual signal, but the textual descriptions for these two textiles do provide some solid information about their specific appearance, allowing us to go further in an exploration of how these two works might have interacted with their medieval environment and audience. Their descriptions are contained within lists of gifts made by the two abbots, following a formula used throughout this portion of the Gesta abbatum, and, as is so often the case in lists like this, they are very brief. In neither case do these textiles merit a place at, or even near, the top of the list. But these two references do stand out from the other items: they are distinguished by the specification of subject matter, whereas many other items in the lists are described only in terms of their materials and ornamentation, even when it is likely or certain that these other items included pictorial material.21 The inclusion of this information in the descriptions signals that the pictorial content was considered important. As cited above, the account tells us that Richard gave a dossal, in which the martyrdom of Alban was depicted; the Latin word tapecium should not be taken to indicate a tapestry in the strictest sense of the word, but instead, some sort of decorated cloth, probably embroidered.22

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K. Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage and the Early Anglo-Norman Abbots of St Albans’, in Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World: Manuscripts, Makers and Readers, c. 1066-c. 1250, ed. L. Cleaver and A. Worm, Writing History in the Middle Ages 6 (York, 2018), pp. 167–88. A reliquary given by Richard, the first item in the list which includes the textile, is described as ‘aureis imaginibus redimitam’ with no further description (Riley, ed., GA, p. 69); for examples of liturgical vestments that include figural work, see Browne, Davies, Michael and Zöschg, ed., English Medieval Embroidery. I am here referring only to these specific portions of the text; elsewhere in the GA subject matter is sometimes specified. This portion of the GA was compiled by Matthew Paris in the thirteenth century, but we are probably encountering the voice of Matthew’s earlier source, so the decision to include the subject matter for these particular items can be taken to reflect mid-twelfth-century priorities and concerns, as well as those of Matthew (Vaughan, Matthew Paris, pp. 182–9). ‘Dossale’ could also be used to indicate a panel hung behind the altar, but a textile appears to have been the intended meaning more often in texts from the British Isles in this period (see examples at ‘Dorsalis’ in R. Ashdowne, D.

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Kathryn Gerry Geoffrey gave a large dossal, on which was embroidered the Invention of St Alban, on a field of azure, or sky blue.23 If the mention of the subject matter in the text is surprising, the choice of these particular scenes is not: Alban’s Passion and Invention are foundational moments in the sacred history of the monastery. According to medieval tradition, Alban, after being converted by the priest Amphibalus, was martyred in the third or fourth century outside the city of Verulamium, at the present-day site of the church. Matthew Paris and several twelfth-century authors state that the monastery of St Albans was founded by King Offa of Mercia in the second half of the eighth century, after the king had miraculously located the saint’s lost relics.24 These two moments in the saint’s history mark the important role that the monastery played as both the site of these events and the community guarding Alban’s relics. Richard gave a number of items to the monastery in addition to the dossal, and I have argued elsewhere that some of these gifts show that Richard wanted to leverage the abbey’s long history as he sought to secure a prominent place for his monastery in the post-Conquest institutional landscape of England.25 The decision to emphasise the martyrdom of Alban in a textile prominently displayed in the church is, I think, part of this pattern. Geoffrey, on the other hand, was concerned with

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Howlett and R. Latham, ed., Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, 3 vols. (Oxford, 2018), I). The text mentions that such a textile could also be called a ‘tapecium’, a tapestry, but this term was used broadly for woven and embroidered textiles in this period, and should not be taken to indicate any particular technique; I am grateful to M. Michael for his comments to me on this wording. I have translated intexitur as embroidered as this is likely to have been the method used to adorn textiles in this period. See p. 95 above. For the early medieval textual sources for St Alban, see W. Levison, ‘St Alban and St Albans’, Antiquity 15:60 (1941), 337–59; McCulloch, ‘Saints Alban and Amphibalus’; I. Wood, ‘Germanus, Alban and Auxerre’, Bulletin du centre d’études médiévales d’Auxerre 13 (2009), 123–9; and R. Sharpe, ‘The late antique Passion of St Alban’, Alban and St Albans; Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. M. Henig and P. Lindley, BAACT 24 (Leeds, 2001), pp. 30–7. Later medieval writers, notably Matthew Paris, attributed the foundation of the monastery of St Albans to King Offa of Mercia in the second half of the eighth century, with little supporting evidence. See J. Crick, ‘Offa, Aelfric, and the Refoundation of St Albans’, Alban and St Albans, pp. 78–84; J. Crick, ‘St Albans, Westminster and Some Twelfth-Century Views of the Anglo-Saxon Past’, ANS 25 (2002), pp. 65–84; P. Taylor, ‘The Early St Albans Endowment and Its Chroniclers’, Historical Research 68 (1995), 119–42; B. Weiler, ‘Uses of the Anglo-Saxon Past in the Age of Magna-Carta: Matthew Paris and his Lives of the Two Offas’, in How the Past was Used: Historical Cultures, c. 700– c. 2000, ed. P. Lambert and B. Weiler (Oxford, 2017), pp. 113–49. The record of this historical claim that Offa founded the monastery seems to have been significantly enhanced by Matthew Paris, but it is unlikely that he fabricated the references to Offa as founder in the portion of the Gesta abbatum recounting Paul’s abbacy. Offa’s association with the abbey is discussed by William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, and other, older sources were apparently in circulation; see Vaughan, Matthew Paris, pp. 184, 185, 189–94, and Crick, ‘Offa, Aelfric, and the Refoundation’. Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage’, pp. 178–88.

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Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans the immediate claims of the monastery as the resting place of Britain’s protomartyr. In addition to the textiles and other gifts, he created a new shrine for the saint, probably installed behind the main altar, and oversaw the translation of Alban’s relics.26 Geoffrey undertook these actions at a time when the monastic community at Ely seems to have been advancing a claim to hold the true relics of Alban, and I think it makes sense to see Geoffrey’s efforts to strengthen the cult of Alban as an attempt to mitigate and refute these rival claims.27 The choice of the Invention of Alban’s relics would have enabled Geoffrey to emphasise the veracity of the monastery’s possession of the relics while celebrating his own efforts in relation to the saint’s cult and producing a work complementary to that given by his predecessor, Richard. A general sense of the subject matter and context can get us so far, but can we get beyond this, to a more specific envisioning of these works? And, would a more granular visualisation offer any further information for understanding the intention or reception of these textiles? Comparison with other textiles and images in other media can at least help to form a mental sketch of the appearance of the St Albans dossals. There is no firm evidence as to where these works were made, but I think it is reasonable to suggest that they were produced in England, especially given the long history of textile manufacture and decoration there.28 Many of the surviving examples of medieval English textiles, most of which are later than the twelfth century, feature representations of Christ, but fragments of several thirteenth- and fourteenth-century embroidered altar hangings 26

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Riley, ed., GA, pp. 85–92; for the location of the shrine, see M. Biddle, ‘Remembering St Alban: the Site of the Shrine and the Discovery of the Twelfthcentury Purbeck Marble Shrine Table’, in Alban and St Albans, pp. 124–61. For Ely’s claims: Liber Eliensis, book ii, chapter 103; for the Latin text, see E. O. Blake, ed., Liber Eliensis (London, 1962); for a translation and commentary on the date and background of the text, see J. Fairweather, trans., Liber Eliensis; a History of the Isle of Ely from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth (Woodbridge, 2005). Ely’s claim is documented in the LE (1170s), but the theft reportedly occurred in the eleventh century and the assertion of relic authenticity in the mid-twelfth-century portions of the GA suggests that it was a concern as early as the translation of 2 August 1129. See Hagger, ‘The Gesta Abbatum’. On textile production in pre-Conquest England, see N. Crummy, ‘From Self-Sufficiency to Commerce: Structural and Artifactual Evidence for Textile Manufacture in Eastern England in the Pre-Conquest Period’, in Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images, ed. D. G. Koslin and J. E. Snyder (New York, 2002), pp. 25–43. I have come across several references to the possibility that a series of textiles depicting the Life of Alban were produced at St Vaast during the period of Richard’s abbacy, all of which ultimately cite the twelfth-century cartulary of St Vaast, but I can find no reference to any such textile or to Abbot Richard of St Albans in the edition of this text; see Guimann, Cartulaire de l’Abbaye de Saint-Vaast d’Arras, ed. E. Van Drival (Arras, 1875); and E. Van Drivel, Les Tapisseries d’Arras: étude artistique et historique (Paris, 1864), p. 35; as cited in W. G. Thomson, A History of Tapestry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 3rd edn, with revisions edited by F. P. and E. S. Thomson (Wakefield, 1973), p. 49; and E. Roberts, The Hill of the Martyr: An Architectural History of St Albans Abbey (Dunstable, 1994), p. 62.

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Kathryn Gerry from England depict scenes from the lives of saints or standing saints, and a textile cycle of the Life of St Edward, now lost, was displayed at Westminster Abbey from the thirteenth century until the seventeenth.29 As Nigel Morgan has noted, many of these examples feature single saints or simple scenes under arched frames, and he has suggested that many of these were originally arranged in two or more registers.30 Several continental examples, roughly contemporary with the Alban textiles, also show the two-register format and the arched frame.31 Makers and patrons of such a work in the early twelfth century would also have been familiar with works like the Bayeux Tapestry, with its extended secular narrative, and the Byrhtnoth Tapestry, now lost, which was also concerned with recent historical events. Although both works depict secular events, the Byrhtnoth Tapestry was made for an ecclesiastical destination, and the Bayeux Tapestry appears to have been considered an appropriate hanging for a cathedral, both when it was first made in the eleventh century and later in the Middle Ages.32 Although we cannot know exactly which textiles Richard, Geoffrey, and the artists who completed these works might have been personally familiar with, it is certainly possible that Richard at least had seen the textiles associated with the tomb of St Cuthbert at Durham, as he was present at the translation of Cuthbert’s relics in 1104. Yet while the potential role of textiles within cult promotion might have made an impression on Richard at this event, the non-narrative imagery on the Cuthbert textiles cannot have been a direct model for the depiction of Alban’s Passion.33

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Morgan, ‘Embroidered Textiles’, pp. 35–7; P. Binski, ‘Abbot Berkyng’s Tapestries and Matthew Paris’s Life of St Edward the Confessor’, Archaeologia 109 (1991), 85–95. For textiles depicting saints described in the Liber pontificalis, see Martiniani-Reber, ‘Tentures et textiles’, pp. 300–2. Morgan, ‘Embroidered Textiles’, pp. 35–7; see also C. Browne and M. Zöschg, ‘Panel depicting the Crucifixion with saints’, in English Medieval Embroidery, ed. Browne, Davies, Michael and Zöschg, pp. 136–7; Morgan assumes many of these examples were altar frontals, but several of the same examples are labelled as either frontals or dossals in D. King, Opus Anglicanum: English Medieval Embroidery (Plaistow, 1963), for example the textile depicting Sts Margaret and Lawrence, pp. 37–8. Given their size and location, two registers would have been a possibility for either dossals or frontals. For example, a twelfth-century altar frontal with Christ flanked by two registers of saints (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, mus. no. 1387–1904), and a mid-twelfth-century fragment of an embroidered hanging from Lower Saxony, with several saints under arched frames (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, mus. nos. 8713–1863). Budny, ‘The Byrhtnoth Tapestry’. That the Bayeux Tapestry was designed and intended to be hung in the nave of Bayeux Cathedral has recently been demonstrated: C. Norton, ‘Viewing the Bayeux Tapestry, Then and Now’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 172 (2019), 52–89. For the Cuthbert embroideries: Plenderleith, Hohler and Freyhan, ‘The Stole and Maniples’; Backhouse, Turner and Webster, The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, p. 19, and plate III; for Richard’s presence at the translation, Riley, ed., GA, p. 70.

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Figure 2: Panel (fragment) depicting the Life of Thomas Becket: Flight from Northampton, Reconciliation with Henry II at Fréteval, and Thomas’s return to England. Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, inv. no. 4226 b.

The best candidate for comparison that I have found is a series of thirteenth-century panels illustrating the life of Thomas Becket (Fig. 2).34 Although these are probably at least a century later than the St Albans dossals, they also depict the life of an important martyr saint. And although it is not clear that these were made for Becket’s shrine at Canterbury, they were most likely produced in England, so, as with the Alban textiles, the events depicted are relatively local. The Becket panels might have been part of an altar hanging or were perhaps panels covering a reliquary.35 They depict scenes from the life of the saint under simple rounded arches, each scene containing two or three figures against a plain background. Although these panels do provide a sequential narrative, showing interactions between the figures, most of the scenes do not include details related to setting or subsidiary characters, or much in the way of implements and objects that might have played a role in the event. In some ways, the embroidered Becket scenes are more similar in composition to the figures of standing saints on other textile fragments, or depictions of saints under arcades on large reliquaries from the period, such as the Godehard Shrine at Hildesheim or the Amandus Shrine now in Baltimore, than they are to manuscript images of the saint or the small Limoges reliquaries depicting an action-packed account of the martyrdom of Becket.36 We should

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The Becket embroideries are Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung, mus. nos. 4226a and 4226b, c. 1250–75, silver-gilt thread and coloured silks on linen; see M. A. Michael, ‘The Artistic Context of Opus Anglicanum’, in English Medieval Embroidery, ed. Browne, Davies, Michael and Zöschg, pp. 61–75 (pp. 62–3). Michael, ‘Artistic Context’, p. 62. Godehard Shrine: Hildesheim, Mariendom, c. 1140 – see P. Barnet, M. Brandt

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Figure 3: St Thomas returns to England, from the Manuscript with the Life of Thomas Becket (fragmentary). Wormsley Library MS 6, fol. 4v.

Figure 4: Martyrdom of Alban, from the St Albans Psalter. Dombibliothek Hildesheim, HS St. God. 1 (Property of the Basilica of St. Godehard, Hildesheim), p. 416.

Kathryn Gerry certainly not rule out some degree of shared iconographic development between manuscripts and textiles, as noted recently by Nigel Morgan and Evelin Wetter, but we must also acknowledge the clear differences in compositional complexity between the Abegg-Stiftung Becket Panels and depictions of the saint in other media.37 Even the most detailed of the embroidered scenes, showing Becket’s return to England (Abegg-Stiftung no. 4226b), includes far fewer figures and details than the same scene in a mid thirteenth century manuscript, now at the Wormsley Library (Fig. 3).38 We can perhaps imagine the Alban textiles to be similar to the Becket embroideries, with scenes framed by arches, relatively few characters or background details, and possibly arranged in two or more registers. As with the Becket panels, the Alban textiles have analogues in manuscript illustration, offering informative and reasonably welldocumented points of comparison. While no textiles from St Albans are known to survive from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the abbey maintained a productive scriptorium, and images of the patron saint have survived in several works.39

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and G. Lutz, ed., Medieval Treasures from Hildesheim (New York, 2013), p. 17; Saint Amandus Reliquary Shrine: Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, acc. no. 53.9, Flemish, early thirteenth century with later additions – see M. Bagnoli, et al., ed., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (New Haven, 2010), cat. 69, p. 129. An early depiction of Becket’s martyrdom can be seen in a late twelfth century copy of a collection of Becket’s letters compiled by Alan of Tewkesbury: London, BL Cotton MS Claudius B II, fol. 341r; see C. M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts 1066–1190 (London, 1975), p. 116 (cat. 93), ill. 257; image available online: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/ martyrdom-of-thomas-becket (accessed 10.11.2020). Another early depiction of the Martyrdom (c. 1190?) has been inserted into an early thirteenth-century psalter: London, BL Harley MS 5102, fol. 32r, for which see Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, I, pp. 88–9 (cat. 40), Ill. 138; M. Michael, ‘The Harley Psalter’, in English Medieval Embroidery, ed. Browne, Davies, Michael and Zöschg, p. 121; see https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN. ASP?Size=mid&IllID=16609 (accessed 10.11.2020). For an example of narrative in the manuscript of a saint’s Life contemporary with (and probably seen by) Abbot Richard, see the early twelfth century Life of Saint Cuthbert, Oxford, University College MS 165, for which: M. Baker, ‘Medieval illustrations of Bede’s Life of St Cuthbert’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41 (1978), 16–49. For examples of the smaller Limoges Becket reliquaries: Bagnoli, et al., Treasures of Heaven, cats. 99, 100, pp. 187–8. N. Morgan, ‘Some Iconographic Aspects of Opus Anglicanum’, in The Age of Opus Anglicanum, ed. M. A. Michael (London, 2016), pp. 91–115; E. Wetter, ‘Donors’ Wishes, Liturgical Requirements, and Serial Production; the Limits and Potentials of Research on English Embroidery in a Museum Collection’, in The Age of Opus Anglicanum, pp. 117–31. Wormsley Library, J. Paul Getty Collection, MS 6, fol. 4v; formerly London, BL Loan MS 88, illustrated in Michael, ‘The Artistic Context’, p. 63, ill. 60, and discussed and illustrated in N. Morgan, ‘Matthew Paris, St Albans, London, and the Leaves of the “Life of St Thomas Becket”’, The Burlington Magazine 130:1019 (Feb. 1988), 85–96 (ill. 24, p. 90). For St Albans manuscripts, see R. Thomson, Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey 1066–1235, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1985).

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Figure 5: Martyrdom of Alban, from the Chronica majora, vol. 1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26, fol. 58v.

For Richard’s dossal, the scene of Alban’s martyrdom in the St Albans Psalter presents one such point of comparison (Fig. 4).40 Given their existence within the same institution, and roughly contemporary dating, it is possible that one might have served as a model for the other, or that the makers of both drew on similar sources. Whatever the scenario, it is likely that some features would have been shared between the two works. The miniature shows the moment of Alban’s death, the saint’s soul, depicted as a bird, received into heaven, and the miraculous maiming of the executioner, whose eyes fall out of his head as he strikes the fatal blow. The blinded executioner is in fact given centre stage in this image. While Alban’s body falls into the lower right corner of the image, the executioner stands upright, his torso twisting around so that his head, and the two eyes springing from their sockets, are placed nearly in the centre of the page, on axis with Alban’s ascending soul, and with the image of God in heaven at the top of the folio. In two other manuscripts produced at St Albans about a century later, Matthew Paris’s Chronica majora, at the Parker Library in Cambridge (Fig. 5), and the Life of Alban, now at Trinity College, Dublin (Fig. 6), representations of Alban’s martyrdom also emphasise the miraculous blinding of the executioner.41 In the Dublin miniature, by far the more detailed of the

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Although the date of this manuscript has been much debated, it is possible that parts of it were made during Richard’s abbacy, including the leaf now at the end depicting the death of Alban. Chronica majora, vol. 2: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 16, fol. 58v; Life

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Figure 6: Martyrdom of Alban, from the Life of St Alban. Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fol. 38r.

Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans two, the eyes are again closely associated with the rising dove of Alban’s soul, not with an axial alignment, as in the St Albans Psalter, but with the oppositional pairing of the upward path of the bird running nearly parallel to the blood-red lines defining the downward path of the eyes from their sockets. Given the extended narrative of the Becket panels and the secular textiles noted above, it is reasonable to guess that Richard’s dossal expanded the account of Alban’s Passion more fully than the manuscript representations.42 The moment of the saint’s death would of course have been a key scene, but the details shared between these three manuscript versions, especially the emphasis on the falling eyes, indicates either that this was a crucial element for the St Albans community, or that all three share some source material.43 In either case (and the two are not mutually exclusive), the textile version of the story likely included a very similar scene, though perhaps with an arched frame and relatively few details. The textile displaying the Invention given by Geoffrey might well have included some of the same structural features outlined above: arcade-like frames and two or more registers. No scene of this event is now found in the St Albans Psalter or, as far as I know, in any other manuscript that Geoffrey might have known, but comparative material is found in Matthew Paris’s illustrations of the event in the Chronica majora, and the Life of St Alban. The Cambridge volume has only one image for this event (Fig. 7), but the series of illustrations in the Dublin manuscript presents an extended cycle of the invention and elevation of Alban’s relics and the legendary foundation of the monastery by King Offa, with a number of scenes showing Offa’s fundamental role as founder and supporter of the monastery (Figs. 8–9).44 It is certainly possible that Matthew Paris found some inspiration for his pictorial cycle in the textile given by Geoffrey. If so, the extended pictorial narrative of the thirteenth-century manuscript in Dublin, with an emphasis on the role of royal power in glorifying the saint and supporting the monastery, might provide some insight into how Geoffrey was seeking to position his institution within the larger field

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of Alban: Dublin, Trinity College MS 177; both manuscripts attributed at least in part to Matthew Paris. The St Albans Psalter has a complicated history and most of the many images in the book are Christological, but the two miniatures at the end, which pair David and St Alban, are likely to have been created at an early stage of the project, before the decision was made (or the resources were allocated?) to add the extensive prefatory cycle of miniatures; for codicology, see Bepler, Kidd and Geddes, The St Albans Psalter, pp. 108–9. The St Albans Psalter, whatever its original destination might have been, is a copy of a sacred text, which was generally used in a devotional context, while the Chronica majora is a lengthy historical chronicle, and the Trinity manuscript is essentially a hagiographic libellus of Sts Alban and Amphibalus. Wormald has proposed that the Alban miniature in the St Albans Psalter not only influenced later depictions of this event, but provided the origin of the thirteenth-century story of the round-headed cross associated with Alban and Amphibalus: Pächt, Dodwell and Wormald, The St Albans Psalter, pp. 8–9. The relevant illustrations are found on fols. 55v–63r.

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Kathryn Gerry

Figure 7: Invention of Alban’s Relics, from the Chronica majora, vol. 1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26, fol. 59r.

of Anglo-Norman religious houses. Perhaps Matthew Paris’s scene of St Albans’s first abbot invested by the hands of the king himself was drawn directly from Geoffrey’s textile. So, what, if anything, can we then say about how the re-imagined appearance of these textiles might relate to larger institutional objectives or to the experience of viewers? As noted at the start of this essay, the general subjects of these two works fit well with the apparent patterns of intention witnessed by Richard’s and Geoffrey’s other acts of patronage, and particularly with the textile given by Geoffrey, and we might then surmise that this point would apply to the details as well as the general appearance. Geoffrey’s choice of the Invention of St Alban, the discovery of his relics on the future site of the abbey, might be linked with his efforts to dispute Ely’s claims to hold Alban’s relics. If the twelfth-century textile was indeed something of a model or at least a starting point for Matthew’s later cycle of illustrations (that is, if we can take Matthew’s images as a reflection of the general pictorial content of the textiles), then Geoffrey might have been invoking the secular authority of a historical king as witness to the true home of the relics, and he might even have been appealing more directly to the present secular authorities to support the abbey in this dispute. This visual and material representation of the significance of the relics would have been in close proximity to the supposed resting place of those very relics, essentially verifying, for a medieval viewer, that the remains of St

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Figure 8: Invention of Alban’s relics, from the Life of St Alban. Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fol. 59r.

Figure 9: Investiture of the first abbot of St Albans by King Offa, from the Life of St Alban. Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fol. 60v.

Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans Alban were indeed at St Albans Abbey, and emphasising the sacrality of the space shared by the saint, the viewer, and the image.45 Another possible point of departure for considering the utility of a hypothetical reconstruction is the format of the images. If the textile images at St Albans were framed with arches, as in the case of the Becket textile and many others, it is worth considering how these compositions interacted with other elements of the architecture and decoration. The early twelfth century church was marked with simple, rounded arches, some of which survive in the transepts and portions of the nave. This direct visual connection between the textiles hanging near the altar and the fabric of the surrounding structure would create a continuum of repeated geometric forms. Viewers would themselves be framed in the same way that the saint was framed at the altar. This would perhaps encourage those viewers to see their own lives in relation to that of the saint, to take his model to heart in their own actions. It might also reinforce the idea that those actions most fundamental in the life of St Alban took place in exactly the spot where the church now stands. Whether or not such a claim was historically accurate, this kind of conflation between the spiritual past and the immediate present was often a component of medieval pictorial art, and here we might see it extended beyond the images themselves, to the framing devices and ornamentation of those images and the constructed space in which they were displayed.46 The resonance established by the rounded arch frame might be seen to extend beyond the arcades of the church to its glazing and other aspects of interior decoration. The window openings which survive from this period at St Albans are simple rounded arches, as seen in the clerestory levels today. While the early glazing from the abbey does not survive, where glass survives from other churches of this period standing saints are common, similar in their framing and composition to later textiles, as for example the early twelfth-century glass at Augsburg and Dalbury.47 And similarities might have existed in the colour as well as the form: Geoffrey’s textile is described as having a background of vibrant or heavenly blue, a colour often found in stained glass, as in the early 45

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On the role of visual arts in validating and attesting to relics, see C. Hahn, ‘What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?’, Numen 57 (2010), 284–316; and M. Bagnoli, ‘The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval Reliquaries’, in Treasures of Heaven, ed. Bagnoli, et al., pp. 137–47; on the issue of proximity and presence in relation to relics and saints, see P. Brown, The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981), esp. pp. 86–105. For example, historical characters are often represented in contemporary medieval clothes, as in the prefatory cycle of the St Albans Psalter, especially noteworthy in the costumes of peasants and soldiers, supposedly in the early Roman Empire (see https://www.abdn.ac.uk/stalbanspsalter/english/index. shtml (accessed 10.11.2020) for images). For the windows at Augsburg, see D. Chevalley, H. Werner-Clementschitsch and M. Mannewitz, Der Dom zu Augsburg (Munich, 1995); for the medieval glass at All Saints Church, Dalbury, Derbyshire, see P. Cowen, English Stained Glass (London, 2008), p. 9.

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Kathryn Gerry windows from Canterbury only a few decades later, and Suger’s nearly contemporary windows at Saint-Denis.48 Painting from this period often makes use of a rich blue within the mandorla of Christ, demarcating a celestial zone, as in the early twelfth century apse painting from Taüll.49 Would the images on the textiles around the altar then correspond to depictions in the windows, in their composition, form, and colour, as well as their subject matter? If so, then this would serve to create and reinforce links between the images at the altar and those within the fabric of the building, reifying the relationship between the saint in heaven and his earthly home. The colours and framing devices of the textiles might also have aligned with at least some of the reliquaries held by the church. Here, too, as with the textiles, we are forced to rely on brief descriptions and comparisons with reliquaries from other churches, but saints framed by arcades are a common enough feature on twelfth-century reliquaries, and the blue background of Geoffrey’s textile finds a solid comparison in the many Limoges reliquaries produced in the later twelfth and early thirteenth century.50 The shrine commissioned by Geoffrey (though not actually completed during his tenure) was intended to be covered in gilt silver and adorned with gemstones, and as it was located behind the altar, for some privileged viewers at least it would have been visible simultaneously with the dossals. Aside from Alban’s shrine, the abbey certainly owned other reliquaries, and some of these smaller reliquaries might have been displayed above or in close proximity to the main altar.51 Textile hangings such as those given to St Albans by Richard and Geoffrey constitute an important, indeed fundamental, component in the immersive environment of the medieval church, as experienced by all of its participants. When we put in the effort to imagine the details of these works, to flesh out the known subject matter with information about localised historical concerns, the colour and the framing devices, and the importance of the material itself, we can start to see how these textiles

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H. Kessler, ‘The Function of Vitrum Vestitum and the Use of Materia Saphirorum in Suger’s St Denis’, in L’Image; Fonctions et usages des images dans l’Occident médiéval, ed. J. Baschet and J.-C. Schmitt (Paris, 1996), pp. 179–203. Apse of Sant Climent de Taüll, c. 1123, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, inv. no. 015966–000, https://www.museunacional.cat/en/colleccio/apsesant-climent-de-taull/mestre-de-taull/015966–000 (accessed 10.11.2020). For examples of such reliquaries, see Bagnoli, et al., Treasures of Heaven, cat. nos. 93–6, pp. 183–5. On the potential for visual and experiential interaction between stained glass windows and moveable elements within the church space, and a particularly eloquent and evocative description of such spaces, see S. Montgomery, ‘Sacra Conversazione: Dialogues between Reliquaries and Windows’, Journal of Glass Studies 56 (2014), 253–70. Gervase, in his account of the 1174 fire at Canterbury Cathedral, describes reliquaries as displayed on beams within the church; the most accessible (though incomplete) translation of this text is probably that in T. G. Frisch, Gothic Art 1140-c.1450; Sources and Documents (Toronto, 1987), pp. 14–23 (p. 15). See also Cleaver in this volume.

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Textual Restoration of Two Lost Textiles from St Albans would have resonated with the extended material and visual experience of those within the church space, and with contemporary political concerns. Textiles were an essential element of the integrated sacred space of the church interior and the constructed visual experience of that space. These objects might now be invisible to us, but they would have had a far larger audience than the illuminated manuscripts we so often rely on as pictorial evidence from this period. If we are to imagine the experiences of medieval people, for whatever purposes we might have, we cannot ignore the likely appearance of so fundamental a component of that experience. It is easy to pass over brief, textual references to textiles, embedded in long lists and with only scant details, but if we take the time to think through carefully what they might have looked like, to imagine their likely form and composition as well as their subject matter, we can start to recover some of the lost visual environment that was central to life in medieval Europe.

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7 Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans1 Judith Collard

Matthew Paris was one of the most prolific and significant historians operating in thirteenth-century Europe. Based at St Albans Abbey, north of London, he wrote several chronicles, including the large Chronica majora that is spread over three volumes, the Liber additamentorum (a miscellaneous collection of documents and historical texts that is closely connected to the Chronica majora), saints’ lives, and an account of his own monastery’s abbots: the Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani.2 He was also active as an illustrator and a copyist. Throughout his various texts Paris recorded gifts and their donors, the work of craftspeople and the presence of precious objects at the abbey of St Albans. Several of Paris’s works not only reflected his interest in historical matters but also enhanced the holdings of the abbey, and have provided post-medieval researchers with a wealth of information related to the production and importance of the visual arts in this period. In the Liber additamentorum Paris produced an archive documenting some of the abbey’s possessions, both large holdings, for example lands, and much smaller works, including reliquaries and jewellery. Amongst the plethora of texts found in that manuscript is a description of various gems owned by the abbey, each carefully drawn by Paris (London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fols. 146r–146v, Figs. 1–2). This was an unusual collection and presentation of material but completely appropriate both for his miscellany and, since none of the objects represented is now known to survive, for this volume on lost objects. Paris’s interest in metalwork has been interpreted 1

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My thanks to the British Library for allowing me to spend many hours examining Matthew Paris’s manuscripts. My thanks also to the editors of this volume for organising the conference sessions at Leeds that led to this publication and for being so generous with their feedback and suggestions. I would also like to thank Drs Bridie Lonie and Gareth Treharne in Dunedin for going beyond the call of friendship in their generous support during my time in hospital and beyond; and my sister Barbara Collard, her husband George Tieman and their family for sheltering me and putting up with me during my convalescence. The Chronica majora is now: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26 and MS 16 and BL Royal MS 14 C VII. The Liber additamentorum is BL Cotton MS Nero D I. The Gesta abbatum is BL Cotton MS Nero D I, ff. 30–73v.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans as evidence that he was skilled in this craft, as part of a broader enthusiasm in modern scholarship for linking evidence for named people with works of art. Yet, although Paris’s documentation is undoubtedly important for our understanding of the artistic possessions of a wealthy and influential monastic house like St Albans, in the absence of the metalwork it must be treated with caution. This chapter therefore examines the accounts of the metal objects and craftsmen produced by Paris to provide a context for an analysis of the catalogue of gemstones and jewellery contained in the Liber additamentorum.

Matthew Paris as archivist Matthew Paris’s efforts to record and make available the deeds of his community are found in manuscripts associated with him and in later writings by figures such as Thomas Walsingham. While not necessarily Paris’s primary concern, some of this activity could be described in presentday terms as archival. It would seem clear that he saw his actions as being of benefit to his wider community. The Liber additamentorum, with its collection of charters and lists of precious jewels and textiles, fulfilled this role, as did the Gesta abbatum now bound together with these texts.3 Moreover, when Henry VI visited St Alban’s shrine in March 1458, at a time of political crisis, he was shown a small quarto manuscript compiled by Paris. This included works associated with the cult of St Alban, such as William of St Albans’s Passio Albani and extracts from the liturgy, as well as Paris’s own Life of St Alban and St Amphibalus. The event was recorded on a flyleaf of that manuscript, which is now housed in Trinity College, Dublin (MS 177).4 James Clark described these manuscripts as representing ‘the collective memory of the community’ and they were kept in a reserved book collection in the abbot’s own study where they were taken out to be displayed to such visitors.5

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We might identify several other relevant modern categories of text in which Matthew’s work would fit; see J. Berenbeim, Art of Documenation: Documents and Visual Culture in Medieval England (Toronto, 2015), p. 92, fig. 3.18. She includes several categories of text to which Matthew Paris made significant contributions. Björn Weiler has written extensively on this material including two important overviews of Paris’s historical writing: B. Weiler, ‘Historical Writing in Medieval Britain: The Case of Matthew Paris’, in Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500, ed. J. Jahner, E. Steiner and E. M. Tyler (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 319–33, and idem, ‘Matthew Paris on the writing of history’, Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009), 254–78. J. G. Clark, ‘The St Albans Monks and the Cult of St Albans: the Late Medieval Texts’, in Alban and St Albans: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. M. Henig and P. Lindley, BAACT 24 (London, 2001), pp. 218–30 (p. 222); J. G. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medieval England: The Evidence from the St Albans Abbey Liber Benefactorum’, in Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, ed. E. Jamroziak and J. Burton (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 315–31 (p. 327 and n. 55). Clark, ‘The St Albans Monks’, p. 222.

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Judith Collard Over the long history of the abbey, the types of objects added to the collection of the house varied, but among the most precious were those associated with its saints. In Paris’s time, Abbot William of Trumpington (1214–35) obtained a cross that was believed to have been given to St Alban by St Amphibalus, who supposedly converted Alban to Christianity. Paris’s description included a small sketch of the cross, with its distinctive circular head, in a parallel to his treatment of the abbey’s jewels, although he did not specify what the cross was made of.6 Instead, the Gesta abbatum’s account explained that the cross had been hidden in London in the possession of a single family until Abbot William acquired it.7 The cross was also included in a fourteenth-century relic list.8 Paris described the finding of St Amphibalus’s body in 1177 in the Chronica majora, the Historia Anglorum, the Gesta abbatum, and the Life of St Alban and St Amphibalus, and the cross was depicted repeatedly in the latter.9 This relic and Matthew’s accounts of it offer just one example of how the community at St Albans accumulated material that served to reinforce their claims of antiquity and how Paris gathered this material together and used it in different ways in his manuscripts.10

Matthew Paris as metalworker? Matthew Paris not only noted works of art made for or given to the abbey, but he also included a great deal of information on the makers of these works, especially those who were members of the monastic community or had other noteworthy ties to the monastery. The attention Paris gave to works by craftsmen associated with St Albans is perhaps one reason why there has been some confusion as to whether he too was a maker. The writings of a later chronicler from St Albans, Thomas Walsingham,

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BL Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 61. H. T. Riley, ed., Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, 3 vols., RS (London, 1867–9), I, 292; F. McCulloch, ‘Saints Alban and Amphibalus in the Works of Matthew Paris: Dublin, Trinity College MS 177’, Speculum 56 (1981), 761–85 (p. 779); B. Kjobye-Biddle, ‘The Alban Cross’, in Alban and St Albans: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. M. Henig and P. Lindley, BAACT 24 (London, 2001), pp. 85–110 (p. 94). B. Kjøbye-Biddle, ‘The Alban Cross’, in Alban and St Albans: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. M. Henig and P. Lindley, BAACT 24 (London, 2001), pp. 85–110, at p. 95. See McCulloch, ‘Saints Alban and Amphibalus’, p. 768; D. Preest, trans., and J. G. Clark, ed., The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta Abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani (Woodbridge, 2019), p. 301. See also K. Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage and the Early Anglo-Norman Abbots of St Albans’, in Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World: Manuscripts, Makers and Readers, c. 1066–c. 1250, ed. L. Cleaver and A. Worm, Writing History in the Middle Ages 6 (York, 2018), pp. 167–88. Gerry’s study highlights how important Paris’s work was in recording and preserving the work of previous craftspeople, monks, and abbots.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans did much to encourage this. In Walsingham’s version of the Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, where he recorded not only the deeds of the abbots but also some of the community’s notable members, he wrote: Eodem quoque tempore floruit et obiit Dominus Matthaeus Parisiensis, monachus Ecclesiae Beati Albani; vir quidem eloquens et famosus, innumeris virtutibus plenus, historiographus ac chronographus magnificus, dictator egregius, corde frequenter revolvens,—“Otiositas inimica est animae.” Quem quidem, ubi nunquam fecerat praesentia cognitum, partibus remotis fama reddiderat divulgata commendatum. Hic vero, a multis retroactis temporibus usque ad finem vitae suae Chronica diligenter colligens, gesta magnatum, tam saecularium quam ecclesiasticoruum, necnon casus et eventus, varios et mirabiles, in scriptis plenarie redegit, mirabilemque ad posterorum notitiam praeteritorum reliquit certificationem. Inerat ei tanta subtilitas in auro et argento, caeteroque metallo, in sculpendo et in picturis depingendo, ut nullum post se in Latino orbe creditur reliquisse secundum. Igitur, exemplo ipsius, operibus insudemus salubribus incessanter, ut cum ipso praemiis remuneremur coelestibus.11 (Also at the same time Dom Matthew Paris, monk of the church of the Blessed Alban flourished and died. Famous for his eloquence and full of countless virtues, he was an outstanding historian and chronicler and a first-class scribe. He would repeatedly say to himself, ‘Just remember. “Idleness is the enemy of the soul.”’ In distant parts, where he never made his presence known, his widespread fame won him praise. His carefully composed chronicles covering the period from the distant past right up to the end of his own lifetime, as he reduced to a detailed written account the deeds of the great, both secular and ecclesiastic, and the different remarkable happenings and events. He left behind him for the knowledge of future generations a reliable record of the past which we can only marvel at. He had such exquisite skill in working in gold and silver and other metals, in sculpture and in painting pictures that he is believed to have left no one in the Latin West to follow him. So, using his example, let us without ceasing busy ourselves with useful tasks, so that together with him we may be repaid with heavenly praises.)12

Walsingham mentioned Paris several times including in the Book of Benefactors (London, British Library MS Cotton Nero D VII), where Walsingham eulogised Paris as a ‘religiosus monachus incomparabilis cronographus et pictor peroptimus’ (‘religious monk, an incomparable chronicler and an excellent painter’).13 While none of the nineteenth-century editors of his work credited Paris with being a significant metalworker, the possibility was raised by

11 12 13

Riley, ed., GA, I, 394–5. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 496–7. BL Cotton Nero MS D VII, fols. 50v–51r; R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), p. 19; for additional remarks on this manuscript, see Carter’s contribution to this volume.

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Judith Collard some twentieth-century art historians.14 In 1917, W. R. Lethaby referred to Paris as a goldsmith.15 More recently, in 1992, John Cherry also described him as a goldsmith in a book on medieval craftsmen.16 Cherry repeated Walsingham’s claims about Paris’s great skill in gold and silver and other metals, although he added that it was not possible to judge his work as no examples survived.17 Given that immediately after his death Matthew Paris was not known for his skills in metalwork this posthumous reputation is extremely unlikely. Indeed, in the colophon that is found in his own Chronica majora accompanying an image of the dead monk on his deathbed, there is no mention of this skill, although his Liber chronicorum (‘book of chronicles’) was included in the drawing.18 The colophon declared: Sciendum est, quod hucusque perscripsit venerabilis vir frater Matheus Parisiensis: et licet manus in stilo varietur, modo tamen compositionis eodem servato, eidem totum asscribitur. Quod autem amodo appositum est et prosecutum, cuidam alteri fratri sit asscribendum, qui tanti praedecessoris opera praesumens aggredi, indigne prosecuturus, cum non sit dignus ejusdem corrigiam solvere calciamenti, paginae non meruit nomine tenus annotari.19 (Thus far wrote (perscripsit) the venerable man, brother Matthew Paris: and though the hand on the pen may vary, nevertheless, as the same method of composition is maintained throughout, the whole is ascribed to him. What has been added and continued from this point onwards may be ascribed to another brother, who presuming to approach the works of so great a predecessor, and unworthy to undo the latchet of his shoe, has not deserved to have even his name mentioned on the page.)20

Unlike Walsingham, the anonymous monk did not provide any information about the range of Paris’s work, including his writings and his artwork, nor did he provide any evidence of his possible metalwork. Although Walsingham’s obituary provided no solid evidence of Paris’s work in metal, it did provide a convincing, authoritative text for later scholars. Moreover, there are other reasons why scholars such as Lethaby and Cherry thought Paris was a goldsmith. These include the amount of

14

15

16 17 18 19 20

Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols., RS (London, 1872–84); Roger of Wendover, Flores historiarum, ed. H. O. Coxe, 4 vols. (London, 1841–2); H. R. Luard, ed., Lives of Edward the Confessor, RS (London, 1858); Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, ed. F. Madden, 3 vols., RS (London, 1866–9); M. R. James, Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, (Oxford, 1920); Vaughan, Matthew Paris; and S. Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987). W. R. Lethaby, ‘English Primitives – V: Matthew Paris and Brother William’, The Burlington Magazine 31 (1917), 45–52 (p. 51). J. Cherry, Goldsmiths (London, 1992), pp. 7–9. Ibid., p. 9. BL Royal MS 14 C VII, fol. 218v. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, V, 748 n. 1. V. H. Galbraith, Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris (Glasgow, 1944), p. 12.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans detail with which he recorded the work of craftsmen and abbots in his Gesta abbatum and in his other histories, the care with which he represented the jewels held by the abbey, seeming to imply a great interest in metalwork, and his other activities as a patron of the abbey. C. C. Oman, who wrote several influential articles on Matthew Paris and on the goldsmiths of St Albans, commented on Walsingham and on whether Paris was a goldsmith, writing ‘[w]e are not concerned with Matthew as a painter or illustrator, but only as a goldsmith, and there is little enough to tell, as he is completely silent on the subject himself’.21 Yet despite the acknowledged lack of evidence, Oman thought that Paris was a goldsmith, in part because Paris wrote so well on the topic.22 The modern authors were also aware that very little metalwork survived from the Middle Ages, creating a lacuna into which Paris could be inserted. This is a reminder that historians have tended to rely more on written sources than material survivals. In the twentieth-century hunt for Paris as goldsmith, authors seem to have read more into the medieval documents than is actually there, and as appealing as their conclusions might be, they have not been universally persuasive. It is noteworthy that Richard Vaughan, who wrote a groundbreaking monograph on Paris, was silent on this issue, and Suzanne Lewis, who has published perhaps the most authoritative examination of Paris’s artistic production to date, focused on his role as an illustrator of historical chronicles.23 Pending further knowledge, it seems prudent at this point to rule out the possibility that Matthew Paris was himself a goldsmith.

The Gesta abbatum Whether or not he was an active metalworker, Matthew Paris is a key source for our knowledge about this activity at St Albans up to the mid thirteenth century. Most of this information is found in the Gesta abbatum, where Paris, drawing in part on older records, described the deeds of St Albans’s abbots and those who worked for them. This work survives in a thirteenth-century manuscript (British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, ff. 30–71), with entries for each abbot that open with a small, coloured drawing of the relevant figure, providing a similar combination of imagery and text to that found in the account of the jewels. It was planned from the opening pages that the Gesta abbatum would contain within it a record of the ‘plurimi multa beneficia, in possessionibus, dignitatibus, sacris vasis, et ornamentis’ (‘many favours, possessions, privileges, sacred vessels and ornaments’) that most of the abbots gave.24 In enumerating and describing

21

22 23 24

C. C. Oman, ‘The Goldsmiths at St Albans Abbey during the 12th and 13th Centuries’, The St. Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society Transactions (1932), 215–36 (p. 229). Ibid., p. 216. Vaughan, Matthew Paris; Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris. Riley, ed., GA, I, 3; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 41.

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Judith Collard these gifts and acquisitions, Paris provided a detailed, if sometimes questionable, list of works in various media, helping us to envision the rich contents of medieval monastic treasuries, from which so little material survives. These included not only the works made in his own day, but the holdings of the abbey acquired over centuries. Indeed, Paris included an account of King Offa, the purported founder of the abbey, presenting deeds of his gift, which included properties and privileges, to the high altar of his church.25 Offa was also depicted presenting a charter to the monastery in Paris’s Life of St Alban and St Amphibalus, (Dublin, Trinity College MS 177, fols. 62v–63r). This is shown in scenes across two folios, with the king kneeling before the altar presenting the document (which is distinguished by a large seal) to a monk watched by a servant who holds a horse, and two attendants. Depicted on the far right of the opening, bells were rung to mark the event. In the Gesta abbatum, Paris diligently recorded the careers of each of the monastery’s abbots, including how they enhanced the abbey’s reputation and wealth or detracted from it. To compile this text, he interrogated those who now worked and lived at the abbey, and the writings of previous generations. He described one of his sources as ‘antiquum Rotulum Bartolomoei Clerici; qui cum Domino Adam Cellarario diu fuerat, serviens ei, et ipsum rotulum sibi retinuit, de scriptis suis’ (‘the ancient roll of Bartholomew the clerk, who for a long time had been servant of Adam the Cellarer, and who kept this roll for himself from amongst his writings’).26 Intriguingly, Paris chose only this text for specific comment, despite having other sources.27 For his account of the events of Wulnoth’s reign in the first half of the tenth century, which saw the theft of St Alban’s relics and their temporary removal to Odense, and then the actions of Egwin who was able to recover them for the monastery, Matthew named the sources for much of his material as: Odo, treasurer and mint master for King Valdemar II of Denmark; Master John of St Albans, goldsmith and lover of the martyr, who had produced the outer part of the casket; John’s son, Nicholas of St Albans, who also worked for the Danish king on coinage and in the mint, before working for the king of England; Master Edward, a priest and special counsellor of the king of England; and Edward’s uncle. All these men were regarded by Paris as ‘viris fidelibus et discretis, et fide-dignis, […] qui de pago Beati Albani erant oriundi vel educandi’ (‘reliable, sensible and trustworthy men, born or brought up in the district of the blessed Alban’), and they provide evidence of his knowledge of men who worked with precious metals.28 25

26

27

28

Riley, ed., GA, I, 46. See L. Cleaver, Illuminating History Books in the Anglo-Norman World (1066–1272) (Oxford, 2018), p. 147, fig. 44; and Gerry in this volume. Riley, ed., GA, I, xiv. This is written in the margin on fol. 30v (BL Cotton MS Nero D I); Vaughan, Matthew Paris, pp. 182–3. While Adam the Cellarer was probably a well-known twelfth-century monk, as Vaughan pointed out, Bartholomew was less securely identified: indeed according to Vaughan Bartholomew’s name was not found in the documents from St Albans. Vaughan, Matthew Paris, pp. 182–3. Riley, ed., GA, I, 19; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 67.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans The Gesta abbatum provides insights into the range of contexts in which metalwork appeared and the different ways in which it might be valued. According to the Gesta abbatum, Leofric, who is listed as the tenth abbot (late tenth century), gave various treasures belonging to the abbey to be distributed amongst the needy at a time of great famine, although certain precious gems, including cameos, were set aside to adorn the shrine when it was built. There is some question about the veracity of this account.29 Oman suggested that it was not until after the Norman Conquest that information about the activities of both the abbots and the craftsmen working at the abbey became more detailed.30 Certainly the entries in the Gesta abbatum became more substantial for this era. The first Norman appointment was Paul of Caen (1077–93), a relative of Archbishop Lanfranc and possibly his son, about whom, in addition to the gossip about his birth, a good deal of information can be found in the Gesta abbatum.31 Paul was credited with reconstruction of the church and monastic buildings as well as the restoration of various properties associated with the abbey that had been lost because of the carelessness of his predecessors.32 He was praised as a deeply educated man, who gave various material objects to the abbey including a silver basin in which could be set a candle before the high altar, and three candelabra of silver and gold, as well as two equally fine candelabra which were noted for their workmanship, that were set before the martyr on major feast days. He also added bells to the tower, two of which were funded by an English noble, Lyolf, in an example of how metal items could carry associations of the community’s broader networks.33 In addition Paul gave a considerable number of books to the church, including ‘duos Textus, auro et argento, et gemmis ornatos’ (‘two texts decorated with gold and silver and gems’) – a reminder of the wide range of contexts in which precious metalwork was deployed.34 Paul also gave other books, relics, reliquaries and cloaks and other ornaments. His immediate successor, Abbot Richard d’Aubigny (1097–1119), continued Paul’s building programme, and had a reliquary made, ornamented with gold figures in which were placed relics of the twelve apostles and several martyrs that had been given by St Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, who had placed them in the tomb of St Alban.35 He also had a second chest made,

29

30 31

32 33 34 35

Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 88; J. Crick, ‘Offa, Aelfric and the Refoundation of St Albans’, in Alban and St Albans: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. M. Henig and P. Lindley, BAACT 24 (Leeds, 2001), pp. 78–84 (esp. p. 80). Oman, ‘Goldsmiths at St Albans’, p. 217. Riley, ed., GA, I, 51–66; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 123; see also Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage’. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 124–5. Ibid., pp. 134–6. Riley, ed., GA, I, 58; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 135. Riley, ed., GA, I, 69–70; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 151–2; see also Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage’.

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Judith Collard in part, of gold and also covered in ivory, to hold various saints’ relics and gave a chasuble ornamented with tassels, gold, and precious stones. The next abbot, Geoffrey de Gorran (1119–46), utilised the skills of the first of several well-known St Albans craftspeople, Anketill, who was described in the text as a St Albans monk and ‘nonpareil goldsmith’.36 It was Geoffrey who began the construction of Alban’s shrine, but (echoing the account of Leofric) he sold material intended for the construction of the shrine to feed the poor.37 The Gesta abbatum records that the next year of Geoffrey’s abbacy was a fruitful one, so there was no need to divert funds from the shrine to support the poor, and Anketill was able to work swiftly but with great care to create the elegant shape of the body of the shrine, although the crest of the shrine was left unfinished, while the abbot sought a greater supply of gold, silver and gems for this purpose.38 The whole body of the shrine was richly gilded. The care and detail apparent in Paris’s account of the making of this shrine is remarkable. For example, he described the hammering out and embossing and the use of cement to strengthen the hollows this process created. Moreover, it was in this section of the Gesta that Paris included a description of the miraculous cameo, featured on fol. 146v of the Liber additamentorum.39 Abbot Geoffrey’s gifts to the abbey included highly decorated copes and chasubles, one of which was so covered with precious gems and tassels, it flashed and glowed with the colours.40 Later, in the time of his successor, Ralph (1146–51), it was melted down because it was claimed to be far too heavy to wear. In addition to these textiles he also had candlesticks, an incense box and a silver reliquary made, as well as an altar top of gold and silver and precious stones that he later used to pay off several barons who threatened to burn down the town of St Albans during the time of King Stephen.41 The repeated motifs in the gifts of the different abbots shed light on the material that Paris thought important, but may also suggest that abbots attempted to emulate or out-do their predecessors. In the section of the Gesta abbatum on Geoffrey, Paris includes several intriguing and colourful stories about the abbot, who was from a wellknown family from Maine and Normandy. Paris claimed that Geoffrey had been a school master at Dunstable and borrowed choir copes from St Albans’s sacristan for his play about St Katherine.42 These were destroyed by fire and to make good this loss to God and St Alban he entered the community. This may also have been the motivation for giving expensive copes later in his career.43 In contrast, Geoffrey’s immediate successor, 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43

‘Anketillus Ecclesiae Sancti Albani monachus et aurifaber incomparabilis’, Riley, ed., GA, I, 87–8; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 173. Riley, ed., GA, I, 82. Ibid., I, 83; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 170–1. Riley, ed., GA, I, 84; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 171. Riley, ed., GA, I, 93. Ibid., I, 94. Ibid., I, 73. Ibid., I, 94; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 158–9.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans Ralph Gubiun (1146–51), stripped St Alban’s shrine of its gold plate and some of its gems so that the village of Bramfield could be bought, although the Book of Benefactors recorded that this village was given to fund the church roof.44 This is an important reminder that even highly significant religious metal objects could be destroyed in the Middle Ages, either by accident or if their financial value was seen to outweigh other qualities. Robert de Gorham (1151–66), Geoffrey’s nephew and the eighteenth abbot recorded in the Gesta abbatum, was noted for his industry. He donated a large number of books which were kept in the specially made painted aumbry opposite the tomb of Roger the Hermit.45 Abbot Simon (1167–83), who followed him, was, according to the Gesta, another great patron of the church. He also gave many fine gifts to the abbey including two silver bowls and two gold-fringed chasubles, as well as a silver thurible and two very fine quality palls made of imperial purple, and a beautiful image of the Virgin Mary, as well as many more books.46 Notably, Simon is also credited in the Gesta abbatum with having the foresight to gather gold, silver, and precious gems, and to order the construction of an outer shrine for the reliquary of St Alban, work undertaken by Master John, a highly esteemed goldsmith.47 In addition, Simon gave a fine processional cross covered in plates of gold and with a golden circlet with a fragment of the True Cross within it. It was during his time that the bodies of St Amphibalus and his companions were reputedly found. However, the relics were not translated until Warin of Cambridge was abbot (1183–95), when they were transferred to a splendid new reliquary adorned with a depiction of St Amphibalus’s martyrdom.48 During the abbacy of John de Cella (1195–1214) one of the most notable craftspeople entered the monastery. This was Walter of Colchester, who became sacrist in 1215 and died in 1248, and whom Paris would therefore have known.49 He was not only a goldsmith but also a painter and sculptor. During this time, he produced a frontal for the high altar which was made partly of wood and of metal, two book-covers of silver-gilt, one decorated with a crucifix and images of the Virgin and St John, and the other with Christ in Majesty with the four Evangelists.50 Walter worked with Master Elias of Dereham, canon of Salisbury, on the shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury, which was elevated on 7 July 1220, an event which both Paris and the young Henry III attended.51 According to the Gesta abbatum, Walter also did the painting before the altar of the Blessed Virgin, as well as those above and to the side of that altar, and paintings before the altars in the church. This is a reminder that craftsmen might work in many media. Both 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51

Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 201–2, and n.19. It is suggested that this recessed cupboard was found in the cloister close to the entry of the church. Ibid., p. 29 and n. 14. Riley, ed., GA I, 189–91. Ibid.; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 295–6. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 327. Riley, ed., GA, I, 233; Oman, ‘Goldsmiths at St Albans’, p. 227. Riley, ed., GA, I, 233; Oman, ‘Goldsmiths at St Albans’, p. 227. Vaughan, Matthew Paris, p. 3.

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Judith Collard Walter’s pupil, Master Simon, and Richard, his nephew who became a monk at St Albans, were also involved in the decoration of the church, providing it with paintings.52 It is possible that Richard was also a goldsmith, though Paris only makes mention of his painting. Richard produced at least seventeen works, some for cells at Hertford and Wallingford and Oman has attributed to him a ‘great candlestick’ for the abbey.53 During the time of William of Trumpington (1214–35) Walter also produced a pulpitum in the middle of the church that included a great cross, with the Virgin, St John and other figures.54 William of Trumpington also commissioned a new shrine for St Amphibalus and his companions together with beautiful paintings, as well as a new altar with a fine gold figured cross, which was consecrated by Bishop John of Ardfert, another patron of the abbey. In addition, Abbot William obtained a rib of St Wulfstan which was enclosed in a silver shrine and had an altar dedicated in honour of that saint.55 In Paris’s time, therefore, the abbey was richly decorated, and the use of a small group of monastic craftsmen apparently leading work in multiple media raises the possibility that an attempt was made at integrating metalwork into an overarching decorative scheme, despite (and presumably incorporating) earlier objects, which were rendered precious by both their financial and their spiritual significance. The artistic activity at St Albans occupied an important position within Paris’s chronicles, the Gesta abbatum and other texts. From these accounts Paris’s interest in the activities of such craftspeople and his awareness of their contributions to the fabric of his community, as well as the interest they held for him are clear. These texts demonstrate Paris’s intention to keep a comprehensive record for the abbey, and his observations of the world around him. Matthew Paris’s interest and skill in observation are also reflected in his accounts of natural phenomena and in his hagiography, but in the Gesta we clearly see the ways in which his observations were rooted in and inflected by the craftsmanship, preciousness, and potential for meaning found in material artefacts.56

Matthew Paris as Patron From Paris’s writings, we can glean some information about his role in the acquisition of certain works by the abbey, as well as a great deal of information about his personal motivations, goals, and relationships. It is 52 53 54 55 56

Riley, ed., GA, I, 233; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 349–50. Oman, ‘Goldsmiths at St Albans’, pp. 228–9. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 403. Ibid., pp. 404–5. J. Collard, ‘The Enthroned King in La estoire de seint Aedward le rei (Cambridge, University Library MS Ee. 3. 59)’, in Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles, ed. J. Dresvina and N. Sparks (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2012), pp. 121–39; J. Collard, ‘Art and Science in the Manuscripts of Matthew Paris’, Medieval Chronicle 9 (2014), 79–116.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans important to note that he himself was a patron who made gifts to the abbey, recorded in the Liber additamentorum.57 These included fine embroideries that had been presented to him by such people as Queen Eleanor, wife of Henry III, King Haakon of Norway, and the abbot of Ramsay.58 Paris also gave the abbey two silver basins and a silver cup. This was in addition to his four autograph manuscripts that were given ‘to God and St Albans’.59 As a Benedictine monk, Matthew was (in theory if not always in practice) barred from owning property, but these records locate him within chains of patronage as the penultimate step in gifts to the abbey. Nevertheless, the objects that Paris recorded were not, like those sometimes given to monasteries, primarily symbolic of the act of transferring property or the contents of charters.60 Rather, Paris seems to have considered that the recording of material objects, whether they were chalices or jewels, was important, and that these acts in and of themselves were significant for the community and an encouragement to future patrons. In making recorded gifts, Paris’s name was connected to those of powerful people, in what was, as Philippe Buc has explored, a longstanding tradition of records that demonstrate that gifts to shrines were understood to forge relationships between communities and donors.61 For example, in the Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, begun in the tenth century but preserved in eleventh- and twelfth-century manuscripts, in a parallel to St Albans commemoration of Offa’s gifts, King Athelstan (r. 925–39) was recorded as having donated an impressive list of objects to the community of St Cuthbert, then based at Chester-le-Street: Ego Ethelstanus rex do sancto Cuthberto hunc textum Evangeliorum, II. casulas, et unam albam, et unam stolam, cum manipulo, et unum cingulum, et III. Altaris cooperimenta, et unum calicem argenteum, et duas patenas, alteram auro paratam, alteram Graeco opere fabrefactam, et unum thuribulum argenteum, et unam crucem auro et ebore artificiose paratam, et unum regium pilleum auro textum, et duas tabulas, auro et argento fabrefactas, et duo candelabra argentes, auro parata, et unum missalem, et duos Evangeliorum textus, auro et argento ornatos, et unam sancti Cuthberti vitam, metrice et prosaice scriptam, et septem pallia, et tres cortinas, et tria tapetia, et duas coppas argenteas cum cooperculis, et quatuor magnas campanas, et tria cornua, auro et argento fabrefacta, et duo vexilla, et unam lanceam, et duas armillas aureas […].62

57 58 59 60

61 62

Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 389–92. Vaughan, Matthew Paris, p. 18. Ibid., p. 18. M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 3rd edn (Chichester, 2013), especially chapters 1 and 8; P. Buc, ‘Conversion of Objects’, Viator 28 (1997), 99–142. Buc, ‘Conversion’. Symeon of Durham, Historia Ecclesiae Dunhelmensis, ed. T. Arnold, RS, 2 vols. (London, 1882–5), I, 211; T. J. South, ed., Historia de sancto Cuthberto: A History of Saint Cuthbert and a Record of his Patrimony (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 64–5; see also

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Judith Collard (I, Athelstan, king, give to St Cuthbert this copy of the Gospels, two chasubles, one alb, one stole with maniple, one belt, three altar cloths, one chalice of silver, two patens: one made of gold and the other of Grecian workmanship, one censer of silver, one cross skilfully wrought of gold and ivory, one royal cap woven with gold, two screens (or tablets duas tabulas) wrought in gold and silver, two silver candelabra trimmed with gold, one missal, two copies of the Gospels ornamented in silver and gold, one life of St Cuthbert written in verse and prose, seven robes, three curtains, three pieces of tapestry, two cups of silver with covers, four great bells, three horns mounted in gold and silver, two banners, one lance and two armills (bracelets) of gold […].)63

Athelstan made this donation on his way north to fight the Scots and similar gifts were made to the shrine of St John of Beverley on the same trip, creating good will in the area and demonstrating that patronage was not exclusive.64 Likewise, in the twelfth century, Symeon of Durham recorded that William Rufus, on obtaining the throne in 1087, distributed a similar variety of bequests amongst England’s monasteries and larger churches in memory of his father, William I.65 The knowledge of such gifts was preserved by writers including Symeon and Paris. In the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux famously wrote of the presence of such precious works and their potential to inspire further gifts. He described the effect of such beauty on beholders: Tali quadam arte spargitur aes, ut multiplicetur. Expenditur ut augeatur, et effusio copiam parit. Ipso quippe visu sumptuosarum, sed mirandarum vanitatum, accenduntur homines magis ad offerendum quam ad orandum. Sic opes opibus hauriuntur, sic pecunia pecuniam trahit: quia nescio quo pacto, ubi amplius divitiarum cernitur, ibi offertur libentius. Auro tectis reliquiis saginantur oculi, et loculi aperiuntur.66 (For money is so artfully scattered that it may multiply, it is expended that it may give increase, and prodigality giveth birth to plenty: for at the very sight of these costly yet marvellous vanities are more kindled to offer gifts than to pray. Thus wealth is drawn up by ropes of wealth, thus money bringeth money; for I know not how it is that, wheresoever more abundant wealth is seen, there do men offer more freely. Their eyes are feasted with relics cased in gold, and their purse-strings are loosed.)67

63

64 65 66

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C. C. Rozier, Writing History in the Community of St Cuthbert c. 700–1130, Writing History in the Middle Ages 7 (York, 2020). Translation adapted from C. F. Battiscombe, The Relics of Saint Cuthbert (Oxford, 1956), p. 31; see also J. Collard, ‘Gift-giving and the Cult of St Cuthbert’, in A World Explored: Essays in Honour of Laurie Gardine, ed. A. Gilmour-Bryson (Parkville, 1993), pp. 28–43 (p. 30). Collard, ‘Gift-giving and the Cult of St Cuthbert’, pp. 30–2. Symeon of Durham, Historia Regum, II, 214. Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia ad Guillelmum Sancti-Theoderici Abbatem, PL 182, cols. 893–918 (col. 915). Bernard of Clairvaux, ‘St Bernard to William of St Thierry: Ascetic Reaction’, in Early Medieval Art 300–1150, ed. C. Davis-Weyer (Toronto, 1986), pp. 168–70

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis benefited from such largesse. He wrote of members of Bernard’s own order, as well as from Fontevrault, selling an abundance of gems that had been gifted to them by Count Thibault who had received them from his brother Stephen, the king of England.68 These included hyacinths, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and topazes. Such gems were amongst the types of gifts churches and saints’ shrines attracted, which helped to bind people and communities together, and served as triggers for commemoration in Matthew Paris’s time.

The Liber additamentorum jewels Depictions of thirteen jewels preserved at St Albans in Paris’s era occupy two pages of the Liber additamentorum (British Library MS Cotton Nero D I, fols. 146r–146v), with explanatory text continuing onto a third page (Figs. 1–2).69 The jewels consisted of eight rings, four pendants and a large classical cameo, but there is no obvious significance in the organisation of the list. None of the objects can now be located. Yet as demonstrated by Oman, the life-sized drawings show types of jewels, examples of which still exist amongst the holdings found in museums, cathedrals, and other collections.70 For example, the first jewel that Oman discussed was the seventh jewel in the list, given to the abbey by Archdeacon John de Wymondham, via Roger, the abbey’s prior, which was similar to one held in Winchester Cathedral.71 This was a gold ring set with a sapphire and nielloed with the letters I and O.72 All the jewels were recorded as having come from similarly specific sources. For example, an amethyst-like stone that once belonged to Archbishop Stephen Langton was presented to the abbey by Hamo, who had been his sacristan.73 The name of the donor was nielloed on the inside of the ring, but Paris’s record once again preserved the provenance chain. Another sapphire-set ring was given by Richard Animal, nielloed with his initials, and this resembles a ring found at Windsor Castle and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig. 3).74 Animal had served the queen, Eleanor, who had given him this ring. It was the only one of this collection not recorded in the late fourteenth century

68

69

70 71 72 73 74

(p. 169); see also C. Rudolph, The “Things of Greater Importance”: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia and the Medieval Attitude Toward Art (Philadelphia, 1990). E. Panofsky and G. Panofsky-Soergel, ed. and trans., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St-Denis and its Art Treasures, 2nd edn (Princeton, 1979), p. 59; Buc ‘Conversion’, p. 125. The text is published in Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 383–92; see also Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, pp. 45–8; Berenbeim, Art of Documentation, p. 93. C. C. Oman, ‘The Jewels of Saint Albans’, The Burlington Magazine 57 (1930), 81–2. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 385; Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, plate G. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 385. Ibid., VI, 384. Ibid., VI, 385; Oman, ’Jewels of Saint Albans’, pp. 81–2, and Plate H.

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Figure 1: Matthew Paris, the jewels of St Albans. British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 146r.

Figure 2: Matthew Paris, the jewels of St Albans. British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 146v.

Judith Collard

Figure 3: Stirrup type gold ring set with a cabochon sapphire, Victoria and Albert Museum.

Book of Benefactors (British Library Cotton MS Claudius E IV).75 Although these particular examples are now lost, large numbers of “stirrup” rings survive and the Portable Antiquities Scheme records many found since Oman’s work was published.76 Metal-detecting and archaeology raise the possibility that further such rings may be found, and these discoveries suggest that such rings were not rare in the Middle Ages.77 Instead, Paris’s accounts provide insights into alternative associations with donors that were apparently perceived to give these objects additional value. The first jewel that Paris listed and drew was a magnificent ring made of gold covered with gems set in bezels. It was further elaborated with filigree decoration and featured a large ruby, four sapphires, four pearls and two emeralds. This had originally belonged to Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury (1207–28). It was given to the abbey by his chaplain, John de Crundale, in exchange for a promise that on hearing of his death the community would ‘tantum fieret pro anima ejus quantum pro anima hujus ecclesiae monachi’ (‘do as much for his soul as for the soul of a monk of this church’).78 As drawn by Paris, this was a square-shaped ring and one of the most elaborate jewels he presented. As Oman argued, it was a “pontifical”, intended to be worn over gloves. This explained its unusual size and richness, being of a type worn by bishops and other high-ranking ecclesiastics at great ceremonies.79 There was another pontifical ring, which appears as the penultimate item in the list and was to be worn by the abbots at major festivals. This was given by Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester (1129–71), whose name was, according to Paris, once again inscribed in the ring.80 It was, perhaps, simpler in design, but equally striking. It consisted of a sapphire surrounded by four pearls and two garnets. 75 76

77 78 79 80

Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 385; Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, p. 82. Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, pp. 81–2; see also M. Campbell, Medieval Jewellery in Europe 1100–1500 (London, 2009), pp. 72–3; www.finds.org.uk. See also Davies in this volume. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 383. Ibid., VI, 383; Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, p. 82. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 386–7.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans In contrast to the stirrup rings, no English examples of this type of pontifical ring are known to survive from the thirteenth century.81 Two ceremonial rings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have survived at New College, Oxford and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. That at Oxford is set with a ruby, while that at Cambridge has enamel and sapphires and dates from the fifteenth century. The ring now at Cambridge probably belonged to Richard Foxe, bishop of Winchester (1501–28), while the ring at Oxford was that of William of Wykeham, also bishop of Winchester (1366–1404).82 At St Albans there was another ring that belonged to a bishop, in this case John, bishop of Ardfert (c. 1217–24). He gave a gold ring set with an irregularly-shaped sapphire.83 John died at St Albans in 1245, having been resident there for about 20 years, and his memory was preserved in connection with the object by Paris.84 In addition to the pontifical rings, a further two gold rings were dedicated to the use of abbots of St Albans.85 While Oman described them as not being ‘objects of great artistic worth’, both were carefully depicted by Paris with well-defined silhouettes. Each of the illustrations of the jewels had an accompanying text, describing their provenance and appearance and giving their weight. Pendants were also given to the shrine. These included gifts of sapphires by Thomas, prior of Wallingford and John, bishop of Ardfert.86 Another pendant was also given by John, which was set with a peridot, itself pierced and set with a small sapphire.87 Yet another pendant was given by Nicholas of St Albans, a celebrated royal goldsmith. This was set with a sapphire that had belonged to St Edmund Rich, archbishop of Canterbury (1233–40). On its reverse was a crucifixion, which was not depicted in Matthew’s documentation.88 The largest jewel represented was the last to be depicted. This was the great onyx cameo, called the Kaadmau or Kaadman, that had been given to the monastery by King Æthelred the Unready (Fig. 2). It was almost too big to be held in one hand. Both Lewis and George Henderson have suggested that it was nearly six inches long (or 150 mm).89 The description that Paris provided, in addition to his drawing, showed how classical details could be misunderstood in the Middle Ages. He depicted 81 82

83 84 85

86 87 88

89

Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, p. 82; see also Carter in this volume. M. Campbell, ‘Medieval Founders Relics: Royal and Episcopal Patronage at Oxford and Cambridge Colleges’, in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. P. H. Coss and M. Keen (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 125–42 (p. 137). Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 385. Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, II, 511; Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, Plate J. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 383–4; Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, Plates B, D. Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, Plates E, F. Ibid., p. 82, and plates E, F, and K. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 384–5; see Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, Plate F. Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, pp. 47, 481 n. 148; G. Henderson, Early Medieval Style and Civilization (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 111.

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Judith Collard a Roman emperor wearing a fringed military kilt. The emperor held the caduceus of Aesculapius, a branch or rod intertwined with a serpent. This was a Roman adaptation of the Greek symbol of Hermes, that was also surmounted by wings. To his left, held in his hand, there was a Victory and by his left foot was an eagle. Paris thought that the cameo showed a figure clad in rags, who held in one hand a spear on which a serpent climbed and in the other a clothed boy, holding a shield on his shoulder and extending his other hand to the first figure.90 The quality of the drawing demonstrates the error of his interpretation recorded in his text. While Paris did not understand the iconography, his account is informative in its description of the use to which this gem was put. It was believed that it acted as an aid to childbirth. It was laid between the breasts of the expectant mother, St Alban was invoked, and the cameo was slowly moved down her body. The child awaiting birth fled before it, thus ensuring the delivery of the infant. In the Gesta abbatum the account of Anketill, discussed above, suggested that he planned to use the cameo as part of the decoration of St Alban’s shrine. This section of the Gesta abbatum also provided another brief description of the stone, including a description of the eagle with raised wings.91 When the workmen discovered Anketill’s intention, they refused to include it, because they placed more importance on saving women in peril than in providing a feast for the eyes of onlookers. It was therefore to remain detached in the Treasury.92 Such was the belief in its efficacious nature, that one woman kept it hidden for years in case she had further births. However its powers were believed to deteriorate if kept from the shrine too long.93 The jewel was so highly valued by the community that when Walsingham compiled the Book of the Benefactors, the artist Alan Strayler showed King Æthelred holding the cameo (British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 4r) (Fig. 4).94 While the version found in Paris’s manuscript was not coloured, this later drawing seems to contradict information found in Paris’s text which relates that the image was carved in chalcedony and reddish sardonyx, with an onyx background. Each stone had one or more symbolic meaning within medieval philosophy, although Paris did not include them here. The choice of a gem might reflect its symbolic qualities as much as its colour or availability.95 Lewis suggested that the lack of colour in Paris’s work was possibly to preserve the design.96 This was a marked difference 90 91 92 93 94 95

96

Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 387–8. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 171. Ibid., pp. 170–1. Ibid. See also Carter in this volume. J. Robinson, ‘From Altar to Amulet: Relics, Portability, and Devotion’, in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medival Europe, ed. M. Bagnoli, et al., pp. 113–14; J. Evans, Magical Jewels of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, particularly in England (Oxford, 1922), pp. 35–6, 40, 60. Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, p. 48.

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Figure 4: King Æthelred II, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 4v (detail).

Judith Collard to the treatment of the rest of the jewels represented and suggests that here iconography was prioritised over material. The later work from the fourteenth century provided the reader with more information, although this was possibly contradictory. In this manuscript it was grey with a white streak across the middle. The later image also provided an indication of its size in relation to a human figure, which supports the idea that it was about six inches long. The description of these jewels was gathered together in three pages of a much larger collection, the Liber additamentorum (British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fols. 74–202). This section is followed by a chapter on various hangings and textiles given to the church. Because these are not illustrated, they have not received the attention that the jewels have, despite such works being as highly regarded as metalwork at the time.97 The treatise on the St Alban's jewels was possibly added to this larger body of texts, which included a range of material added to the collection of charters. As it exists today, this volume contains two additional texts, the Lives of the Offas (fols. 2–25) and the Gesta abbatum (fols. 30–73). In addition to these three texts, it also contains a miscellany of other items. Some of the drawings in this collection are quite rudimentary, including an itinerary from London to Apulia (similar to other examples that appeared in several manuscripts by Paris) and copies of shields found over several folios (fols. 171–171v, 186, 199), as well as two wind diagrams, a parhelion and an outline map of Britain marked with the Roman roads. It also includes one of the drawings that Paris made of the elephant given to Henry III by Louis IX (fol. 169v) and a drawing of the Apocalyptic Christ by Brother William (fol. 156).98 When the different elements of this manuscript are laid out, part of the motivation for the compilation becomes more obvious. Paris was interested in consolidating information into an accessible and compact format, a series of books that perhaps took the cartulary as a starting point, but went well beyond charters to include documentation of a wide array of actions and objects. These acts of documentation and collation were appreciated by his community. The manuscripts were kept in a special collection and shown to visitors to the abbey such as Henry VI. Works such as the Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani and the Liber additamentorum were repositories for information about the community’s wealth but also its memories. These books recorded the history of the abbey through a combination of text and imagery, but also suggested that objects had historical and social as well as material value. Paris’s interest in the building works, the paintings, textiles, metalwork and the contributions to the abbey library made by various abbots is found particularly in the Gesta Abbatum. This may have led to the later misapprehension of Thomas Walsingham about Paris’s own involvement in 97 98

Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 389–92. Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, pp. 467–8; N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 1190–1250, 2 vols. (London, 1982–8), I, 134.

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Matthew Paris, Metalwork and the Jewels of St Albans the craft of metalwork, which in turn misled some modern scholars. What is also clear is that Paris’s engagement with artistic heritage led to his closely observed visual depictions of the jewels associated with the abbey alongside their textual descriptions and brief histories. As such, these illustrations also added to the uniquely comprehensive nature of Matthew Paris’s historical contributions, made all the more valuable to us because none of the objects are now known to survive.

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8 Illustrating the Material Past: A Pictorial Treasury in the Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey1 Deirdre Carter

Medieval monasteries like St Albans Abbey were sites of great splendour, filled with innumerable treasures. These possessions formed heterogeneous collections consisting of liturgical vessels and vestments, reliquaries, sculptures, gemstones and a wide variety of other precious objects and curiosities, and both individually and collectively these items represented the wealth, glory and history of their respective institutions.2 Unfortunately, the vast majority of such objects no longer survive and are known only from written documents, if they are known at all. St Albans is among the many monasteries whose treasury has, by and large, been lost over the centuries, but because of the documentary efforts of the house’s later medieval monks, a remarkably rich record of these objects still survives. In addition to texts that list or describe the abbey’s artworks and possessions, several illuminated manuscripts produced between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries preserve a total of over 100 pictorial representations of objects – ranging from vestments and reliquaries to ancient cameos and royal seals – that constituted the abbey’s collection of treasures, as well as over 700 years’ worth of its institutional material past. 1

2

Much of this essay is drawn from the research for my doctoral dissertation, which was supported by the Schallek Fellowship of the Medieval Academy of America and the Richard III Society–American Branch: D. Carter, ‘Art, History, and the Creation of Monastic Identity at Late Medieval St Albans Abbey’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 2017). I am grateful to Paula Gerson and Richard K. Emmerson for their helpful suggestions on this essay. For useful discussions of medieval treasuries and their contents and meaning, see P. A. Mariaux, ‘Collecting (and Display)’, in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. C. Rudolph, 2nd edn (Hoboken, 2019), pp. 309–30; and P. Cordez, Treasure, Memory, Nature: Church Objects in the Middle Ages (London, 2020). As these studies explain, the formation of a medieval treasury entailed the ongoing accumulation and assembly of diverse objects that were perceived by the institution as having some special value, whether spiritual, monetary, functional, symbolic or aesthetic. These individual treasured objects both contributed meaning to and derived meaning from the collective group, including by serving as ‘relics of th[e] past’ that embodied and told the story of the institution’s history (Mariaux, ‘Collecting’, p. 320).

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The Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey That it was at St Albans that such a collection of images appeared is, perhaps, not surprising. The abbey boasted a long and illustrious history, tracing its roots back to the third- or fourth-century martyrdom of Alban, the Anglorum protomartyr, as well as to King Offa of Mercia’s purported eighth-century foundation of the monastery at the site of Alban’s tomb. This early history proved crucial to the abbey’s post-Conquest rise to prominence as one of the most privileged and powerful monasteries in England, and the house’s renowned tradition of historical writing may have been spurred by the monks’ desire to document and assert their monastery’s antiquity and history.3 These writings indicate that the material past figured prominently within the monks’ understanding of the abbey’s history and identity. The Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani includes numerous descriptions of the monastery’s buildings, artworks and other possessions, and more systematic descriptions of such objects appear in several inventories, as well as in the Liber benefactorum (Book of Benefactors) and two shorter texts that describe the church’s paintings, altars and monuments.4 The images that this essay will examine are another facet of this interest, but whereas inventories and other textual references to material possessions were a relatively common feature of monastic record keeping, the visual reproduction of such treasures was not.5 Thus, it is particularly notable that the later medieval manuscripts from St Albans reveal a sustained interest in creating a pictorial record of the abbey’s treasures. The earliest examples of this are found in the mid thirteenth century manuscripts produced by the St Albans monk, chronicler and artist Matthew Paris. Several studies have acknowledged his interest in documenting such items, but his works 3

4

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See especially the discussions and references in P. A. Hayward, ‘The Cult of St Alban, Anglorum Protomartyr, in Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England’, in More than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity in the History of Christianity, ed. J. Leemans (Leuven, 2005), pp. 169–99; J. Crick, ed., Charters of St Albans (Oxford, 2007), esp. pp. 30–6; and A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England, 2 vols. (London, 1974–82), I, 356–80 and II, 118–56, 342–45, 371–86, 400–1. For these texts, several of which are discussed in more detail below, see D. Preest, trans., and J. G. Clark, ed., The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans: Gesta Abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani (Woodbridge, 2019); Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols., RS (London, 1872–83), VI, 383–92; H. T. Riley, ed., Gesta abbatum monasterii Sancti Albani, 3 vols., RS (London, 1867–9), III, 539–45; H. T. Riley, ed., Annales monasterii S. Albani a Johanne Amundesham, 2 vols., RS (London, 1870–71), II, 322–61 and I, 418–50. An abbreviated version of the Liber benefactorum is printed in H. T. Riley, ed., Johannis de Trokelowe, et Henrici de Blaneforde, monachorum S. Albani, necnon quorundam anonymorum, chronica et annales, RS (London, 1866), pp. 427–64. In England, for example, images such as Matthew Paris’s thirteenth-century drawings of the gems and rings of St Albans (see discussion and Fig. 2 below) and Thomas Elmham’s fifteenth-century drawings of the documents and high altar of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, have been treated as rare and isolated instances of medieval visual antiquarianism. See, for example, M. Hunter, ‘The Facsimiles in Thomas Elmham’s History of St Augustine’s, Canterbury’, Library 5th s. 28 (1973), 215–20. See also Collard in this volume.

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Deirdre Carter have not previously been recognised as part of a longer visual tradition at St Albans.6 This misconception is probably due in large part to the dearth of art historical scholarship on two later manuscripts, which feature an even larger collection of miniatures depicting the abbey’s history and possessions: a late fourteenth century copy of the Gesta abbatum and a copy of the Liber benefactorum, which was begun c. 1380 but continued to be updated for over a century.7 This essay examines this unusual collection of miniatures, exploring what this previously unrecognised visual tradition reveals about St Albans, its treasures and the monastic community’s understanding of the material past. As I will demonstrate, a great deal of care and effort was invested in the creation of these illustrations, which is indicative of the monks’ understanding of the institutional significance of material culture, as well as the value of using pictorial reproductions to document and authenticate these objects’ place within the monastery’s history. Because of the miniatures’ attention to detail, they also offer a rare visualisation of a medieval treasury and the disparate, individual objects within it. As such, the illustrations are a useful resource for envisioning and understanding lost artworks – and as will be suggested, even those for which no other evidence survives – but they also illuminate both the possibilities and the challenges of using medieval sources to reconstruct lost objects. The origins of this St Albans visual tradition lie in the mid thirteenth century manuscripts of Matthew Paris. Suzanne Lewis has argued that several of the devotional images that appear in Matthew’s chronicles are 6

7

For studies that discuss Matthew’s interest in visually documenting the abbey’s artworks and possessions, see especially S. Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), pp. 45–8, 420–7. For other examples, see J. Berenbeim, Art of Documentation: Documents and Visual Culture in Medieval England (Toronto, 2015), p. 93; and Hunter, ‘Facsimiles in Thomas Elmham’s History’, p. 218. These illustrations tend to be referred to or described without further elaboration regarding their significance or relationship to broader artistic trends. Lewis, whose book remains the most detailed study of Matthew’s artistic œuvre, states that his historical imagery had ‘no followers’ (pp. 21–2). London, BL Cotton MS Claudius E IV, fols. 97v–321r; and London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII. Both of these manuscripts are discussed in greater detail in Carter, ‘Art, History, and the Creation of Monastic Identity’, but otherwise, the Gesta abbatum’s miniatures have not been discussed by art historians. James G. Clark briefly mentions the illustrations in his introduction to Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 16–17, and also includes short descriptions of the images within the footnotes to the text. The Liber benefactorum’s miniatures have been catalogued in L. F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285–1385, 2 vols. (London, 1986), II, 180–1 (no. 158); and K. L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts, 1390–1490, 2 vols. (London, 1996), II, 237–9 (no. 82). Also see J. G. Clark, ‘Monastic Confraternity in Medieval England: The Evidence from the St Albans Abbey Liber benefactorum’, in Religious and Laity in Western Europe, 1000–1400: Interaction, Negotiation, and Power, ed. E. Jamroziak and J. Burton (Turnhout, 2006), pp. 315–31 (pp. 315–16, 318, 327); and S. Federico, The Classicist Writings of Thomas Walsingham: ‘Worldly Cares’ at St Albans Abbey in the Fourteenth Century, Writing History in the Middle Ages 2 (York, 2016), pp. 18–27.

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The Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey pictorial ‘replicas’ of sculptures and murals that were on display within the abbey church, thus constituting a ‘miniature gallery of lost masterpieces’.8 Although there is no firm evidence that these drawings represent an attempt – conscious or otherwise – to reproduce the visual details of now-lost artworks, a number of Matthew’s other images reveal a clear and deliberate effort to create a pictorial record of the house’s material past.9 Throughout his pictorial narrative of the lives of Saints Alban and Amphibalus, Matthew repeatedly depicts the saints interacting with an unusual cross, which the St Albans monks claimed to have fortuitously recovered earlier in the thirteenth century (Fig. 1).10 In all seventeen of the cross’s appearances within the manuscript, it is shown with the same distinctive shape, and in several miniatures, the circular disk at the top of the cross bears an image of the crucifixion. That these illustrations accurately capture the essence, and sometimes more specific details, of the relic that was venerated at St Albans is suggested by the consistency of these drawings, as well as their correspondence with both written descriptions and later visual representations of it.11 The level of detail and apparent reliability of these images and texts has even led to speculation that the relic was a wooden Coptic cross.12 However, regardless of this object’s actual provenance, Matthew’s repeated and careful illustrations of it indicate its significance to the monastic community. In addition to being a relic of the house’s patron saint, the cross was, as purported by the Gesta abbatum, ‘the first which was brought to Britain’ and thus symbolised

8

9

10

11

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Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, pp. 420–7 (quotes at p. 427). For example, Lewis proposes that the well-known illustration of the Virgin and Child in Matthew’s Historia Anglorum (London, BL Royal MS 14. C. VII, fol. 6r) faithfully represents a sculpture created by the St Albans artist Walter of Colchester. Also see Paul Binski’s critique of Lewis’s argument: P. Binski, ‘The Faces of Christ in Matthew Paris’s Chronica majora’, in Tributes in Honor of James H. Marrow: Studies in Painting and Manuscript Illumination of the Late Middle Ages and Northern Renaissance, ed. J. H. Hamburger and A. S. Korteweg (London, 2006), pp. 85–92 (p. 88). Dublin, Trinity College MS 177; and Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 414. Also see B. Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘The Alban Cross’, in Alban and St Albans: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. M. Henig and P. Lindley, BAACT 24 (Leeds, 2001), pp. 85–110. This manuscript’s pictorial cycle is described more fully in F. McCulloch, ‘Saints Alban and Amphibalus in the Works of Matthew Paris: Dublin, Trinity College MS 177’, Speculum 56 (1981), 761–85. Matthew’s illustrations and the various textual descriptions are discussed in Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Alban Cross’, pp. 88–99. Kjølbye-Biddle suggests that the crucifixion imagery may be omitted from some of the illustrations simply because Matthew thought it was unnecessary to include this detail in each miniature (p. 99). Similar depictions of this cross include, among others, a small drawing in Matthew’s Gesta abbatum (London, BL Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 61r) and, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, two abbatial portraits (London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 17r; and Cotton MS Claudius E IV, fol. 232r) and two carvings on the abbey’s wooden watching loft. Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Alban Cross’, pp. 100–6.

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Deirdre Carter

Figure 1: Alban watches Amphibalus kneel before the cross, from Vie de Seint Auban. Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 177, fol. 31r.

Alban’s status as the protomartyr, as well as the abbey’s antiquity and connection to the origins of Christianity in Britain.13 Even clearer evidence of Matthew’s interest in visually documenting antiquities is his two-page illustrated inventory of the gems and rings in the abbey’s treasury, which appears in his Liber additamentorum manuscript alongside his Gesta abbatum and numerous charters and other historical materials (Fig. 2).14 For each of the thirteen items depicted in this inventory, Matthew provides a detailed written description listing information such as its donor’s name and its colours, shape, weight and monetary value. In his drawings, he has given similar care to these objects’ physical attributes, and he depicts them from the angle at which their distinguishing characteristics are most clearly visible.15 The third item in the left column of

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Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 414; see also Kjølbye-Biddle, ‘Alban Cross’, p. 98. London, BL Cotton MS Nero D I, fols. 146r–146v. For this manuscript, see R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 78–91; and N. Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 1190–1250, 2 vols. (London, 1982–88), I, 134–6 (no. 87); see also discussion and Fig. 1 in Collard in this volume. The text is printed in Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 383–9. Also see C. C. Oman, ‘The Jewels of Saint Albans Abbey’, The Burlington Magazine 57 (1930), 80–2; Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, pp. 45–8; G. Zarnecki, J. Holt and T. Holland, ed., English Romanesque Art, 1066–1200 (London, 1984), pp. 291–2 (no. 318); and

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Figure 2: Matthew Paris, the jewels of St Albans. British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, fol. 146v.

Deirdre Carter fol. 146v, the sapphire and gold stirrup-shaped ring donated by Richard Animal, is shown in profile to reveal the ‘R’ nielloed on its side, but the third item in the adjacent column, the pontifical ring donated by Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester (1129–71), is viewed from the top in order to better display its multi-gem design of garnets, pearls and a large central sapphire (Fig. 2). Jessica Berenbeim has noted the ‘evidentiary quality’ of these images, describing them as having an ‘indexical life scale like that of a seal impression’.16 Matthew’s careful reproduction of these items is extraordinary, and although none of these gems and rings survive, they are believed to have been illustrated quite accurately. Comparisons of Matthew’s drawings to extant medieval jewellery have revealed striking similarities in form and design and, for one object, his meticulous attention to visual detail has enabled modern scholars not only to identify and date its iconography, but also to refute Matthew’s own interpretation of it.17 Below the ring donated by Henry of Blois, Matthew represents a large cameo, and in the accompanying text, he explains that it was a gift from King Æthelred II (978–1016) and was decorated with the image of a raggedly dressed figure holding a spear in one hand and a shield-bearing boy in the other (Fig. 2).18 Yet, because of Matthew’s detailed drawing, scholars have been able to determine that the cameo was probably a first-century depiction not of an unkempt figure holding aloft a tiny child, but of the divine Augustus holding an identifiable type of ancient cult image that represented the goddess Minerva.19 Matthew’s illustrations of the abbey’s gems and rings provide valuable insights into these objects’ physical properties, as well as their significance to the St Albans monastic community. Because of their clarity and detail, the drawings preserve information about these treasures that would otherwise be unrecoverable, even with the help of Matthew’s written descriptions. The images are thus particularly useful for our understanding of items such as the cameo, with its intricate but identifiable iconography, and the ornate pontifical, a type of ceremonial episcopal ring of which only three English medieval examples survive.20 The illustrations

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M. Henig and T. A. Heslop, ‘The Great Cameo of St Albans’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 139 (1986), 148–53. Berenbeim, Art of Documentation, p. 93. Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, pp. 81–2; Zarnecki, Holt and Holland, ed., English Romanesque Art, pp. 291–2; and Henig and Heslop, ‘Great Cameo’, pp. 149–51. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 387–8. The cameo is also described in Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 170–1. T. A. Heslop suggests that Matthew’s description of the cameo implies that he understood the figure to represent a weary mother holding her baby because, as Matthew explains, the cameo was believed to aid in childbirth. See Henig and Heslop, ‘Great Cameo’, pp. 148–9. Henig and Heslop, ‘Great Cameo’, pp. 150–1. Also see Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, pp. 47–8. A second pontifical, donated by Stephen Langton, is pictured at the top of fol. 146r (see Fig. 1 in Collard in this volume). For discussions of English pontificals, see J. Cherry, ‘The Medieval Episcopal Ring’, in The Medieval English Cathedral: Papers in Honour of Pamela Tudor-Craig; Proceedings of the 1998 Harlaxton Symposium, ed.

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The Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey also attest to the value – both monetary and symbolic – that was placed on these items by the abbey’s monks. The glittering gold, gemstones and pearls were undoubtedly a demonstration of the abbey’s wealth and spiritual prosperity, but both the tangible objects and their visual reproduction were also a testament to the house’s illustrious history. Several of the jewels were either donated or previously owned by prominent royal or ecclesiastical figures dating back to at least the early eleventh century, and some of the objects may have had other historical resonances that were not explicitly recorded; this may be particularly true of the cameo given by Æthelred, which, like the ancient cross, would have evoked the abbey’s connection to Britain’s distant past.21 The inclusion of these illustrations among the Liber additamentorum’s historical materials further highlights Matthew’s understanding of these gems and rings as meaningful representations of the abbey’s past. Although Matthew’s pictorial inventory has been treated as an unusual and isolated work, an even more extensive collection of miniatures depicting the treasures of St Albans was produced during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These images appear in two manuscripts associated with Matthew’s best-known successor, the St Albans monk and chronicler Thomas Walsingham (d. c. 1422). The first of these volumes is an extensive compendium of institutional historical materials, which includes Walsingham’s copy and continuation of the Gesta abbatum through the year 1381. Throughout this text, each abbot is illustrated in a framed portrait, several of which depict distinctive objects, such as the painted book cupboard commissioned by Abbot Simon (1167–83) and the astronomical clock designed by Abbot Richard of Wallingford (1327–36).22 The second and more densely illustrated of these two manuscripts is the Liber benefactorum, a comprehensive register of the abbey’s benefactors, which Walsingham began compiling in 1380 and which was produced as a deluxe

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J. Backhouse (Donington, 2003), pp. 208–17 (pp. 211–13); and Zarnecki, Holt and Holland, ed., English Romanesque Art, p. 292. In addition, the pontifical ring donated by Henry of Blois may have been remembered in connection with his presence at the 1163 council at which St Albans decisively secured independence from its diocesan, soon after which Abbot Robert de Gorham (1151–66) celebrated the Easter Mass wearing episcopal regalia, including a ring, ‘for the first time’. For these events and the abbey’s grant of pontificalia, see Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 256–60 (quote at p. 260); and J. E. Sayers, ‘Papal Privileges for St Albans Abbey and Its Dependencies’, in The Study of Medieval Records: Essays in Honour of Kathleen Major, ed. D. A. Bullough and R. L. Storey (Oxford, 1971), pp. 57–84 (pp. 60–1, 65). London, BL Cotton MS Claudius E IV, fols. 97v–321r. The portraits of Simon and Richard appear on fols. 124r and 201r. For the text’s references to these objects, see Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 290, 712. This manuscript, with its miscellaneous contents, may have been produced over a series of years or even decades, but the Gesta abbatum was probably completed between c. 1381 and c. 1400. See J. G. Clark, A Monastic Renaissance at St Albans: Thomas Walsingham and His Circle, c. 1350–1440 (Oxford, 2004), p. 106; and Clark, ‘Introduction’, in Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 16–18. In this essay, the term ‘portrait’ describes illustrations that depict specific historical figures but without the expectation of physiognomic likeness.

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Deirdre Carter illuminated volume under his supervision. Much of this manuscript dates to the late fourteenth century, but it continued to be updated until at least 1493, by which time it documented seven centuries of benefactors, many of whom are pictured in the book’s nearly 300 images.23 Most of these patrons are depicted holding representations of their benefactions, making this manuscript a striking and comprehensive visual record of the abbey’s history of patronage and material prosperity. Many of these gifts are represented using the kind of repetitive, generic icons that were typical of medieval benefactor imagery: grants of land and privileges are portrayed as nondescript sealed charters; monetary gifts as bags of coins; and the donation of churches as model buildings. However, the Liber benefactorum also depicts a wide variety of more specific objects, ranging from chalices, vestments and relics to more unexpected and seemingly mundane items such as bells, building materials and a drinking horn. The diversity of these gifts is particularly conspicuous in images depicting some of the abbey’s most generous donors, such as Pope Adrian IV (1154–59), who is shown with a ring, a mazer (a type of wooden drinking bowl), two bones (representing the relics of the Theban legion) and two textiles (Fig. 3).24 With page after page of images like this one, the Liber benefactorum offers a remarkable visualisation of the richness of the abbey’s late medieval treasury, but it is also apparent that this pictorial gallery of gifts has been subject to some degree of curation by the book’s various makers. Numerous donors are depicted with only a selection of the items they bestowed upon St Albans, and although this enhances the miniatures’ legibility, it can also skew the viewer’s perception of these donors’ bequests and of the abbey’s history more generally. For example, Adrian IV’s most valuable contribution to the abbey was not his gift of vessels or vestments, as shown in the image, but rather his grant of seventeen bulls, which had secured the monastery’s independence and preeminent status.25 The absence of any visual reference to these important privileges

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See Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, II, 180–1 (no. 158); and Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts, II, pp. 237–9 (no. 82). An abbreviated version of the Liber benefactorum (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 7, fols. 102r–111v) was produced slightly later (probably by 1396), but its program of illustration is less extensive and does not include depictions of specific gifts in the way that is seen in the earlier manuscript. See A. E. Nichols, An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer to Henry VIII, c. 1380–c. 1509: Cambridge I; Christ’s College, Clare College, Corpus Christi College, Emmanuel College, Gonville and Caius College, and the Fitzwilliam Museum (London, 2008), pp. 35–6 (no. 15). The accompanying text mentions the relics, a pallium, sandals, a ring, a cope, and the mazer, and it also mentions Adrian's granting of many privileges, although these are not visually represented. Several of these items are also listed in the Gesta abbatum, and a contemporary inventory mentions cloth of gold donated by Adrian. See London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 9v; Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 232; and Riley, ed., Amundesham, II, 335. P. Taylor, ‘The Early St Albans Endowment and Its Chroniclers’, Historical Research 68 (1995), 119–42 (p. 131); and Sayers, ‘Papal Privileges’, pp. 59–62.

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Figure 3: Pope Adrian IV, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 9v.

Deirdre Carter

Figure 4: King Æthelred II, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 4v.

allows the miniature more clearly to showcase the abbey’s material possessions, but it also reflects a trend wherein certain documents from St Albans downplay Adrian’s considerable diplomatic contributions by attributing some of them to earlier papal and royal patrons, thereby implying a more ancient origin for these privileges.26 Another benefactor whose contributions are visually abbreviated is Æthelred II, whom the text describes as having both confirmed the abbey’s charters and donated a ‘precious stone’ (lapidem p[re]ciosum), which is surely to be identified with the cameo drawn by Matthew Paris over a century earlier.27 In Æthelred’s portrait, however, only the cameo is shown, thus minimising his largesse but also highlighting the importance of the monastery’s material possessions to this manuscript’s design (Fig. 4).

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Adrian’s generosity towards St Albans was probably related to his personal connection to the monastery; he may have grown up in the local area, and his father had become a monk at the abbey. This issue is discussed in greater detail in Carter, ‘Art, History, and the Creation of Monastic Identity’, pp. 134, 186–9. London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fols. 4v–5r. This text’s description of the stone is much less detailed than Matthew’s, stating only that it was precious, made of onyx and believed to aid in childbirth. For Matthew’s image and description, see above, Fig. 2 and note 18; and Collard in this volume.

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The Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey The Liber benefactorum’s depiction of so many benefactors and gifts was an extraordinary feat, but this makes it all the more noteworthy that the individual patrons and objects have been represented with such care, even if some miniatures show a greater degree of specificity than others. In the portrait of Adrian IV, the artist has clearly differentiated the two textiles through their colouring and decoration; the relics can be identified as femur bones; and the mazer’s wooden bowl and metal rim and foot can each be discerned (Fig. 3). Although there is no evidence to corroborate these specific details, they lend an element of realism and authenticity to the illustration and may even preserve otherwise lost information about the appearance and form of these objects.28 The notion that the Liber benefactorum depicts at least some of the abbey’s possessions not only in detail, but also accurately is strengthened by several miniatures that depict items that either still exist or can be compared to surviving copies. Abbot John de Maryns (1302–09) is shown standing next to the stone shrine base that he commissioned for Saint Alban, and comparison with the extant base demonstrates the artist’s familiarity with this structure (Figs. 5–6). While still somewhat schematic, the illustration convincingly conveys the base’s most distinctive characteristics, including its general shape, size and colour, as well as details such as its triangular or pointed ornamentation, shadowy niches and thin vertical buttresses with floriated pinnacles.29 Similarly, the portrait for Abbot John Whethamstede’s first abbacy (1420–40) illustrates a charter that bears a large green circular seal decorated with the image of a mounted figure riding towards the right with his sword raised (Fig. 7). The document, a royal confirmation of the abbey’s liberties, is no longer extant, but it was issued in 1425 during the reign of King Henry VI, who used a counterseal, four and a half inches (11.4 cm) in diameter, whose imagery very closely matches that of the seal in the miniature (Fig. 8).30 28

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For example, the illustrated mazer features a foot or pedestal, but some mazers consisted only of the bowl, raising the possibility that this miniature has captured specific information about the appearance of the mazer donated by Adrian. In fact, a mazer with an ornate lid and a very short foot is depicted later in the manuscript (London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 87r). For mazers, see W. H. St John Hope, ‘On the English Medieval Drinking Bowls Called Mazers’, Archaeologia 50 (1887), 129–93. London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 19v. For the extant shrine base, see J. Crook, English Medieval Shrines (Woodbridge, 2011), pp. 268–71. A restoration in the 1990s discovered polychrome decoration on the vaults within the niches, but it does not seem that traces of paint were found elsewhere. See M. Biddle, ‘Restoring the Shrine’, Alban Link 37 (1992), 7–13 (pp. 9–10). London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 27r. This confirmation of liberties is briefly mentioned in the accompanying textual entry (fol. 34v), and it is also recorded in Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office; Henry VI, A.D. 1422–1429 (Norwich, 1901), pp. 323–5. For Henry VI’s seals, see A. B. Wyon and A. Wyon, The Great Seals of England from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London, 1887), pp. 47–56 (esp. no. 80). Numerous English royal seals utilised some variation of this imagery, so while it is not possible to confirm that the artist was looking specifically at the seal on the 1425 document, the close

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Figure 5: Abbot John de Maryns, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 19v.

Figure 6: Shrine base of Saint Alban's Shrine. St Albans Abbey.

Figure 7: Abbot John Whethamstede, from the Liber benefactorum. British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 27r.

Figure 8: Counterseal of King Henry VI, impression of 1442. British Library Add. Ch. 5309.

Deirdre Carter These correspondences between extant and illustrated objects raise questions about the sources of information upon which the manuscript’s illuminators relied. The vast majority of the miniatures, including those discussed above, have been attributed to the hands of lay professional artists, who are unlikely to have been intimately familiar with the abbey’s many treasures.31 For an image such as William Clinton’s portrait, it is possible that the artist relied upon the accompanying textual entry for information regarding the donated vestment’s sky blue and gold colouring.32 However, in other miniatures, the benefactions are illustrated with details not found in the Liber benefactorum’s text: Alban’s shrine base is referred to simply as a ‘marble tomb’, and the seal attached to Henry VI’s charter of liberties goes entirely unmentioned in the text.33 Similarly, Æthelred’s ‘precious stone’ is depicted as a large, dark blue, oblong object with a grey streak across it, and although this does not entirely match Matthew’s visual and written accounts of the cameo, it at least captures his observations about its general shape, size (‘could scarcely be held in one hand’), dark background and use of multiple colours, including blue (Figs. 2, 4).34 Examples like these suggest that even if the illuminators were consulting the text, they were probably also coordinating closely with Walsingham or other St Albans monks, who could have given detailed illumination instructions or made the objects available for the artists’ examination. This attention to detail is striking not only because of the scale of this manuscript’s illustrative program, but also because of the extended span of time over which such images continued to be added to the manuscript.

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resemblance between the miniature and extant seals strongly indicates that the artist was aware of what such seals looked like and was attempting to replicate that fairly closely. The seal impression in Figure 8 is not associated with St Albans; see W. de Gray Birch, Catalogue of Seals in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols. (London, 1887–1900), I, 32 (no. 275). Twelve hands have been identified; see Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, II, p. 180; and Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts, II, pp. 238–9. London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 101v–102r. This vestment may now survive as a series of orphrey fragments that feature gold and light blue ornamentation and the arms of Clinton and his wife (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, mus. nos. 836–1902 to 840–1902). Previous studies have suggested a connection between these fragments and Clinton’s gifts to St Albans, but they have not noted the existence of the Liber benefactorum’s illustration of this gift. See E. Roberts ‘The St William of York Mural in St Albans Abbey and Opus Anglicanum’, Burlington Magazine 110 (1968), 236–41 (pp. 239–40); and C. Browne, G. Davies and M. A. Michael with M. Zöschg, ed., English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum (New Haven and London, 2016), pp. 188–9 (no. 44). London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fols. 19v, 27r–35r. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 170–1. Also see Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, VI, 387–8. Matthew’s written description of the cameo’s colouring, while detailed, has been interpreted in several different ways, but one detail that is clearly missing from the Liber benefactorum’s image is the reddish colour that Matthew describes as appearing on portions of the cameo. For examples of interpretations of Matthew’s description, see Oman, ‘Jewels of Saint Albans’, p. 82; Lewis, Art of Matthew Paris, p. 48; and C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective (Ithaca, 1982), p. 109.

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Figure 9: Abbot Richard d’Aubigny, from the Gesta abbatum. British Library Cotton MS Claudius E IV, fol. 107r.

The Liber benefactorum demonstrates that visually documenting the abbey’s possessions and treasures was a longstanding and integral component of the monastery’s production of manuscripts, and this provides a useful frame for analysing a somewhat puzzling image found in Walsingham’s copy and continuation of the Gesta abbatum. As mentioned, several of the portraits in this manuscript include depictions of objects with which those particular abbots were associated, and Richard d’Aubigny (1097–1119) is among this group (Fig. 9). In his portrait, Richard sits while studying a book on a lectern, a scene that reflects the text’s description of his donation of manuscripts to the abbey.35 In the lower right corner, at Richard’s feet, sits another object, which appears to consist of a sculpted bust – bearded, wearing a crown, and positioned with only its left shoulder visible to the viewer – mounted atop a rectangular box embellished with an arcade along its sides.36 This object is reminiscent of surviving head and bust reliquaries like those of Saints Alexander and Eustace, both of which consist of a sculpted head representing the saint, which is affixed to the 35

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For the Gesta abbatum’s account of Richard’s abbacy, see Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 144–57. For book production at St Albans during this period, see R. M. Thomson, Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey, 1066–1235, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1985), I, 15–19; and K. Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage and the Early Anglo-Norman Abbots of St Albans’, in Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World: Manuscripts, Makers and Readers, c. 1066–c. 1250, ed. L. Cleaver and A. Worm, Writing History in the Middle Ages 6 (York, 2018), pp. 167–88 (pp. 184–8). Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, notes that the miniature illustrates Richard ‘with a crowned head at his knees’ (p. 146 n. 8).

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Figure 10: Head reliquary of Saint Eustace. London, British Museum, no. 1850,1127.1.

The Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey top of a rectangular base covered with decorative panels (Fig. 10).37 Such reliquaries typically enshrined either the saint’s skull or fragments of it, and they were sometimes used in tandem with a main shrine that held the rest of the saint’s bodily remains.38 Curiously, this distinctive object does not seem to be described in the accompanying text nor in other surviving documents from St Albans. The Gesta abbatum specifies that Richard’s gifts to the abbey included several fine vestments, a woven cloth, a hanging depicting Alban’s martyrdom, precious books and two reliquaries, among ‘many other ornaments’, but the text’s descriptions of the two donated reliquaries do not match the object shown in Richard’s portrait.39 The first reliquary was decorated with gold images and held the relics of the twelve apostles and several unspecified martyrs, which had been placed in Alban’s grave by Bishop Germanus of Auxerre in 429; the second reliquary was made of gold and ivory and contained the relics of unnamed martyrs and saints.40 In her analysis of the Gesta abbatum’s written description of these reliquaries, Kathryn Gerry has shown that they were probably box-like or ‘quasi-architectural’ in shape.41 And, indeed, in the Liber benefactorum, which repeats the Gesta abbatum’s textual description of Richard’s gifts, he is shown standing next to a book and two objects that appear to be house-shaped reliquaries.42 Information about the existence of a head or bust reliquary at St Albans is also absent in the inventory of relics that appears within the same fourteenth-century manuscript as the Gesta abbatum, even though this list specifies that the abbey possessed several arm-shaped reliquaries.43 The prominent placement of the object within Richard’s portrait suggests that this presumed reliquary bust was both real and meaningful, and several visual and historical details provide insight into some possible reasons for its inclusion in this miniature. The beard and crown indicate that the head represents a saintly king, and although several such saints 37

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For discussions of these examples and of head and bust reliquaries more generally, see C. Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (University Park PA, 2012), pp. 117–33; and B. D. Boehm, ‘Reliquary Busts: “A Certain Aristocratic Eminence”’, in Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, ed. C. T. Little (New York, 2006), pp. 168–73. For the Eustace reliquary, also see M. Bagnoli, et al., ed., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (New Haven, 2010), p. 191 (no. 104). No English head or bust reliquaries survive, but textual evidence indicates that they existed in England as early as c. 924 and later grew in popularity, especially during the thirteenth century. See Crook, English Medieval Shrines, pp. 218–20; and S. B. Montgomery, ‘The Use and Perception of Reliquary Busts in the Late Middle Ages’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University, 1996), pp. 87–8. Boehm, ‘Reliquary Busts’, pp. 169–70; and Crook, English Medieval Shrines, pp. 218–20. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 151; see also Gerry in this volume. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 151. Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage’, pp. 179–83 (quote at p. 180). London, BL Cotton MS Nero D VII, fol. 14r. This inventory, the abbey’s only extant relic list, is printed in Riley, ed., GA, III, 539–45.

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Deirdre Carter were venerated at St Albans, only one had special institutional significance: Saint Oswine, a seventh-century Northumbrian king and martyr whose relics were enshrined at Tynemouth, a dependent priory of St Albans.44 Although unmentioned in both the Gesta abbatum and Liber benefactorum, other records, including Matthew Paris’s Chronica majora, briefly report that in 1110, Abbot Richard presided over the translation of Oswine’s relics into a new feretrum (typically a large chest-like shrine) at Tynemouth Priory, which claimed to possess the saint’s body and clothing.45 It was probably in relation to this event that St Albans Abbey acquired some of the saint’s relics and embarked on a vigorous campaign to provide his cult with its first detailed hagiographic texts, including a vita, inventio and miracula.46 Thus, Abbot Richard played a significant role in the promotion of Oswine’s cult at both St Albans and Tynemouth, efforts that were probably motivated by a desire to strengthen and legitimise the abbey’s claims to the priory, the rightful possession of which was the subject of a long-running dispute with Durham.47 In this context, it

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D. J. Craig, ‘Oswine (St Oswine, Oswin)’, in ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/20927 (accessed 10.11.2020). In the abbey’s relic inventory, Oswine’s relics are listed after those of Alban and Amphibalus but before those of other royal saints such as Edmund, Oswald, Edward and Kenelm. See Riley, ed., GA, III, 541–3. Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, II, 138. Matthew’s account was taken directly from Roger of Wendover’s Flores Historiarum, and descriptions of the translation also appear in a late twelfth or early thirteenth century hagiographic manuscript from Tynemouth or St Albans. See Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum, ed. H. O. Coxe, 4 vols. (London, 1841–42), II, 187–8; and J. Raine, ed., Miscellanea Biographica, Surtees Society 8 (London, 1838), pp. 15, 24. Also see Crook, English Medieval Shrines, pp. 274–5, 311. A twelfth-century Tynemouth relic inventory lists Oswine’s body and clothing but does not describe any reliquaries; see I. G. Thomas, ‘The Cult of Saints’ Relics in Medieval England’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1974), pp. 240–1, 528–9. The twelfth-century hagiographic texts associated with Tynemouth refer to the saint’s theca (probably in reference to the feretrum), as well as a locellus that contained some of the saint’s hairs. The locellus and hairs are especially intriguing in relation to the possible bust reliquary; however, the locellus pre-dated Richard’s abbacy by at least three decades and, based on the terminology, was probably a box-like reliquary rather than a head or bust reliquary, and it may have been in the possession of a private patron, instead of the priory. See Raine, ed., Miscellanea Biographica, pp. 19–20; P. A. Hayward, ‘Sanctity and Lordship in Twelfth-Century England: Saint Albans, Durham, and the Cult of Saint Oswine, King and Martyr’, Viator 30 (1999), 105–44 (pp. 128–9, 138–9); and Crook, English Medieval Shrines, p. 312. Riley, ed., GA, III, 542; and Hayward, ‘Sanctity and Lordship’, esp. pp. 120–1, 144. Also see the discussion of the abbey’s altar of Saint Oswine in W. Page, ed., The Victoria History of the County of Hertfordshire, 4 vols. (London, 1902–14), II, 493. In the 1090s, Robert de Mowbray, earl of Northumberland, transferred control of the priory from Durham to St Albans, but Durham made attempts to restore possession of the priory through at least the late twelfth century. Hayward’s study of Oswine’s twelfth-century hagiographic texts demonstrates that these materials were designed to bolster St Albans’s claims to Tynemouth, in part, by generating a flourishing cult that would serve as evidence of Oswine’s approval of his relics’ custodians. See Hayward, ‘Sanctity and Lordship’.

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The Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey seems plausible that Richard – who is documented as having donated two other reliquaries, constructed chapels for Saints Cuthbert and Alexis and attended three saints’ translations, and who, as Gerry argues, understood the strategic value of artistic patronage, especially in relation to saints’ cults – may have commissioned a bust reliquary for some of Oswine’s relics at either Tynemouth or St Albans, even if written documentation of such an object has not survived.48 Although the identity of the object depicted in Richard’s portrait remains tentative, it is worth considering how this apparently otherwise undocumented early twelfth century reliquary could have come to be included in this abbot’s portrait nearly three centuries later. If Richard provided Tynemouth with a reliquary bust as part of his promotion of Oswine’s cult, this could explain the St Albans writers’ silence, or perhaps lack of awareness, regarding this gift, and given the more meagre historical documentation at the priory, the reliquary’s existence and origins may have simply gone unrecorded. However, if knowledge of its provenance had endured within the priory’s unwritten but communal memory, one figure who is likely to have known this information is Thomas de la Mare, the abbot (1349–96) who not only encouraged Walsingham’s production of manuscripts like this one, but had also served as the prior of Tynemouth for nine years (1340–49) before being elected abbot of St Albans.49 Moreover, the Gesta abbatum states that the ‘greatest’ of Thomas’s contributions to the fabric of the priory was his relocation of Oswine’s relics to a more befitting space, probably a newly constructed axial chapel.50 That Thomas’s devotion to this saint continued throughout the remainder of his long life is indicated by Oswine’s prominent placement, opposite Alban, on the abbot’s funerary brass.51 It may have been Thomas’s own special devotion to Oswine – and personal knowledge of Tynemouth’s history 48

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See Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 151–2, 248; J. Fairweather, trans., Liber Eliensis: A History of the Isle of Ely, from the Seventh Century to the Twelfth (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 275–6; and Gerry, ‘Artistic Patronage’, pp. 184–8. The two other translations were those of Cuthbert (1104) and Æthelthryth (1106), the latter of which, like the Oswine translation, is not mentioned in the Gesta abbatum. Gerry emphasises that much of Richard’s artistic patronage focused on saints’ cults, and she sees some of this work as designed to reconcile tensions with Durham. It seems possible that Richard may have had a two-pronged approach, wherein he fostered the cults of Cuthbert and Alexis in a way that strengthened the ties (and harmony) between St Albans and Durham, while also protecting the abbey’s interests at Tynemouth, in part by ensuring that Oswine’s cult was properly equipped with texts, a reliquary and a translation ceremony. For Thomas’s priorate and his later revitalisation of the abbey’s scriptorium, which was headed by Walsingham, see Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, pp. 764–70, 903. Also see J. G. Clark, ‘Mare, Thomas de la’, in ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/18039 (accessed 28.3.2021); and Clark, Monastic Renaissance, pp. 97–108. Preest, trans., and Clark, ed., Deeds, p. 769. For the chapel, see Crook, English Medieval Shrines, p. 275. E. Woolley, ‘The Brass of Thomas de la Mare, St Albans Abbey Church’, Transactions of the St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society (1928), 172–5 (p. 175 and pl. I).

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Deirdre Carter and treasures – that informed and prompted the reliquary’s inclusion within the portrait of the twelfth-century abbot who had played such an important role in promoting this same saint.52 Images like this one are a rich resource for understanding lost medieval artworks, their meaning and the contexts in which they were created and treasured. For items such as the abbey’s gems and rings, the specificity of the drawings and textual descriptions allows for a reasonably confident reconstruction of these objects’ appearance, but even the cameo reveals the potential pitfalls of this practice by highlighting the selective nature of medieval copying; whereas Matthew’s drawing intricately documents the cameo’s figural imagery, the Liber benefactorum miniature focuses on its coloration and size (Figs. 2, 4).53 Thus, although some of the St Albans miniatures feature apparent – or even verifiable – verisimilitude, caution should be exercised when attempting to draw detailed conclusions about a given object’s appearance based solely on its pictorial representation, even if it remains possible that the illustrations accurately reproduce the general shape and appearance of objects such as Adrian IV’s mazer or the reliquary bust (Figs. 3, 9).54 The latter example also shows the way that these miniatures may offer new insights and avenues of inquiry on a variety of issues, in this case ranging from the history of Oswine’s cult to the development of English bust reliquaries and the relationship between institutional memory and material culture. Furthermore, in addition to the information that can be gleaned from individual illustrations, the corpus of images as a whole offers a unique visualisation of a medieval English treasury, with its jumble of objects – of varying functions, values, ages and associations – all deemed worthy of illustration. The St Albans monks’ longstanding dedication to representing visually such a diverse group of possessions is also an indication of these objects’ significance to the monastic community. These items undoubtedly reflected the abbey’s material and spiritual prosperity, but they also embodied

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Given the uncertainties of this manuscript’s dating (see above, note 22), it remains possible that it was not completed by the time of Abbot Thomas’s death in 1396. However, it seems likely that, at the very least, the early portions of the Gesta abbatum (including the account of Richard’s abbacy) were completed during Thomas’s lifetime. The text does not continue past the events of 1381, and the fact that Thomas’s portrait (London, BL Cotton MS Claudius E IV, fol. 232r) was executed by a different artist than were those of his predecessors may also indicate that his portrait was added sometime after the others had been completed. For a useful discussion of medieval copying, see S. Blick, ‘Exceptions to Krautheimer’s Theory of Copying’, Visual Resources 20:2–3 (2004), 123–42. The illustration of the reliquary, in particular, raises questions about visual accuracy because it may represent a Tynemouth possession, but it appears in a manuscript produced by artists at St Albans. In this scenario, it seems probable that the image could have been influenced by the appearance of unrelated artworks, perhaps even other now-lost head reliquaries or images of kings that were on display at St Albans. This could also account for the crown’s closer affinity to late medieval royal images than to artworks produced during Richard’s abbacy.

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The Later Medieval Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey centuries’ worth of its material past. This notion may have been felt especially strongly at St Albans, with its robust historiographic impulse and its identity as both the home of the protomartyr and one of England’s most venerable monasteries. In this context, antiquities such as the Alban cross or the Roman cameo may have been especially symbolic, but every object, whether older or newer, was documented and authenticated as a valuable component of the abbey’s material past through its visual representation within these historical manuscripts. As a pictorial guide to the monastery’s treasures, this collection of images also may have stimulated interest in the abbey’s history among the monks who were surrounded by these objects, as well as among potential donors, who may have been enticed to make their own benefactions in the hopes that their gifts, too, would be visually memorialised. Through their efforts to document, celebrate and perpetuate the abbey’s history, the St Albans monks created an innovative and informative record of the monastery’s material past, and it is a testament to the success of their work that these treasures can still be so vividly envisioned, researched and even reconstructed.

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9 Lost and Found: Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records Katherine A. Rush

To Jehan Le Seeleur of Paris, for two ivory combs purchased in the presence of Madame, 16 sous. For two cases for the combs, and for a brooch, and for Madame’s decorated mirror, 9 sous, 6 deniers.1

This account is taken from an inventory that documents some of the possessions of Mahaut (c. 1270–1329), ruling countess of Artois from 1302 to 1329, wife of Otto IV, count Palatine of Burgundy (1248–1302, r. 1279–1302) and mother of two queens of France, Jeanne II of Burgundy (c. 1291–1330) and Blanche of Burgundy (1296–1326); a woman who had the financial resources to make lavish purchases.2 In fourteenth-century France, such household items as combs and mirrors, as well as trinketsized boxes (misleadingly known as caskets, from the French coffrets) and devotional statuettes became expressions of their owners’ power, wealth, and social prestige when rendered in the sought-after, costly, and foreign medium of elephant ivory. It was important for Mahaut, as a member of the nobility, to carefully curate her public image, even in matters as mundane as personal grooming. The great skill and detail with which these objects were created resulted in their popularity and longevity, exemplified by their appearance in written household inventories of the nobility and royalty. In addition to being fastidious about her appearance and legacy, Mahaut was also adamant about accurately documenting her household expenses, probably because of her husband’s significant debts to usurers c. 1295.3 It is because of Mahaut’s insistence on careful book-keeping that,

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‘A Jehan Le Seeleur de Paris, pour II piegnes d’yvoere achetés en la presence madame, XVIs. Audit Jehan, pour II foureaus pour lesdiz piegnes, et pour une broche, et pour le mireor madame, enluminer, IXs. VId.’, J.-M. Richard, ed., Une petite-nièce de saint Louis: Mahaut comtesse d’Artois et de Bourgogne (1302–1329) (Paris, 1887), pp. 321–2; my translation. One livre (pound) was equivalent to 20 sous or 240 deniers; M. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion: The Inventory and Gift Giving of Queen Clémence de Hongrie (University Park PA, 2019), p. xiii. E. M. Hallam, Capetian France, 987–1328 (New York, 1980), p. 357. S.-G. Heller, ‘Revisiting the Inventories of Artois: Fashion, Status, and Taste at

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records nearly seven centuries after her death, we can explore the materiality of her life through the records of luxury objects she commissioned, bought, and owned during her tenure as countess of Artois. Mahaut’s detailed inventories are a type of historical record that provides contemporary scholars with a plethora of quantitative information regarding the organisation and finances of a late medieval, noble French household. Mahaut was not alone in maintaining extensive inventories as a means of organised record-keeping; the ninety-nine-page post-mortem inventory of Clémence de Hongrie (d. 1328), queen of France and widow of Louis X (1289–1316, r. 1314–16), provides another window into the material life of a female member of the late medieval French court. Yet while Mahaut’s inventory was intended as a practical book-keeping tool, an active register that was updated three times annually, the postmortem inventory, by definition, sought to document a collection formed in the past. The inventories of Mahaut d’Artois and Clémence de Hongrie are rare survivals of such accounts, offering glimpses into the now largely lost material culture of the households of the French nobility in the first half of the fourteenth century. While such inventories, as individual and subjective records, must be interpreted with care, they can provide profound insights into the roles certain types of objects might have played within the complex social structures inhabited by their owners. By considering a selection of entries detailing ivory objects in the inventories of Mahaut and Clémence, this chapter will illustrate how the inclusion of ivories within these two inventories speaks to the cultural, social, and financial import of Gothic ivories, while also showing the value of the medieval inventory as a historical document. Medieval inventories serve as a record of the production, ownership, and monetary value of luxury objects, as well as an account of the material lives of their possessors. By examining the inventories of Mahaut d’Artois and Clémence de Hongrie, we can gain a better understanding of how these two French noblewomen utilised carved ivory objects as a material means of expressing their social, religious, and financial roles in early fourteenth century French courtly culture. Late medieval inventories were usually lengthy records of a person’s or household’s possessions. Sometimes consisting of multiple volumes or hundreds of pages, they were written by hand in parchment or paper registers. In a typical inventory each object was provided with a brief description, detailing its appearance, and sometimes its price and production. That thousands of documents from late medieval inventories (such as the 12,000 documents from the house of Artois and Burgundy, c. 1250–1350, of which Mahaut’s inventories are a part), survive today should not be taken for granted.4 As archivist and historian Antoine Le Roux

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the Court of Mahaut, c. 1307–1310’, in Inventories of Textiles- Textiles in Inventories: Studies on Late Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture, ed. T. Ertl and B. Karl (Vienna, 2017), pp. 73–88 (p. 75). Heller, ‘Revisiting the Inventories’, p. 73.

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Katherine A. Rush de Lincy wrote in 1852, ‘as everyone knows’, extant inventories dating to before the fourteenth century are rare.5 Although inventories were created and used as a form of record-keeping in Europe as early as the seventh century, few survive, in part because the early Middle Ages was not defined by the same documentary urge that existed in the late Middle Ages. Although systematic inventories of some church treasuries are known from as early as the Carolingian period, few personal household inventories exist prior to the fourteenth century.6 This can be explained in part by the social context of the late Middle Ages, which was characterised by an overall increase in literacy, a progressively complex legal system, and the need for aristocratic households to keep track of their debts to various merchants, three factors that together resulted in an increase of written documentation of personal property.7 The inventories of Mahaut and Clémence are still extant despite several instances of near destruction. The French royal archives, including those of the Artois family, were kept in the Trésor des Chartes on the second floor of the Sainte-Chapelle until the Trésor des Chartes was demolished in 1776 following a fire at the Palais de la Cité. During the French Revolution in 1789, much of the Trésor des Chartes collection was destroyed or dispersed.8 The Artois family records were moved to the Archives du Pas-de-Calais, where they remain today.9 Meanwhile, the post-mortem inventory of Clémence de Hongrie survived via a different route. The inventory was held by Pierre Clairambault (1651–1740), genealogist of the Ordres du roi under Louis XIV and Louis XV. Clairambault’s collection entered the Royal Library in 1792, but shortly thereafter the National Assembly ordered the majority of the collection to be burned. Clémence’s inventory is one of 1,354 volumes from Clairambault’s collection that survived and are now held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.10 In ‘Inventories as Sources of Evidence for Domestic Furnishings in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, Penelope Eames helpfully divides inventories into three separate groups based on the reason for their creation. The two inventories that will be considered in this essay, those of Mahaut d’Artois and Clémence de Hongrie, both fall under the umbrella of Eames’s Group C, ‘lists compiled as an administrative check on

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A. Le Roux de Lincy, ‘Inventories des biens meubles et immeubles de la comtesse Mahaut d’Artois, pillés par l’armée de son neveu, en 1313’, Bibliothèque de l’école des Chartes 13:1 (1852), 53–79 (p. 56). J. S. Ackley, ‘Re-approaching the Western medieval church treasury inventory, c. 800–1250’, Journal of Art Historiography 11 (2014), 1–37 (p. 6). Ibid., p. 33. Richard, ed., Une petite-nièce de saint Louis, p. ix. See appendix for a complete list of Mahaut’s surviving inventories kept at the Archives du Pas-de-Calais. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France Clairambault 471; P. Lauer, ed., Catalogue des manuscrits de la collection Clairambault. Introduction et table alphabétique (Paris, 1932), pp. vi–xi.

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records possessions on behalf of the owner’.11 Where Mahaut’s and Clémence’s inventories differ, however, is in the reason for the completion of an ‘administrative check on possessions’. Whereas Mahaut’s inventories were thrice-annual records of household business during her rule as countess of Artois, Clémence’s inventory was created upon her death in 1328 at the behest of her last will and testament. While Mahaut’s inventories provide evidence for the acquisition and repair of objects, Clémence’s inventory documents the dispersal of her possessions. As noted by Katherine Anne Wilson, medieval inventories must always be considered in light of the immediate social context of their creation.12 As the cases of Mahaut and Clémence will show, although inventories are by definition carefully organised records, it is important to keep in mind that they are subjective, not objective, records. Every inventory is unique in terms of its overall organisation, the details and information that are included or excluded, and the reason for its creation. Before delving into the inventories of Mahaut and Clémence, it is important to understand the limitations of the information that medieval inventories can impart centuries after their creation, especially in regard to carved ivories. Perhaps the greatest limitation of medieval inventories is that they cannot serve as a complete solution to questions of provenance. Indeed, it is difficult to determine the specific fourteenth-century collections to which medieval ivories belonged, even with medieval inventories as textual records and guides. For example, although the entry given above from Mahaut’s inventory makes clear that the countess owned two ivory combs, the text does not provide enough descriptive information for contemporary scholars to determine which of the fairly large number of extant Gothic ivory combs may have been the two she is recorded to have possessed.13 This matching of specific ivories to specific inventories is made more difficult by the fact that most French Gothic ivories follow accepted artistic patterns and representations. For example, there is a group of eight surviving “composite” caskets, small ivory boxes carved with popular 11

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According to Eames, inventory categories A and B are as follows: Group A consists of inventories created for reasons of financial considerations, wherein items are given a monetary valuation to assist in repaying debts. Group B consists of inventories created to record furnishings within a property where the occupant is not the owner, whether due to a lease or ownership by a feudal lord; P. Eames, ‘Inventories as Sources of Evidence for Domestic Furnishings’, Furniture History 9 (1973), 33–40 (p. 34). K. A. Wilson, ‘The household inventory as urban “theatre” in late medieval Burgundy’, Social History 40:3 (2015), 335–59 (p. 359). A quick search for ‘combs’ on the Gothic Ivories Project website returns a total of 89 extant carved ivory combs produced in Western Europe between c. 1200 and 1530. Even excluding combs that were produced after the fourteenth century, or outside of France, there are still too many, often decorated with similar or almost identical imagery, to say for certain which if any are the two combs mentioned in Mahaut’s inventory; ‘Gothic Ivories Project’, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, http://www.gothicivories.courtauld.ac.uk (accessed 18.6.2020).

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Figure 1: Ivory Casket with Scenes of Romances. Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, 71.264.

scenes from romances, for which the medieval owners are unknown (Fig. 1).14 These eight caskets are similar (though not identical) in their depictions of various popular romances on the lids and four sides, including the trope of the Siege of the Castle of Love, Lancelot crossing the Sword Bridge, and the tryst of Phyllis and Aristotle. Due to the great popularity of these romancethemed caskets in the late Middle Ages, it is possible to hypothesise that more than the now-extant eight were originally created, and that were one to be included in an inventory, a description along the lines of “ivory casket with various scenes from romances” would not in and of itself be enough to identify a particular casket. For example, in Clémence’s inventory, the 14

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum. Inv. 71.264, Composite Romance casket. Paris, France, c. 1330–50; Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Inv. 39.26. Composite Romance Casket. Paris, France, c. 1310–40; Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello. Inv. 123 C. Composite Romance casket. Paris, France, c. 1330–40; Krakow, Krakow Cathedral Treasury. Casket of Queen Jadgwiga of Poland, Composite Romance Casket. Paris, France, c. 1300–50; London, British Museum. 1856,0623.166 (Dalton 368). Composite Romance casket; Paris, France, c. 1325–50; London, Victoria & Albert Museum. 146–1866. Composite Romance casket. Paris, France, c. 1320–30; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. 17.190.173. Composite Romance casket. Paris, France, c. 1320–40; Paris, Musée de Cluny. Cl. 23840. Composite Romance casket. Paris, France, c. 1300–25.

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records three ivory caskets within her collection receive only cursory descriptions which serve to communicate the artistic materials used (ivory, and for two of the three caskets, silver). Of the three entries for the caskets, entry #387 provides the most information, noting that the casket’s decoration includes carved images, although the subject matter of these is not specified: 387. Item, un escrin d’ivoire à ymages, garni d’argent, présié 10 l par. (387. Item, an ivory box with images, decorated with silver, priced at 10 Parisian livres.)15

Another limitation of inventories is that works in ivory may have been altered in ways that disguise their original forms, as detailed in the inventories. Unlike precious metals such as gold and silver, which could be melted down and re-formed into a completely new object, ivory was an artistic material that could not be easily reworked, a characteristic that has (happily for scholars) contributed to the large number of extant medieval ivories. However panels could be reused in new settings. It is therefore possible that ivories from the collections of Mahaut and Clémence do not survive in the exact form described in the inventories. Clémence’s inventory notes her ownership of two different ‘escrin d’ivoire garni d’argent’ (ivory boxes decorated with silver).16 In addition to the eight surviving composite caskets, fragments from approximately a dozen additional romance and Arthurian-themed caskets are also extant. Often these fragments have survived by serving as decoration for works in other materials. For example, a manuscript copy of Godefroy de Boulogne’s Le Chevalier au Cygne includes a fourteenth-century ivory panel, one of the aforementioned casket fragments, set into its nineteenth-century cover.17 The panel’s imagery is identical to that of the back panel of the eight complete composite caskets, depicting Gawain at the Castle of Marvels, from Chrétien de Troyes’s Le Conte du Graal, and Lancelot crossing the Sword Bridge, from Le Chevalier de la Charrette. The panel’s long, narrow shape, and lack of marks from a previously extant lock, speak to its original use as the rear panel of a casket. The panel is thus proof that more than eight similarly decorated composite caskets were produced within the early fourteenth century, pointing to an active market for such luxurious objects. The survival of this ivory fragment was made possible through its exceptional secondary role as part of a decorative book cover, a later turn of fate that cannot be accounted for in an inventory entry. 15

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L. Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire et vente après décès des biens de la reine Clémence de Hongrie, veuve de Louis le Hutin, 1328’, in Nouveau recueil de comptes de l’argenterie des rois de France (Paris, 1874), pp. 37–112 (p. 80, my translation). My translation; Clémence’s two ivory boxes decorated with silver are item numbers 66 and 387 in her inventory; Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire et vente’, pp. 46, 80. London, BL Add. MS 36615. Le Chevalier au Cygne by Godefroy de Boulogne. France, c. 1300–1400.

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Katherine A. Rush A final quality of ivories that inventories are unable to shed light on is that, unlike medieval manuscripts, which sometimes contain inscriptions speaking to their production or ownership, Gothic ivories include no medieval written or carved clues about the identity of their creators or owners.18 This makes it especially difficult not only to attribute a carved ivory to a specific workshop, but also to trace its patronage and ownership. For example, the provenance of an ivory casket decorated with images from Chrétien de Troyes’s twelfth-century Arthurian legend of Perceval or Le Conte du Graal can only be traced as far back as the eighteenth century.19 Similarly, the seventeenth-century provenance of one of the eight composite caskets derives from the unique, and by no means medieval, label on the inside of the casket’s lid, which states that it was owned by Francis Annesley, First Viscount Valentia (c. 1595–1660), Lord Deputy of Ireland and Lord Privy Seal to King James I.20 Another of the composite caskets, now in Kraków Cathedral Treasury, is believed to have been owned by Queen Jadwiga of Poland (1371–99), former princess of Hungary, although no known written documents attest to her ownership.21 Rather, Queen Jadwiga was connected to the casket due to her great interest in luxury French goods and the presence of such objects at her court.22 Thus, it is difficult, if not impossible, to assign carved ivories to specific medieval owners by relying solely on entries within medieval inventories. However, despite this limitation, there is still much that can be learned about Gothic ivories, their producers, and patrons through the examination of entries in medieval household records of the nobility and royalty, such as those of Mahaut d’Artois and Clémence de Hongrie, to whom this essay will now turn. In addition to being countess of Artois, Mahaut was regent of the County of Burgundy for her son, Robert (1300–15), from the time of her husband Otto’s death in 1302 to the death of her son in 1315.23 Her familial history

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J. Natanson, Gothic Ivories of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (London, 1951), p. 7. Paris, Musée du Louvre. OA 122. Perceval casket. Paris, France, c. 1310–30; M. H. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols. (London, 1927–29), II, 53; W. D. Wixom, Treasures from Medieval France (Cleveland, 1967), p. 208; R. H. Randall Jr., Medieval Ivories (Baltimore, 1969), p. 18; S. L. Smith, The Power of Women: A Topos in Medieval Art and Literature (Philadelphia, 1994), p. 169; ‘Gothic Ivories Project’, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, http://www.gothicivories.courtauld.ac.uk (accessed 6.11.2014). ‘Gothic Ivories Project’, http://www.gothicivories.courtauld.ac.uk (accessed 26.6.2020). Kraków, Kraków Cathedral Treasury. Casket of Queen Jadgwiga of Poland, Composite Romance Casket. Paris, France, c. 1300–50. The casket was later deposited as a reliquary in a chapel of Kraków Cathedral, where, according to Raymond Koechlin, it was not rediscovered until 1881; R. Koechlin, Les ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), pp. 34, 409. Mahaut’s son Robert, Count of Burgundy was at his death succeeded by his sister, Jeanne II of Burgundy, later Queen of France through her marriage to Philip V of France; Heller, ‘Revisiting the Inventories’, p. 76.

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records and connections illustrate her lofty social position, which brought her great wealth as well as social and political influence, enabling her to play an active role as an aristocratic patron of Parisian ivories. The surviving inventories from the late medieval Artesian household date to the time of Mahaut’s rule as countess of Artois, from the death of her husband to her own death in 1329. From the carefully organised household inventories, it can be inferred that in addition to caring for the two counties over which she reigned, Mahaut was also an enthusiastic patron of the arts, using her wealth and status to patronise some of Paris’s most skilled artisans, not only of ivory carving, but also of manuscript production and metalwork. The inventories, written on parchment registers, consist of two parts, receipts and expenses, and were typically presented by the treasurer three times per Christian year, on Candlemas, Ascension Day, and All Saints Day. These feast days aligned with changing seasons in Northern France and were natural points in the year to take stock of one’s finances.24 Of the hypothesised eighty-four inventories that were produced during Mahaut’s reign, thirty-one are still extant.25 Clémence de Hongrie (1293–1328, r. 1315–16) was widowed at a young age and did not have the chance to establish herself at the French court before the deaths of her husband (less than a year after their marriage) and son (five months later). These tragedies resulted in an abrupt downgrading of her royal status, causing Clémence to struggle to gain the social position and financial freedom which allowed Mahaut to commission great works of art. Clémence was born and raised in Naples until her marriage to Louis X, son of Philippe IV. She belonged to the Angevin branch of the Capetian dynasty, and was the daughter of Charles Martel d’Anjou, ruler of Hungary, and Clémence de Habsbourg.26 At the age of twenty-two, Clémence journeyed by sea from Naples to France to become the second wife of King Louis X. Whereas the household inventories of Mahaut d’Artois were created during the countess’s rule to detail the expenses and administration of her court, the post-mortem inventory of Clémence de Hongrie (and that of her husband, also compiled after his death, in 1316) was created for a different purpose. As directed by Clémence, aged thirty-five, in her last will and testament, dictated on 5 October 1328, upon her death her possessions and property were inventoried and liquidated. While some of the unique and most lavish objects were gifted to friends and family members, the majority were sold. In her will, Clémence made clear her wish that her luxury items be sold for a fair price, without “discounts” or “payment plans” being offered to buyers, regardless of their social status. This signifies the high regard in which Clémence held these objects, as well as her attempt to control their movement and worth even after her death.

24 25

26

Ibid., p. 78. C. Balouzat-Loubet, ‘The Court of Mahaut, Countess of Artois (1302–1329), through its Bookkeeping Practices’, HAL archives-ouvertes.fr (2014), pp. 2–3, https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01162093/ (accessed 17.12.2021). Ibid., p. 14.

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Katherine A. Rush If Mahaut and Clémence met, as is probable for two women moving in the rarefied circle of the late medieval French royal court, it was probably not under friendly conditions. Clémence was related by marriage to Mahaut, who was the mother-in-law of Clémence’s brother-in-law (Philippe V, 1293–1322, r. 1316–22). In 1316, Clémence found herself on the wrong side of Philippe V when she sided with her friend Robert III d’Artois (Mahaut’s nephew) over Mahaut in a disagreement over who should rule the county of Artois. This was a dangerous position to be in as the widow of Philippe V’s brother, who was now in charge of dispensing income to Clémence. Luckily, Clémence and Philippe V had settled their disagreement by the next year, although Clémence continued to have financial difficulties.27 Despite this conflict, and their differences in age and social position, as late medieval royal women, Mahaut and Clémence had other experiences in common. For example, in addition to both being the second wives (and then widows) of high-ranking members of the French nobility, Mahaut and Clémence also shared the experience of personal tragedies. Mahaut’s son died in 1315, while Clémence’s newborn son died shortly after his birth on 14 November 1316.28 Both women were dowagers who had to work hard to remain culturally, politically, and socially powerful after losing their status of mother to a royal heir. As a result, Mahaut and Clémence might have relied on their patronage and possession of material luxuries, such as carved ivories, as a means to uphold their position at the French court. As noted earlier, it was essential to their social standing that members of the nobility carefully curated their public images through the consideration and regulation of the luxury goods they owned. For example, sumptuary legislation passed in 1294 by Clémence’s father-in-law, Philippe IV (and still in effect during Clémence’s lifetime), decreed that only the nobility could wear or display luxurious items such as silks, jewels, and objects crafted of silver or gold.29 These laws ensured that the possession and display of such luxury goods signalled the wearer’s or owner’s high place in late medieval society.30 Thus, if luxury objects could serve as tangible identifiers of social status, it is not surprising that both Mahaut and Clémence strove to record their material possessions so carefully through the inclusion of these objects within their household inventories. The two noblewomen’s possession and display of luxury objects, such as carved ivories, were a visual and material declaration of their royal identity. The inventory of Clémence’s possessions, assembled by artists, scribes, and bureaucrats after her death on 13 October 1328, mere days after the

27 28 29

30

Ibid., p. 19. Ibid., p. 18. Philippe IV declared, ‘Il ne porteront, ne pourront porter Or, ne pierres precieuses, ne couronnes d’Or, ne d’Argent’, E. J. Laurière, ed., Ordonnanaces des roys de France de la troisième race, recueillies par ordre chronologique. Vol. 1, Contenant ce qu’on a trouvé d’ordonnances imprimées, ou manuscrites, depuis Hugues Capet, jusqu’à a la fin du regne de Charles le Bel (Paris, 1723), p. 541. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, p. 53.

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records creation of her last will and testament, includes several ivory objects.31 Clémence owned not only ivory mirror backs and a comb, as did Mahaut, but also a chess set (the black pieces were carved of ebony), a backgammon set, twelve buttons, three ivory boxes, and two small devotional sculptures of Saints John and Stephen.32 The volume of ivory objects owned by Mahaut and Clémence does not seem to have been typical for all women of their standing within the French court. For example, Clémence’s sister-in-law, Jeanne d’Évreux, queen of France and Navarre (1310–71, r. 1324–28), seems to have owned few, if any, ivory objects, as suggested by their scarcity within her own inventory.33 The plethora of ivories in Mahaut and Clémence’s inventories, and overall lack thereof in Jeanne d’Évreux’s, perhaps speak to a personal like or dislike for ivory as an artistic medium. As the inventory entries show, Mahaut and Clémence made conscious decisions to commission, purchase, or otherwise obtain specific ivory objets d’art. The large number and diverse types of ivory objects listed in Clémence’s inventory allow for deeper consideration of luxury ivories within a royal household. Not only does Clémence’s inventory provide us with a glimpse into her material household; it also gives us information as to how various luxury household objects may have been considered and categorised during the late Middle Ages. The executors of Clémence’s will, who were tasked with compiling the inventory in the days following her death, rather than detailing Clémence’s collection of ivory objects as a unified group, chose to place the various ivories into three different categories: ‘Fermaux et autres choses’ (clasps and other things), ‘Joyaux et vessel d’argent’ (trinkets and silver vessels), and finally ‘Veluiaux ceintures et autres choses, et Bourses’ (velvet belts and other things, and purses).34 As is evident from the titles of the categories, for the purpose of the inventory the objects’ utility was prioritised over their material. There are also instances, such as inventory entry #66, where several objects of both differing material and use are detailed together: Fermaux et autres choses: 66. Item, un escrin d’ivoire garni d’argent, une boueste d’ivoire dedens et deux vaissellès d’argent dedens, vendu 40s p.; à Pierre de Neelle. (Clasps and other things: 66. Item, an ivory box decorated with silver, with an ivory case inside, and two silver dishes, sold for 40 Parisian sous to Pierre de Neelle.)35

31

32 33 34 35

Among the artists called upon to appraise Clémence’s jewels and precious objects was Simon de Lille, the goldsmith of Charles IV; Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, p. 8. Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire et vente’, pp. 46, 56, 74, 79, 80–2. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, p. 46. See Bleeke’s essay in this volume. Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire et vente’, p. 46 (my translation).

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Katherine A. Rush The reason for the bundling together of these items in one entry appears to be that they were all purchased from Clémence’s estate by a certain Pierre de Neelle. This speaks to the reason for which Clémence’s inventory was made: the cataloging and selling of her possessions after her death. The executors of Clémence’s estate appear to have been more concerned with recording the details of the sale of her possessions than with the careful documentation of the production and provenance of individual objects. In contrast, as inventories created to serve as records of ongoing household expenditures, Mahaut’s inventories focus first and foremost on documenting the production and provenance of her possessions. It therefore follows that although both Mahaut’s and Clémence’s inventories include monetary prices for each item listed, the prices serve different purposes. Whereas the prices in Mahaut’s inventories refer to the amount spent by Mahaut to acquire each item, the prices in Clémence’s inventory signify how much each object was worth or sold for as her estates were dispersed after her death. A final type of ivory object owned by Clémence that is worth considering in this case study are her two devotional statuettes. Listed under the inventory category of ‘Veluiaux ceintures et autres choses, et Bourses’ (velvet belts and other things, and purses): 414. Item, un petit saint Johan d’ivoire, 60s. (414. Item, a small St John of ivory, 60 sous.)36 416. Item, un saint Estienne d’yvoire, 30s par. (416. Item, a St Stephen of ivory, 30 Parisian sous.)37

Extant medieval ivory statuettes of saints, with the exception of those depicting the Virgin Mary, are rare. For example, there are only two extant statuettes of St Francis today.38 That ivory statuettes were popular devotional tools for the medieval nobility and royalty is clear, as they appear fairly regularly in late medieval inventories, such as that of Clémence, as well as that of Mahaut, who is recorded to have owned an ivory statuette of the Virgin Mary.39 An ivory statuette of St Margaret is mentioned in the 1379–80 inventory of Charles V (1338–80, r. 1364–80). Charles V also owned at least one other ivory statuette, of St Louis wearing a gold crown (listed in his 1363 inventory), an appropriate devotional object for the French king, as Louis was often viewed as the ideal Christian monarch.40

36 37 38

39 40

Ibid., p. 81 (my translation). Ibid., p. 81 (my translation). C. T. Little, ‘Saint for All Seasons: A Gothic Ivory Statuette of Francis of Assisi’, in A Reservoir of Ideas: Essays in Honour of Paul Williamson, ed. G. Davies and E. Townsend (London, 2017), pp. 137–50 (p. 147). Richard, ed., Une petite-nièce de saint Louis, p. 322. Ibid., p. 147.

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records That Clémence owned both sacred and secular carved ivories, devotional statuettes of saints, as well as luxury accessories such as mirrors and combs, may speak to her desire to portray herself to other members of the royal court as a wealthy yet pious Christian woman. Objects functioning as a tangible language of wealth, piety, and even power, appear throughout the visual culture of the late Middle Ages. We can catch a glimpse of how objects communicated such traits through the examination of late medieval manuscript images. For example, the January calendar page of the Duc de Berry’s lavish manuscript Les Très Riches Heures includes a table set for a lavish feast.41 Among the golden goblets and plates adorning the table is a massive, gold salt cellar shaped like a ship. From the Duc’s inventories, we know that the ‘salière du pavillon’ (salt cellar) was a real object that the Duc owned and prized.42 Its appearance within the Très Riches Heures, in addition to illustrating how the salt cellar was used, serves as a visual reminder of the Duc’s great wealth, and therefore, his great power. Another example of luxury objects that connote various attributes can be found within the Hedwig Codex, a fourteenth-century illuminated Silesian manuscript that contains the vita of St Hedwig.43 On fol. 12v, Hedwig is shown being venerated by the duke and duchess of Liegnitz (Fig. 2). Hedwig has a halo, and a contrapposto pose, echoing that of Gothic ivory statuettes of the Virgin, such as the famous Virgin of the Sainte-Chapelle (Fig. 3).44 More importantly, however, with her right hand Hedwig clutches to her chest an ivory statuette of the Virgin and Child, as well as a set of ivory rosary beads. The fingers of her left hand mark her place within a book, probably a private devotional book. In this case, the ivory objects and manuscript that Hedwig is depicted holding serve as symbols of Hedwig’s piety, functioning in much the same way that her halo and contrapposto stance do, translating her great piety, an intangible virtue, into a visual language that can be more easily understood by viewers. To return to Clémence, it is possible that in her selection of ivory joyaux to add to her collection, Clémence took the symbolic implications of such objects into consideration, resulting in a collection carefully curated to demonstrate both her wealth and piety to other members of the royal court who may have questioned her status after the deaths of her husband and son. Clémence’s diverse collection of ivories also speaks to the shift in production of ivory objects that occurred around the turn of the fourteenth century. Whereas ivory carving in the late thirteenth century focused on the creation of luxury objects for private devotion, including statuettes of

41

42

43 44

Chantilly, Musée Condée MS 65. Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. France, c. 1410–16. M. Camille, ‘“For Our Devotion and Pleasure”. The sexual objects of Jean, Duc de Berry’, Art History 24:2 (2001), 169–94 (p. 181). J. Paul Getty Museum, MS Ludwig IX 7. Paris, Musée du Louvre. OA 57. Virgin of the Sainte-Chapelle. Paris, France, c. 1260–70.

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Figure 2: Saint Hedwig, from Life of the Blessed Hedwig. Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, MS Ludwig XI 7 [83.MN.126], fol. 12v.

Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records saints, and more commonly, of the Virgin and Child, in the fourteenth century the production expanded to include secular, romance-themed ivories, such as the mirror cases decorated with romance imagery, of which both Mahaut and Clémence owned exemplars, and the eight composite caskets, with their threedimensional visual overviews of the medieval romance genre.45 The use of small statuettes as objects on which to focus one’s personal devotion continued into the fourteenth century, as exemplified by the inclusion of the two statuettes in Clémence’s inventory, and the statuette of the Virgin Mary in Mahaut’s. However during this period of increased availability of and demand for ivory, ivoriers produced secular-themed ivories without having specific commissions, which suggests that there was a ready market among the aristocratic and noble classes for carved ivory objects of a romantic, as well as a devotional, nature.46 Why Clémence owned statuettes of these two particular saints, John and Stephen, is an intriguing path for future research. In addition to shedding light on the social status, religious practice, and wealth of patrons, inventories can also tell us about the activities of medieval artisans. For example, Mahaut’s inventories refer to her patronage of an artisan named Jehan Le Seeleur, who worked for her on several occasions.47 One task was the ‘illumination’ of a mirror, among other small objects; two ivory combs, as well as cases for the combs, and an ivory brooch: 45 46

47

Figure 3: Virgin of the SainteChapelle. Paris, Musée du Louvre. OA 57.

P. Williamson, An Introduction to Medieval Ivory Carvings (London, 1982), p. 18. Possible examples of romance-themed ivories produced on spec in fourteenthcentury Paris by specialty ivory carvers include two mirror cases that depict the Siege of the Castle of Love in near identical form, which appears to point to both the popularity of this particular visual romantic trope, as well as the cases’ contemporaneous early fourteenth century production, made in part possible by the fourteenth-century influx of available ivory. These mirror cases are also very closely visually related to the lids of the aforementioned eight composite caskets, which also depict the Siege of the Castle of Love and also date to the early fourteenth century; Paris, Musée du Louvre. OA 6933. Mirror Case. Paris, France, c. 1325–50; London, Victoria & Albert Museum. 1617–1855. Mirror Case. Paris, France, c. 1325–50. In Mahaut’s inventory, Jehan’s surname is spelled both ‘Seeleur’ and ‘Seelleur’. For the sake of consistency, I will refer to Jehan Le Seeleur, as his name first appears.

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Katherine A. Rush A Jehan Le Seeleur de Paris, pour II piegnes d’yvoere achetés en la presence madame, XVIs. Audit Jehan, pour II foureaus pour lesdiz piegnes, et pour une broche, et pour le mireor madame, enluminer, IXs. VId. (To Jehan Le Seeleur of Paris, for two ivory combs purchased in the presence of Madame, 16 sous. For two cases for the combs, and for a brooch, and for the illumination of Madame’s mirror, 9 sous, 6 deniers.)48

It is unfortunate that once again the inventory does not provide insight into the specific imagery with which Jehan ‘illuminated’ Mahaut’s mirror case.49 However, from consideration of the imagery typically seen on extant fourteenth-century ivory mirror cases, it is likely that Mahaut’s mirror back was decorated with a courtly scene, such as the Siege of the Castle of Love (which is found on two contemporaneous ivory mirror cases now in the Louvre and Victoria & Albert collections).50 Jehan Le Seeleur appears in Mahaut’s inventory in two further instances. He is recorded as selling an ivory statuette of the Virgin Mary to Mahaut, for use in her (probably ivory) tabernacle in 1325: Pour une ymaige de Notre-Dame d’ivire à tabernacle, XIX l. par. (For the tabernacle’s ivory image of Our Lady, 19 Parisian livres.)51

And as being paid in 1322 for repairing an ivory image for the countess: A Jehan Le Seelleur yvorier, pour raparellier un ymaige d’ivire que fut achetée des exécuteurs la royne Marie, LX S. (To ivory carver Jehan Le Seelleur, for repairing an ivory image which was purchased from the executors of Queen Marie, 60 sous.)52

48 49

50

51

52

Richard, ed., Une petite-nièce de saint Louis, pp. 321–2 (my translation). It is unclear in Mahaut’s inventory in what sense the term enluminer is meant, whether as a general term meaning to “decorate” or a more specific term denoting a form of image-making along the lines of manuscript illumination. Elsewhere in Mahaut’s inventories, the term enluminer is used to refer to the application of colour to the pages of manuscripts that Mahaut commissioned. In the case of Mahaut’s ivory mirror case, it could thus refer to the application of polychromy. Further consideration of the use of enluminer in this context is worthwhile but must be left for a future study. Paris, Musée du Louvre. OA 6933. Mirror Case. Paris, France, c. 1325–50; London, Victoria & Albert Museum. 1617–1855. Mirror Case. Paris, France, c. 1325–50. Richard, ed., Une petite-nièce de saint Louis, p. 322 (my translation). If Mahaut’s tabernacle was indeed crafted of ivory, it is possible that it was similar to an ivory tabernacle with an image of the Virgin Mary that dates to c. 1325 and is now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Within this tabernacle, the Virgin appears at centre as the Queen of Heaven. The infant Christ stands on the Virgin’s knee and raises his right hand to bless the Magi, who approach from within the left and right wings; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. 17.190.290. Tabernacle. France, c. 1325. Richard, ed., Une petite-nièce de saint Louis, p. 322 (my translation).

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records That Jehan Le Seeleur was employed not only to create new ivory objects for Mahaut, but also to repair a broken or damaged ivory, tells us three things. First, that Mahaut trusted and appreciated Jehan’s artistic skill enough to employ him on more than one occasion. Secondly, the fact that Mahaut had an ivory repaired, rather than merely replaced, could speak to the object’s both sentimental and devotional worth to her. Third, the ivory’s repair is an example of the strict regulations that governed medieval Parisian craftsmen. The ivory that Jehan Le Seeleur repaired for Mahaut may have reminded her of Queen Marie of Brabant (1254–1322, r. 1274–85), from whose estate she purchased the ivory (as stated in the inventory) and who Mahaut probably knew. What mattered was not the provenance and ownership of any ivory, but the provenance and ownership of that specific ivory. This is further supported by a comparison with Clémence’s post-mortem inventory, in which an ivory statuette of St John was sold for 60 sous, the same amount that Mahaut paid Jehan Le Seeleur to repair her ivory statuette.53 That a complete ivory could be bought for the same price as repairing a broken one points to the significance of this specific ivory to Mahaut. The comparability of the price of purchasing and the price of repairing an ivory could also reflect current guild regulations. From the thirteenth-century text Le Livre des métiers, a book of trade and guild regulations by Étienne Boileau, the prévôt, or king’s officer, we know that there were stringent rules governing the production and repair of sculpture.54 Sculptors were only allowed to carve images, such as ivory statuettes, provided the sculpture was worked from a single piece of the specified material. The only exception was in the case of crowns to adorn statuettes, such as the one the Virgin of the SainteChapelle would have originally worn.55 In addition, although poorly made or damaged items such as belts, lamps, and writing tablets were routinely crushed or burned, the destruction of a religious sculptural work, such as an ivory statuette of the Virgin or a saint, was forbidden, as this was considered akin to burning a holy figure in effigy.56 If Mahaut’s ivory was a religious statuette, discarding instead of repairing it was not an option, owing to the holy status of images of the Virgin and saints. Similarly, the repair of a religious statuette could be seen as an act of devotion. Taken together, the strict rules regulating the production and repair of sculptures suggest that Jehan Le Seeleur’s repair of Mahaut’s ivory was 53

54

55

56

‘414. Item, un petit saint Johan d’ivoire, 60s.’, Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire et vente’, p. 81. E. Sears, ‘Craft Ethics and the Critical Eye in Medieval Paris’, Gesta 45:2 (2006), 221–38 (p. 221). ‘Nus ouvriers du mestier devant dit ne puet ne ne doit ouvrer ymage nule, qui ne soit tresto[ute] d’une piece fors mise la cour[one], se il ne sont briesiez au taill[ier], cars lors le puet on bien rejo[indre]’, É. Boileau, Les métiers et corporations de la ville de Paris: XIIIe siècle. Le livre des métiers (Paris, 1879), p. 128; Sears, ‘Craft Ethics and the Critical Eye’, p. 226. ‘Nule fause ouevre del mestier devant dit ne doit ester arse, pour les reverances des Sains est des Saintes en qui ramenbrances ells sont faites’; Boileau, Les métiers et corporations, p. 130; Sears, ‘Craft Ethics and the Critical Eye’, p. 229.

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Katherine A. Rush no small matter. A broken statuette could signal the object’s poor quality, unless, perhaps, it needed only a small repair, such as the reattaching of a crown, which was created from a separate piece. These strict regulations, paired with the fact that Mahaut purchased the ivory from a contemporary noblewoman, suggest that the ivory objects within Mahaut’s inventory played a greater role than just material representations of her social prestige, Christian devotion, and wealth. Such objects may have served as tangible reminders of certain people, through their provenance, and of Christian societal codes, through the rules that governed their creation and continued existence. Inventories can also tell us about the circles of artistic production that the nobility and royalty moved within. For example, Jehan Le Seeleur is mentioned in the 1316 accounts of Philippe V of France, brother-in-law of Clémence de Hongrie: Item, pour 1 pingne et 1 mirouer, une gravouère et 1 fourrel de cuir, acheté de Jehan le seelleur, baillié à Huet le barbier, le XXVIe jour de décembre, valent 74s. (Item, for 1 comb and one mirror, a gravoir and 1 leather bag, purchased from Jehan Le Seelleur, bailiff to Huet the barber, the 26th day of December, for 74 sous.)57

This inventory entry illustrates that Jehan Le Seeleur circulated among the royal court, completing commissions for a variety of royal patrons, both male and female. Considering Mahaut’s repeated employment of Jehan Le Seeleur, it is not impossible that he was regularly employed at the royal court, a status that would have increased his renown as a skilled artisan in general, and a skilled ivory artisan more specifically. Indeed, in Mahaut’s inventory Jehan is referred to as an ‘yvoirer’ or artisan specialising in ivory. This is worth noting because in late medieval France, there was no single guild specifically for ivory artisans, despite the fact that fourteenth-century Parisian tax records list dozens of ivory artisans who contributed to the existence of organised guilds.58 Rather, an artisan who worked in ivory probably also worked in a variety of other mediums, such as wood, stone, and bone, and was assigned a guild based not on artistic medium, but on the size and type of the objects that he or she produced. In Le Livre des métiers, Étienne Boileau identifies two guilds of small-scale sculptors, the ‘ymagiers tailleurs’ and the ‘paintres et tailleurs d’images’, both of which were authorised to work in a variety of materials, including ivory.59 Boileau also mentions an additional three guilds whose members

57

58

59

L. Douët-d’Arcq, ed., Comptes de l’argenterie des rois de France au XIVe Siècle (Paris, 1851), p. 15 (my translation). R. H. Randall Jr., ‘The Medieval Artist and Industrialised Art’, Apollo 84:8 (1966), 434–41 (p. 441). Boileau, Les métiers et corporations, pp. 127, 129; S. M. Guérin, ‘An Ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor’s œuvre’, The Burlington Magazine 154 (2012), 394–402 (pp. 400–1).

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records produced ivory crucifixes, combs, knife handles, and writing tablets.60 The production of objects not covered by these guilds is likely to have been divided among the aforementioned groups.61 The broad categorisation of guilds for sculptors described by Boileau also speaks to the portrayal of Jehan Le Seeleur in the inventories of Mahaut and Philippe V. In the four entries within Mahaut’s and Philippe V’s inventories, Jehan appears as a sort of ‘jack of all trades’. He is employed for a variety of tasks, all of which appear to fit the guild descriptions for the work of smallscale sculptors: decorating (enluminer), carving, and repairing. That Jehan was capable of all these tasks, yet addressed in Mahaut’s inventory specifically as ‘yvoirer’, suggests his renown for ivory work, regardless of which guild of small-scale sculptors he may have belonged to.62 For the purpose of this case study, only the inventories of Mahaut d’Artois and Clémence de Hongrie, as female contemporaries within the fourteenth-century French court, have been considered in depth. However, a productive path for further research would involve a broader consideration of other late medieval and early modern inventories which list carved ivories. Some of these other surviving inventories have already been mentioned; those of Jeanne d’Évreux, Charles V, and of Mahaut’s and Clémence’s husbands, Count Otto IV and King Louis X, respectively. In addition, the inventory of arguably the greatest patron of the arts in fifteenth-century France, Jean, Duc de Berry, includes references to a variety of carved ivory objects, including several religious diptychs and triptychs, as well as two ivory caskets: 1014. Item, VII coffers d’yvoire à VI pans, à ymaiges eslevez, marquetez, fermans chascun à un clef. (1014. Item, seven ivory caskets composed of six panels, with raised images and marquetry, each one closing with a key.)63 1015. Item, de deux autres petits coffrez d’yvoire, fermans comme le precedens. (1015. Item, two other small ivory caskets, closing as in the previous statement.)64

60

61 62

63

64

Boileau, Les métiers et corporations, p. 127; A. St Clair and E. P. McLachlan, The Carver’s Art: Medieval Sculpture in Ivory, Bone, and Horn (New Brunswick, 1989), p. 4. St Clair and McLaclan, The Carver’s Art, p. 4. That Jehan le Seeleur is referred to as a bailiff in the 1316 account of Philippe V of France suggests that in addition to his work as an ivorier, Jehan also served in some form of administrative role, perhaps acting as a go-between for Huet the Barber in financial matters. Considering that the ivory items mentioned in this inventory entry are related to personal grooming, one aspect of a barber’s work, it is possible that the items passed from Huet the Barber to Jehan le Seeleur, and then to Philippe V, with Jehan receiving the payment on behalf of Huet the Barber. J. Guiffrey ed., Inventaires de Jean Duc de Berry (1401–1416), 3 vols. (Paris, 1894), I, 273 (my translation). Ibid., I, 273 (my translation).

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Katherine A. Rush The detailed, two-volume, fifteenth-century inventory of the Duc de Berry’s luxury possessions provides evidence for the male ownership of ivory caskets. Scholars such as Susan Smith and Richard Randall Jr. have suggested, rather simplistically, that ivory caskets served merely as jewellery boxes for noblewomen.65 This inherently feminine purpose is often based solely on the caskets’ romance-themed imagery, such as the Siege of the Castle of Love, which adorns the lids of the eight composite caskets, and depicts the women with the upper hand, pelting the invading knights with flowers (Fig. 1). Although this theory of ivory caskets as jewellery boxes may be true in part, it does not fully reflect the varied and complex purposes and audiences of ivory caskets in particular, and of Gothic ivories more broadly. For example, the chivalric, masculine imagery of the ivory casket decorated with images from Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval could suggest a male owner and thus a more diverse purpose and audience for carved ivories as an artistic genre.66 Furthermore, as noted by Michael Camille, it is important to remember that in the Middle Ages precious, beautiful and delicate objects, such as carved ivories, did not necessarily connote femininity. Rather, such luxury objects could also function as tangible symbols of male power and wealth. The Duc de Berry’s extensive collection of joyaux or precious trinkets, such as gems, ivories, and metalwork, many of which he received as gifts, is one such example.67 A consideration of the gender of Gothic ivories’ patrons, owners, and audiences is therefore necessary for a broader understanding of the cultural role of carved ivories in fourteenth-century French society and is a subject deserving of further research. Certainly, when the inventories of Mahaut and Clémence are considered alongside that of the Duc de Berry, the presence of ivory objects in all three allows for some broader conclusions to be drawn: that carved ivories were objects commonly found within noble and royal households, and that they were owned not only by women.68 As exemplars of inventories of the nobility in late medieval France, they shed some light on the gender and social status of medieval owners of Gothic ivories, but raise questions about how such ivories were regarded and used. For example, as objects cherished both for their sentimental and monetary value, would an ivory casket, such as the three owned by Clémence, or the seven owned by the Duc de Berry, have been kept in a private household area? Perhaps in the bedchamber, placed on a table or chest of drawers, next to an ivory mirror and comb, such as Mahaut owned? Or would such finely carved objects 65

66

67 68

Smith, Power of Women, p. 169; R. Randall Jr., ‘Popular Romances Carved in Ivory’, in Images in Ivory: Precious Objects from the Gothic Age, ed. P. Barnet (Princeton, 1997), pp. 62–79 (p. 65). Paris, Musée du Louvre. OA 122. Perceval casket. Paris, France, c. 1310–30; M. Meuwese, ‘Chrétien in Ivory’, in Arthurian Literature XXV, ed. E. Archibald and D. F. Johnson (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 119–52 (p. 119). Camille, ‘For Our Devotion and Pleasure’, pp. 185, 188. P. Carns, ‘Compilatio in Ivory: The Composite Casket in the Metropolitan Museum’, Gesta 44:2 (2005), 69–88 (p. 84).

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Gothic Ivories in Late Medieval French Household Records have been displayed to guests, thereby inhabiting a more public area, and serving as status symbols? Future research into medieval ivories would do well to consider the utility and function of Gothic ivories as well as their cultural symbolism. This chapter began with the prosaic description of a transaction between artisan Jehan Le Seeleur and Countess Mahaut d’Artois. A quick look at this inventory entry tells us the names of those involved in the transaction, the type and material of the items that changed hand, and their price. Upon closer examination, however, it is possible to gain a deeper, more complex understanding of the social and cultural world in which this transaction took place. By analyzing selected entries in the inventories of Mahaut d’Artois and Clémence de Hongrie, I have demonstrated how medieval inventories can serve as windows into the social priorities, religious practices, and economic networks of their owners. Despite differences in purpose, organisation, and object descriptions, Mahaut’s and Clémence’s inventories shed light on the varied ways in which these two women of the French royal court communicated their status, wealth, Christian devotion, and even personal preferences through their patronage and ownership of luxury objects, particularly carved ivories. To conclude, the ivory objects detailed in the inventories of Mahaut d’Artois and Clémence de Hongrie are at once both lost and found. Lost in that it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the medieval textual description of an ivory with an ivory that survives today. Found, however, in that while these inventories may be unable to contribute to the clarification of provenance records, they can contribute to our understanding of the production, patronage, and ownership of Gothic ivories, and by extension, the social, cultural, and financial status of their owners, thereby rendering the medieval inventory a valuable historical record in and of itself. Mahaut’s and Clémence’s inventories are also a reminder that such records were made for different purposes and in different contexts. Although they share some similarities with earlier inventories, including examples studied in earlier chapters in this collection, from the fourteenth century onwards, such inventories present a type of historical writing that offers unparalleled insights into late medieval objects and their owners.

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Appendix Extant Household Inventories of Mahaut d’Artois (held at the Treasury of the Charters, Archives du Pas-de-Calais, Arras, France). Date

Manuscript number

1304, March 1st–June 30th

A 199

1307, February 2nd–May 3rd

A 222

1310, Candlemas

A 261

1310, Ascension Day

A 263

1310, All Saints Day

A 270

1311, Ascension Day

A 280

1312, Ascension Day

A 293

1312, All Saints Day

A 298

1314, Candlemas

A 316

1315, Candlemas

A 329

1315, All Saints Day

A 334

1317, Candlemas

A 351

1318, Ascension Day

A361

1319, Candlemas

A 368

1319, All Saints Day

A 374

1320, Candlemas

A 378

1320, August 7th–November 1st

A 386

1321, All Saints Day

A 396

1322, Ascension Day

A 403

1322, All Saints Day

A 1003

1323, Ascension Day

A 412

1323, All Saints Day

A 416

1324, Ascension Day

A 428

1325, Ascension Day

A 439

1326, Candlemas

A 448

1327, Ascension Day

A 458

1327, All Saints Day

A 461

1328, Candlemas

A 470

1328, Ascension Day

A 474

1328, All Saints Day

A 480

1329, December

A 494

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10 Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age?1 Marian Bleeke

In November 2011, a late thirteenth century ivory statuette of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child made news in the art world when it sold at Christie’s in Paris for over £6,000,000 or approximately $8,500,000. This was a record amount for a work of medieval art and far in excess of the pre-sale estimate of £1,000,000–2,000,000. The astronomical sum commanded by this object can be attributed, on the one hand, to the rarity of such things appearing on the art market, and, on the other, to its place in a collection of medieval art assembled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Victor Prosper Martin Le Roy and his son-in-law Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot, who was a curator at the Louvre and director of the Musée de Cluny.2 For scholars of medieval art, this object’s brief but spectacular appearance on the art market raises two interconnected sets of issues and questions. First, it points to a common problem with understanding Gothic ivories: while hundreds of these objects have survived, over time most of them have passed through the hands of multiple dealers and collectors and this has divorced them from any sense of their original contexts. Secondly, it raises questions concerning the value that such objects held for their original medieval owners and so the role of ivory as a material in later medieval culture. In this essay, I address these issues by working with textual evidence. Specifically, I examine a series of inventories made of the possessions of members of the French royal family in the late fourteenth through early fifteenth centuries, looking for where and how ivory objects appear within 1

2

With thanks to Laura Cleaver, Hannah Morcos and Claire Ruben for help with the French translation. On the sale of this ivory see S. Melikan, ‘Glamorous History Drives Divine Surprise’, New York Times (18 November 2011), https://www.nytimes. com/2011/11/19/arts/19iht-Melikian19.html (accessed 12.1.2020); and Medievalists.net, ‘Thirteenth-Century Ivory of the Virgin and Child sells of $8.5 Million’, https://www.medievalists.net/2011/11/thirteenth-century-ivory-ofvirgin-and-child-sells-for-8–5-million/ (accessed 29.4.2020).

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Marian Bleeke them. Working with these documents allows me to reconstruct certain types of ivory objects that have been lost over time and so speaks to the topic of this volume of essays. This includes composite creations of ivory and precious stones and metals that have disappeared over time as the latter materials have been recycled into new objects, as well as functional ivory objects that have disappeared in the art-historical scholarship as they have received little to no attention there. Both of these types of objects need to be taken into account in order to understand the place of ivory as a material in the later middle ages. Taken as a whole, the evidence of these inventories suggests that art historians have over-estimated the value of ivory objects in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as we have overlooked the ubiquity of ivory as a material. We have assumed and asserted that ivory was a costly, luxurious, and precious material at this time – one obvious example being the subtitle of an important exhibit and catalogue from 1997, Precious Objects of the Gothic Age – when that was not in fact the case.3 After an introduction to the inventories themselves, this essay focuses on two sets of categories that are used to structure these documents: one based on the places where objects were located at the time the inventory was made and the other on object types in combination with the materials from which the objects were made. The first type of category allows for the reconstruction of physical contexts for ivory objects, identifying where they were located and with what other types of things. The second type of category allows for the reconstruction of a conceptual context for these objects through an understanding of how they were categorised. The documents do not include a category for ivory objects (with one exception) and so such objects were categorised and thus conceptualised in other ways. Finally, I examine the prices that some inventories include for the objects they list, for these directly document the value of ivory objects in relationship to those made from other materials.

3

P. Barnet, ed., Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age (Detroit and Princeton, 1997). Likewise a common art-history survey textbook, Marilyn Stokstad and Michael Cothren’s Art History, identifies ivory with gold and silver as ‘precious materials’; a blog post on ivories in inventories states that it was ‘sought often and costly medium’; and in her book on the inventory of Clemence of Hungary, Mariah Proctor-Tiffany refers to ivory as ‘luxury material’. See M. Stokstad and M. Cothren, Art History (Upper Saddle River, 2011), p. 549; K. Sedovic, ‘Lists of Luxury: Ivory Objects in the Household Inventories of Late Medieval French Nobility’, Listology, https://listology. blog/2019/02/17/lists-of-luxury-ivory-objects-in-the-household-inventories-of-late-medieval-french-nobility/ (posted February 17, 2019, accessed 5.5.2020); and M. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion: The Inventory and Gift Giving of Queen Clément de Hongrie (University Park PA, 2019), p. 39. As will be discussed below, scholars specialising in ivory have long had more nuanced understandings of its value.

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Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422 French Royal Inventories The majority of medieval French royal inventories were edited and published in the late nineteenth century and these publications are now available online. Previous scholars have made use of these documents in a number of ways, but have not focused attention on the ivory objects that appear within them.4 Instead they have been mined for information on metalwork objects, in order to compensate for the heavy losses of such an easily recycled material,5 and on manuscripts, where the primary interest has been on women as book owners.6 One of Anne Rudloff Stanton’s publications on Isabella of France utilises place-based categories in her inventory to reconstruct where specific objects that appear in the document were located, forming a precedent for my interest in place-based categories in the inventories I utilise here.7 The major precedent for my manner of working with these documents is Mariah Proctor-Tiffany’s 2019 book on the inventory of Clémence de Hongrie.8 Proctor-Tiffany’s work breaks new ground in her effort to approach the document as a whole and so to allow the inventory itself to provide contextual information for the objects it describes: I adopt a similar approach here. In order to approach the inventories in this way, it is important first to establish some understanding of the documents themselves. Clémence de Hongrie’s inventory from 1328 stands out as an early example of a French 4

5

6

7 8

One exception is a brief blog post: Sedovic, ‘Lists of Luxury’. Scholars have focused on ivory in other types of inventories: see C. N. Opitz, ‘Buying, Gifting, Storing: Ivory Virgins in Documentary Sources from Late Medieval Central Europe’; and K. E. Baker, ‘La Chambre aux Dentz d’Yvoire: An Introduction to the Inventory of Chicart Bailly’, both in Gothic Ivory Sculpture: Content and Context, ed. C. Yvard (London, 2017), pp. 46–55 and 68–75 respectively. D. Gaborit-Chopin, ‘Les collections d’orfèvrerie des princes français au milieu du XIVe siècle d’après les comptes et inventaires’, in Art, objets d’art, collections: Études sur l’art du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance, sur l’histoire du goût et des collections; Hommage à Hubert Landais (Paris, 1987), pp. 46–52; and F. Robini, ‘L’orfèvrerie art de cour: Formes et techniques d’après l’inventaire de Louis 1er d’Anjou’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts VI/CII (September 1983), 60–74. A. Rudloff Stanton, ‘Isabella of France and her Manuscripts, 1308–58’, in Capetian Women, ed. K. Nolan (New York, 2003), pp. 225–52; J. A. Holladay, ‘FourteenthCentury Queens as Collectors and Readers of Books: Jeanne d’Évreux and her Contemporaries’, Journal of Medieval History 32 (2006), 69–100; and S. L. Field, ‘Marie of Saint-Pol and her Books’, English Historical Review CXXV/513 (April 2010), 255–78. In subsequent publications on Isabella, Stanton has expanded her view to include other types of objects that belonged to the queen, including ivories as well as textiles, metalwork objects, and panel paintings: see A. Rudloff Stanton, ‘What the Queen Saw: Imagery in the Household of Isabella of France’, in The Elite Household in England 1100–1500: Proceedings of the 2016 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. C. M. Woolgar (Donington, 2018), pp. 393–411; and ‘The Personal Geography of a Dowager Queen: Isabella of France and Her Inventory’, in Moving Women, Moving Objects 300-1500, ed. T. Chapman Hamilton, M. ProctorTiffany and J. A. Holladay (Leiden, 2019), pp. 205–27. Stanton, ‘The Personal Geographer of a Dowager Queen’, pp. 215–26. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion.

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Marian Bleeke royal inventory, at least among those that have survived.9 By contrast, a number of inventories were made in the 1360s, including inventories for Jeanne de Boulogne (1360), the future Charles V (1363–64), Jean le Bon (1364), and Louis d’Anjou (between 1360 and 1368).10 Additional inventories were produced in the 1370s, including one for Jeanne d’Évreux and second inventories for both Louis d’Anjou (1378) and Charles V (1378–79).11 Inventories were made for Charles VI in 1391, 1400, 1413, 1418, 1420–21, and 1422.12 And the possessions of Jean de Berry were inventoried at least three times, in 1401–03, 1413, and 1416.13 This listing of the documents points to differences in the motivations for their production and in their intended functions. The possessions of Clémence de Hongrie, Jeanne de Boulogne, Jean le Bon, and Jeanne d’Évreux, were each inventoried once, shortly after their deaths, in order to assist in the redistribution of their possessions through gifts and/or sales. By contrast, both Charles V and Louis d’Anjou had their possessions inventoried twice during their lifetimes, once in the 1360s and again in the 1370s. Their first inventories may have been intended to help secure their possessions at a time when funds were needed to support the war with the 9

10

11

12

13

For Clémence’s inventory see Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, pp. 151–75 and L. Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire et vente après décès des biens de la reine Clémence de Hongrie, veuve de Louis le Hutin’, in Nouveau recueil de comptes de l’argenterie des rois de France (Paris, 1874), pp. 37–112. It is preceded by an unpublished inventory of the possessions of her husband, Louis X, made in 1316, and a brief listing of jewels belonging to Philippe Augustus, from 1206. On Louis X’s inventory see Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, pp. 35, 131, and 185, n. 13, and for the inventory of Philippe Augustus see J. Guiffrey, ‘Inventaire des joyaux de Philippe Auguste’, Nouvelles archives de l’art francais (1899), 1–11; see also Rush’s contribution to this volume. L. Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire des meubles de la reine Jeanne de Boulogne, seconde femme du roi Jean (1360)’, Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 40 (1879), 545–62; D. Gaborit-Chopin, ed., L’inventaire du trésor du dauphin future Charles V 1363: Le débuts d’un grand collectionneur (Paris, 1996); G. Bapst, ed., Testament du roi Jean le Bon et inventaire de ses joyaux à Londres (Paris, 1884); M. de Laborde, ed., ‘Inventaire des joyaux de Louis, duc d’Anjou, dressé vers 1360–68’, in Notice des émaux, bijoux, et objets divers exposés dans les galeries du musée du Louvre, IIe partie documents et glossaire (Paris, 1853), pp. 12–198; and E. G. Ledos, ed., Fragment de l’inventaire des joyaux de Louis 1er, Duc d’Anjou (1364–5) (Paris, 1889). C. Leber, ed., ‘Le compte de l’execution du testament et darrained voulente de feue dame de bonne memoire madame la royne Jehanne de Evreaux jadis Royne de France et de Navarre’, in Collection des meilleurs dissertations, notices, et traités particuliers relatifs à l’histoire de France, 20 vols. (Paris, 1838), XIX, 120–69; H. Moranvillé, ed., Inventaire de l’orfèvrerie et des joyaux de Louis 1, duc d’Anjou (Paris, 1903); J. Labarte, ed., Inventaire de mobilier de Charles V, roi de France (Paris, 1879). See P. Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI (1380– 1422): L’inventaire de 1400 (Paris, 2004); L. Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire des joyaux de la couronne (1418)’ and ‘Inventaire de l’hotel Saint-Pol, du Louvre, et du Petit Séjour (1420 and 1421)’, in Choix des pièces inédites relative au règne de Charles VI, 2 vols. (Paris, 1864), II, pp. 279–361 and 361–407; and Anon., ‘Inventaire de ce qui se trouvait dans le chateau de Vincennes et dans celui de Beauté en 1420’, Revue archéologique 11:2 (October 1854-March 1855), 449–62. J. Guiffrey, ed., Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, 3 vols. (Paris, 1894).

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Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422 English and potentially as a ransom for their father.14 Charles V’s second inventory, made shortly before his death, was probably intended to help ensure that his possessions passed on to his son, Charles VI.15 Louis’s second inventory, by contrast, may have been intended to assess the value of his possessions in preparation for their liquidation: he would start selling them in 1380 in order to finance his campaigns in Italy.16 Finally, both Charles VI and Jean de Berry had multiple inventories made of their possessions. Charles VI’s first inventory, made in 1391, was intended to ascertain what remained of the items his father had passed down to him and to record the items he had recently acquired as gifts during a trip to Languedoc. It also marked a change in how his possessions were overseen: for the first time a single person, Berthaut de Landes, was to have charge of almost all of them.17 These two motivations lay behind Charles V’s additional inventories. That made in 1400 was produced when all of his possessions were placed in the charge of Gérard de Montagu and that produced in 1413 was made in response to criticism that his possessions were being lost. The inventory from 1418 marks the moment when his possessions were placed in the charge of Jean de Poligny and that produced in 1420 was made to determine what had been lost while Charles was absent from Paris: the 1418 document was updated at the same time with notations of ‘est’ for items that remained and ‘fault’ for those that had disappeared.18 Jean de Berry’s inventory from 1400 similarly marks the moment when Robinet d’Estampes took charge of his possessions, replacing Guillaume de Ruilly.19 Jean’s 1413 inventory was produced by Robinet, who refers to it as his fourth accounting of the duke’s possessions: Robinet updated this inventory in 1416.20 After the duke’s death in 1416, an additional inventory of his possessions was made by his secretary 14

15 16

17

18

19

20

Gaborit-Chopin, ‘Introduction’, in L’inventaire du trésor du dauphin futur Charles V, pp. 6, 13. Labarte, ‘Introduction’, in Inventaire de mobilier de Charles V, p. iii. Moranvillé, ‘Introduction’, in Inventaire de l’orfèvrerie, I, pp. viii, xii–xiii; Robini, ‘L’orfèvrerie art de cour’, pp. 60–2. See the letter of commission from Charles VI to Berthaud de Landes, dated 19 August 1391, published in Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI, pp. 489–90. The exception was the group of items at the castle of Melun that had long been in the charge of Phillipe de Savoisy: see Henwood, ‘Introduction’, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI, pp. 17–21. See the letter of commission from Charles VI to Gérard de Montagu, dated 7 January 1400, published in Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI, pp. 491–2. And see Henwood, ‘Introduction’, pp. 34–5, 42, 48–9. See letters relative to the 1418 inventory and its 1420 update in Douët-d’Arcq, ed., ‘Inventaire des joyaux’, pp. 279–90. See the explanatory notes in the inventory itself: Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, 26, 54–55, 79, 80, 115–17, 120, 135–7, 146–7, 155, 161. The inventory makes references to a prior one produced when de Ruilly took over from Jehan d’Estampes: see II, 78–9, 137, 146. See the explanatory texts at the start of the inventory and in the inventory itself in Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, I, 7, 288. And see Guiffrey, ‘Introduction’, I, x.

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Marian Bleeke and controller of expenses, Jean Lebourne. This inventory brings us full circle in that it was made to facilitate the redistribution of his possessions through sale and gift, with the goal of settling his debts and paying for his funeral expenses.21 And the same is true of Charles VI’s final inventory, made after his death in 1422.22 Most of the inventories were produced in place, where the items they list were located.23 Those involved in producing the inventories would travel from place to place in order to do this work: for example, in response to a letter from Charles VI, the chambre des comptes sent Dreux le Mareschal and his clerk, Pierre Cantelou, to the Louvre, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Melun, and the Bastide Saint-Antoine (the Bastille) to produce the 1418 inventory.24 As a result, many inventories are organised – at least in part – by place: this includes the inventories made for Clémence de Hongrie, Jeanne de Boulogne, Charles V and Charles VI, and those made for Jean de Berry in 1401–3 and after his death in 1416. The place-based categories used in the documents differ in their level of specificity. The inventories made for Jeanne de Boulogne and Clémence de Hongrie list items according to their different residences, but those made for Charles V and Charles VI include listings for the contents of specific rooms in their residences and of individual storage boxes and armoires. Louis d’Anjou’s inventories are structured differently. They have categories based on object types, for example things for the chapel and vessels and dishes of various shapes and functions, and categories based on materials, primarily gold, silver, and precious stones.25 These categories seem appropriate for inventories intended to give an account of his financial resources. However, other inventories, made for other reasons, also make use of these sorts of categories, often in combination with place-based categories. Clémence de Hongrie’s inventory includes object type and material-based categories for the items at her main residence at the Temple in Paris.26 This may have been a way of dealing with the large volume of items located at this specific place. Likewise, both of Charles V’s inventories and Charles VI’s inventories from 1400 and 1418 combine their more detailed place-based categories with those based on object types and materials, probably so as to give order to their large collections. Finally,

21

22

23

24 25

26

See the letter of commission from Charles VI to Jehan Lebourne in Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, I, 1–5, and the explanatory text at the beginning of the inventory in vol. II, 205. Henwood, ‘Introduction’, in Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI, pp. 49–50. The exception is the inventory made for Jeanne d’ Évreux: her possessions were first brought from her home at Brie to Paris, to the hôtel of Saint-Denis, and were then inventoried in a room there. See Leber, ‘Le compte de l’execution du testament’, p. 122. Douët-d’Arcq, ‘Inventaire des joyaux’, p. 281. de Laborde, ‘Inventaire des joyaux’, pp. 12–198; and Moranvillé, Inventaire de l’orfèvrerie. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, pp. 151–68.

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Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422 Robinet d’Estampes’s 1413–16 inventory for Jean de Berry is also organised by object types and materials, but shows a special interest in when and how items entered the duke’s possessions. It distinguishes between items that appeared in previous inventories and new acquisitions and, for new items, between those acquired by gift and those acquired through purchase. Jean de Berry’s other inventories combine categories based on place, on object type and materials, on time – the date on which items were inventoried – and, for his post-mortem inventory, on issues having to do with the settling of his estate.27

Ivories in the Inventories Ivory objects appear in all the different types of categories that give shape to the inventories. To begin with ivories that appear in place-based inventories and sections of inventories: the partial inventory made of the possession of Jeanne de Boulogne lists a total of six ivory objects. It locates five of these at Vadans: three boxes, one ‘tableau’ – probably a diptych or triptych – and an image of St Christopher – probably a statuette – kept in a box. The sixth is located at Roure and is a mirror case that was part of a set that also included a comb and hair-parter, both of gilt silver and both in embroidered cases.28 The ivories that appear in Charles V’s 1363 inventory are both in the place-based category for items in the oratory at Estampes: an image of St Louis and a panel painted with the lives of Christ and the Virgin.29 Jean de Berry’s 1401–03 inventory includes a number of ivories in place-based categories: it lists a cross and a goblet in the great tower at Bourges, two panels in the duke’s library in the donjon at Mehun, and fourteen boxes in the ‘hôtel’ of the great church at Bourges.30 Charles V’s 1379–80 inventory lists a much larger number of ivory objects primarily in sections for the king’s studies and nearby chapels and oratories (these objects are identified by location in Table 1).31 Charles VI’s inventories include some of the same place-based categories as his father’s second inventory and locate some of the same ivory objects in them (as documented in Table 2 for the 1400 inventory and Table 3 for that from 1418). The

27 28 29

30

31

Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, 210–91. Douët-d’Arcq, ‘Inventaire des meubles’, items 69, 90–2, and 129. Gaborit-Chopin, L’inventaire du trésor du dauphin future Charles V, items 679 and 691. Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II: in the tower at Bourges, items 743 and 839; in the library at Mehun, items 1066 and 1067; and the chancellery of the church at Bourges, items 1208–12. On these spaces see M. Whiteley and M. Chatenet, ‘Les pièces privées de l’appartement du roi au château de Vincennes’, Bulletin Monumental 148:1 (1990), 83–5; M. Whiteley and M. Chatenet, ‘Le Louvre de Charles V: dispositions et fonctions d’une residence royal’, Revue de l’Art 97 (1992), 64–6; and M. Whiteley, ‘La Grosse tour de Vincennes; residence de Charles V’, Bulletin Monumental 152:3 (1994), 325–31.

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Marian Bleeke inventories (and the Tables based on them) also show objects moving from place to place and identify new ivory objects in Charles VI’s inventories. One type of place-based category that the kings’ inventories share are items kept in various boxes. Tables 1, 2, and 3 show ivories in boxes belonging to Charles V and VI and the inventory made of Jean le Bon’s possessions is of the contents of two boxes that he had with him when he died in London: it includes one ivory object, a panel that was painted on its interior.32 This ivory may have been an important personal possession and the same is true of the ivory mirror that appears in the cypress-wood box listed in Charles V’s second inventory, for this box is identified as one he kept with him at all times and to which he kept the key, and it appears that he inventoried its contents himself.33 Charles VI’s inventories also include as place-based categories a series of armoires located at Vincennes and at the Bastide Saint-Antoine. In the 1400 inventory, the contents of each armoire are further categorised by materials and object types (these are shown in Table 4). The movement of ivory objects that had belonged to Charles V into these armoires suggests that they had fallen out of regular use by Charles VI’s time. Examination of the ivories that appear in these locations draws attention to the wide range of objects that were made from this material. The documents include listings for ivory religious images, panels, various types of boxes, palettes, mirrors, knife handles, chess pieces, candle holders, lashes, and horns, as well as a goblet, a rod or staff, an old ink pot, and a fly swatter. Some of the types of ivory objects listed in these sections of the inventories are familiar to medieval art historians because they have been the focus of art-historical scholarship: these include the images and tableaux with religious subjects and the boxes and mirrors – in so far as the latter two types of objects carry images with secular subjects, often derived from the literature of courtly love.34 The other types of ivory functional items that appear in the inventories have received little art-historical attention: they include the knife handles, chess pieces, candle holders, lashes, horns, and similar things. In terms of their locations, the ivory religious images and tableaux with religious subject matter do appear in chapel and oratory spaces, but they equally appear in the kings’ studies, their boxes, and in Charles VI’s storage armoires. They also appear in these secular spaces alongside other types of ivory objects: for example, in the study at Melun, Charles V’s inventory locates two images of the Virgin, four other images with religious subjects, five tableaux, three boxes, and a palette. Many of these objects were still in the study in 1400, according to Charles VI’s inventory, alongside a mirror and an ivory-handled knife. Thus for both kings and for the members of their households, ivory would

32 33 34

Bapst, Testament du roi Jean le Bon, p. 39. Labarte, ‘Introduction’ and Inventaire de mobilier de Charles V, pp. i–ii and 79. Note that images with these subjects are not documented in the inventories. Some but not all boxes are identified as carrying images, and the subjects of their images are not named, and mirrors may carry coats of arms but are not otherwise described as having images.

186

Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422 have been a fairly common material, one that had a wide range of uses extending from the devotional to the mundane, and objects with those uses would have appeared together in the kings’ studies. The same variety of objects appears in the object-type and materialbased inventories and sections of inventories. Indeed, across Charles V’s and Charles VI’s inventories, some of the same objects appear in place-based categories in one document and object-type and materialbased categories in another. Ivories commonly appear in the inventories in sections for joyaux, a term that typically refers to elaborate metalwork objects.35 This is the case in the inventory made for Clémence de Hongrie, the 1378 inventory of Louis d’Anjou that is exclusively of joyaux, Charles V’s 1379–80 inventory, Robinet d’Estampes’s 1413–16 inventory for Jean de Berry (see Table 5), and the post-mortem inventory made for Jean’s possessions in 1416. In most of these inventories, the joyaux are further sub-categorised by function and by object type and materials and so, in Clémence’s inventory, three ivory boxes appear in a sub-category for silver joyaux and vessels, and in Charles V’s 1379–80 inventory, ivories appear in sub-categories for gold and silver joyaux for the church, inside further sub-categories for gold crosses and silver images of the Virgin.36 Some of these objects fit the definition of joyaux in that they are elaborate metalwork pieces that contain ivory elements. For example, the cross in Charles V’s inventory was presumably made of gold (although that is not directly stated in the description), was garnished with emeralds, rubies, and pearls, and was held up by two ivory angels. Likewise, the image of the Virgin was of ivory but was seated in a large silver-gilt chair, had a gold crown with eight sapphires, eight rubies, and thirty-two pearls (one missing), and wore a ruby ring on one finger.37 The one ivory that appeared in Louis d’Anjou’s inventories, in his 1378 document, was likewise an elaborate mixed-media piece: a panel of brazil wood, embellished with silver-gilt and gold, that had ivory images on its interior.38 Very few of these

35

36

37 38

On joyaux see Robini, ‘L’orfèvrerie art de cour’, pp. 64–71; Gaborit-Chopin, ‘Les collections d’orfèvrerie’, pp. 46–52; R. Lightbown, Secular Goldsmiths' Work in Medieval France: A History (London, 1978); R. Lightbown, Medieval European Jewellery with a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1992); B. Buettner, ‘Past Presents: New Year’s Gifts at the Valois Court, ca. 1400’, Art Bulletin 83:4 (December 2001), 598–625; and Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, pp. 58–77 and 129–40. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, items 66 and 69; Labarte, Inventaire de mobilier de Charles V, items 131 and 892. The latter two objects also appear in Charles VI’s inventory from 1400, in similar object-type and materials-based categories for items in the tower at Melun; see Table 4. The exception is the post-mortem inventory for Jean de Berry where the joyaux are divided between other categories based on place and other factors having to do with his estate. See Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, joyaux items 143–453, including ivories items 159, 164, 399, 437, and joyaux items 828–1077, including ivories items 837–842, 905, 913, 921, and 1026. Labarte, Inventaire de mobilier de Charles V, items 131 and 892. Moranvillé, Inventaire de l’orfèvrerie, II, item 3490.

187

Marian Bleeke mixed-media objects have survived because their metalwork elements and precious stones have typically been stripped away and reused. One of the few survivors – one that does not contain any ivory elements – is the Goldene Rössl now in Altötting Abbey. Created in 1405 as a New Year’s gift from Isabeau of Bavaria to Charles VI, it includes gold, silver-gilt, enamel work, sapphires, rubies, and pearls.39 By contrast, an ivory image of the Annunciation on an enamelled silver base that appears in Charles VI’s 1400 inventory was one of many items that were melted down in 1417 in order to fund the Hundred Years War: this would have destroyed the base and left the ivory elements on their own, transforming their appearance.40 Yet, other ivories that appear in these same categories contained only a small amount of precious metal. For example, two of the ivory boxes that appear in Clémence’s inventory as silver objects were ‘garnished’ with silver and the third contained two silver vessels.41 As shown in Table 5, Robinet d’Estampes’s inventory for Jean de Berry includes multiple ivory panels in a category for ‘tableaux, reliquaries, and small joyaux in gold and silver’ that are described as being ‘garnished’ with either metal. Similarly, in Jean’s 1401–3 inventory, two ivory panels ‘garnished’ with gold appear in a category for gold panels and an ivory goblet ‘garnished’ with silvergilt appears in a category for gold and silver vessels.42 And similar items appear in Charles VI’s 1400 and 1418 inventories in categories for tableaux, knives, and boxes and ‘common things’ that were ‘garnished’ with gold or silver (see Table 4).43 Ivories also appear in the inventories in categories for miscellaneous things. In the inventory made for Clémence de Hongrie, two images, two boxes, a mirror, and a group of twelve ‘boutons’, all appear in a category for ‘velvets, belts, purses, and other things’.44 In Jean de Berry’s 1401–3 inventory, an ivory box appears in a category for ‘diverse objects’ and two images of the Virgin appear in a category for ‘diverse images’.45 And as shown in Table 5, in Robinet d’Estampes’s inventory for Jean, multiple ivory objects appear in categories for ‘joyaux and other things of diverse types’. Finally, ivories also appear in categories where they do not seem to belong at all. In Clémence’s inventory, a set of chess pieces is listed in a category for quilts and carpets, in Jean de Berry’s 1401–03 inventory a candle holder appears in a category for holy water containers, and a comb

39 40

41 42 43 44 45

Buettner, ‘Past Presents’, 605–7; Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, 107–8. Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI, item 2534. See Table 2. See also the letter from Charles VI ordering that his joyaux and vessels be melted down or otherwise converted into cash published in Henwood, pp. 503–4. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, items 66 and 69. Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, items 398, 409, 839. See Table 4 and Douët-d’Arcq, ‘Inventaire des joyaux’, pp. 340, 344. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, items 414, 416, 387, 420, and 379. Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, items 641, 364, 367.

188

Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422 and mirror set are in a category for relics, and in his post-mortem inventory a pax is listed with linens found in Bourges and then taken to Paris.46 It is not clear why these ivory objects appear in these last categories. Perhaps those making the inventories encountered these ivory objects while they were listing these other types of things and simply decided to include them there. Likewise, it is sometimes unclear why ivory objects appear in categories based on the presence of gold and/or silver, because the descriptions given of these objects do not mention either metal. In Charles VI’s inventory from 1418, for example, two boxes appear in a category for gold boxes and boxes garnished with gold, but their descriptions do not mention any gold. Perhaps we should assume the presence of the metals based on the objects’ locations in these categories; however, one of these two boxes is described as ‘sans aucune garnison’ which argues against that idea.47 Perhaps they were included in these categories simply because they had to go somewhere and the inventories do not include categories specifically for ivory objects or categories based on ivory as a material – with one exception. That exception is in Charles VI’s inventory from 1400, where the listing for the objects in armoire G at the Bastille Saint-Antoine includes a category for ivory images, which contains two apparently identical images of St Anne (see Table 4). Again these were mixed media objects. The first is described as being inside a silver tabernacle with four enamels of the life of the Virgin.48 That silver content might have caused them to be listed among the silver images in this armoire – there were seven of them – much as the same document lists an ivory Virgin in a silver-gilt chair located in the tower at Melun as a silver image.49 Again, it is not clear why in this one case those responsible for the inventory decided to create a special category for these two ivory images: perhaps the fact that there were two identical images made them stand out. Despite this one exception, the larger point still stands: ivory as a material does not typically function as an organising idea in these documents, even though other materials do, primarily precious metals as well as textiles of different types. This suggests that ivory was not a material that was of particular interest to the people who made these inventories or the people for whom they were made, certainly not on the same level as silver and gold. This conclusion is in line with that drawn from the appearance of ivory objects in place-based categories, that ivory was a common material in this elite environment and so one that did not attract much attention. And this impression of the value of ivory is reinforced by the prices that most of the post-mortem inventories give for most, if not all, of the objects

46

47 48

49

Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, item 320; Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, items 444, 910–11, 920, see Table 5; Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, item 714. Douët-d’Arcq, ‘Inventaire des joyaux’, items 440 and 444. Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI, items 227–8. See Table 4. Ibid., silver images in armoire G items 214–20, Virgin at Melun item 1739.

189

Marian Bleeke they list.50 Experts such as money changers, goldsmiths, and merchants were involved in the pricing of the items that appear in these inventories. For example, Clémence’s inventory states that the joyaux it lists were priced by Symon de Lille, Jehan Pascon, Félix d’Auccurre, Jehan de Toul, Pierre de Besançon, and Jehan de Lille, all goldsmiths, and her tailor, sauce-maker, and squire were also involved in pricing the items under their care.51 Tables 6–8 show the ivories in the post-mortem inventories of Clémence de Hongrie, Charles VI, and Jean de Berry organised by price along with selected other objects at the same price points.52 These inventories document, first of all, a wide range of prices for objects made from ivory. In Clémence’s inventory the range is from 8 Parisian sous to 10 Parisian livres, in Charles VI’s from nothing to 32 livre tournois, and in Jean’s from 7 sous 6 deniers tournois to 160 livres tournois. This most expensive ivory object is a panel with images in high relief that are described as being delicately carved and which was garnished with silver and covered with enamelled silver on its exterior. This was, again, a mixed-media object and it is impossible to know how much of its value stemmed from its metalwork components, how much from its ivory material, and how much from the apparent quality of its workmanship. However, even this most expensive ivory object does not rank anywhere near the highest priced items in Jean’s inventory, which were in the thousands of livres tournois and included a silk tapestry for 5,000, a large diamond for 6,000, a gold pin with a large diamond and pearls for 7,775, and a large gold cross with crystals, rubies, sapphires, and pearls on a silver-gilt base and with a relic of the True Cross on its interior for 10,000.53 Likewise, in Clémence’s inventory, her most expensive 10 livre ivory does not rank among the most expensive items, which include a gold crown with precious stones, a reliquary with a large piece of the True Cross, and the fish in the waters of one of her estates, all at 800 livres, along with a large sapphire set in a ring at 1,000.54 Instead of ranking among the most expensive items in the inventories, the ivory objects fall into the same price range as a wide variety of other things. As shown in Tables 6–8, these comparative objects include metalwork objects, precious and semi-precious stones, textiles of various

50

51 52

53 54

The exceptions are the inventories made for Jeanne de Boulogne and Jean le Bon. On prices in Clémence’s inventory see Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, pp. 32–5. Ibid., pp. 160, 165–7. In selecting these objects I have tried to represent the wide range of different types of object at each price point. Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, II, items 99, 735, 773, 772. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion, items 1, 97, 617, and 18. Most of Charles VI’s possessions had been lost or liquidated by the time of his death and the most expensive items in his post-mortem inventory are only worth 300 livres tournois: two wood drinking vessels embellished with gold, enamels, and precious stones. See Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI, items 244 and 937.

190

Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422 types, manuscripts, and in Clémence’s inventory, household items and foodstuffs. Jeanne d’Évreux’s post-mortem inventory likewise includes prices for items and shows similar comparisons. Items priced at five gold francs in this inventory include a cloth of gold fly swatter with an ivory and wood handle as well as a serpent’s tongue on a silver base, a wood drinking vessel on a silver base with an enamelled cover topped with a sapphire, and two beaver hats. Those at ten gold francs include an ivory image of the Annunciation on a silver base and two gold and enamel pins, a cypress-wood box garnished with silver, an oak image of St John the Evangelist on a silver base with a relic enclosed in a crystal, a silver lantern and silver-gilt lamp, five pieces of cloth of gold, and two large cauldrons.55 Again, the overall impression given by this wide range of comparative objects is that ivory was a relatively common material in what was an elite and so elaborate environment.

The History of Ivory The conclusion about ivory as a material that I draw here based on the evidence of these inventories is supported by the conclusions drawn by other scholars, working with other types of evidence, over the past ten years. Sarah Guérin has documented changes in trade routes in the thirteenth century that brought ivory from new sources in western Africa to seaports in Northern Europe, alongside alum used in textile production, spices and silks. These new trade routes dramatically increased the amount of ivory available in western Europe and, as a result, ivory production boomed and diversified.56 In a study of fourteenth-century Crucifixion reliefs, Nina Rowe points to the existence of high, middle, and low-end versions of these objects that would have been available to different groups of purchasers at different price points. She argues that ivory made the look of something like the joyaux documented in the inventories available to the urban bourgeoisie. This was the case because ivory objects were typically augmented with polychromy for backgrounds and details, which allowed them to approximate the look of enamelwork.57 My work with the inventories reinforces this relationship between ivory objects and joyaux by showing ivories to have occupied a second place behind metalwork objects both in terms of how they were conceptualised, with even a small amount of a precious metal frequently determining how an ivory object was categorised in an inventory, and in terms of price. It also points to ivory’s place

55 56

57

Leber, ‘Le compte de l’execution du testament’, pp. 128, 132, 135, 141, 149, 164. S. M. Guérin, ‘Avorio d’ogni ragione: The Supply of Elephant Ivory to Northern Europe in the Gothic Era’, Journal of Medieval History 36 (2010), 168–73. N. Rowe, ‘Pocket Crucifixions: Jesus, Jews, and Ownership in Fourteenth-Century Ivories’, Studies in Iconography 32 (2011), 83–4, 88–92, 102–4, 106. See also M. Bleeke, ‘Ivory and Whiteness’, Different Visions 6 (Summer 2020), https://differentvisions. org/issue-six/2020/06/ivory-and-whiteness/ (accessed 10.11.2020).

191

Marian Bleeke within joyaux, as a material used in mixed-media objects. My findings also point to another type of differentiation in ivory production that was made possible by its availability, its use for a wide range of objects, from images and tableaux through boxes and mirrors, to candle holders, chess pieces, fly swatters, and the like. Rowe also points to this form of differentiation as documented in Étienne Boileau’s Livre des Métiers, which shows makers of a similarly wide range of objects working with ivory.58 Finally, Katherine Baker’s work with a very different type of inventory, that made for Chicart Bailly, a Parisian ivory worker who passed away in 1533, shows that, a century after Charles VI’s last inventory, a large amount of ivory was still available in Paris and was being transformed there into a wide range of different types of objects and images.59 The situation for ivory as a material was similar in Late Antiquity, according to an article by Anthony Cutler published in 1987. He cites evidence for its use for a similarly wide variety of objects including various types of boxes, writing tablets, game pieces, and combs, as well as a bird cage and a back scratcher. And he likewise points to its low relative price compared to other materials, in this case as documented in Diocletian’s Edict of Maximum Prices from 301: ivory was one fortieth the price of silver bullion and one twenty-fourth the price of pure silk. Based on this evidence, he writes, ‘Ivory was esteemed […] but this was far from implying that ivory was a monopoly of the uppermost elite’.60 He too draws a line from the wide use of ivory and its relative low price to a plentiful supply of ivory available at the time, which he argues came from North Africa. And finally he briefly makes a comparison between this earlier moment and the situation in western Europe beginning in the thirteenth century that the scholarship described above and my own work in this essay documents in detail.61 Thus ivory as material used in European art has a history. This history includes moments of relative abundance, such as the Late Antique period that Cutler studied and the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries as shown here, and moments of relative scarcity, including the approximately one thousand years between those two points. This history is tied to that of the relationship between Europe and Africa, in particular the history of trade between the two. And this history continues well beyond the Middle Ages. It includes another moment of abundance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which was primarily the product of the Belgian colonial exploitation of the Congo (estimates are that thirty elephants were killed there per day in the 1890s). In a twist, at that same moment, ivory was being promoted in Europe as ‘white treasure’ or ‘white

58 59 60

61

Rowe, ‘Pocket Crucifixions’, p. 91. Baker, ‘La Chambre aux Dentz d’Yvoire’, 69–70, 72. A. Cutler, ‘Prolegomena to the craft of ivory carving in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages’, in Artistes, artisans, et production artistique au Moyen Age: Colloque international, ed. X. Barral i Altet (Paris, 1987), pp. 431–75 (pp. 432–3). Cutler, ‘Prolegomena’, pp. 437–43, 458.

192

Ivories in French Royal Inventories, 1325–1422 gold’.62 How much do we art historians owe our perception of ivory as costly, luxurious, and precious to this unfortunate later moment in its history? Understanding the history of ivory as a material, furthermore, is crucial to understanding the history of the images rendered in it: indeed, those two histories need to be written alongside one another. Elsewhere I have argued that the relative abundance of ivory in the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries made images of whiteness, of skin tones rendered as white in unpainted ivory against a painted background, available to a wider range of consumers and so allowed them to claim the privilege of white identity for themselves.63 Such histories need to be written not just for ivory, finally, but for all artistic materials, and they are increasingly being written as part of the “material turn” in art history as a discipline.64 Inventories, including those I have written about here, should be among the primary sources used in the writing of such histories.

62

63 64

S. Clerbois, ‘The Revival of Ivory Sculpture in Belgium (1890–1919): The Material in Question’, in Revival and Invention: Sculpture through its Material Histories, ed. S. Clerbois and M. Droth (Oxford, 2011), 231–56. Sarah Guérin emphasises that the medieval trade in ivory was organised differently and was ‘cooperative with the people who sourced it, rather than exploitative’. See S. M. Guérin, ‘Ivory and the Ties that Bind’, in Whose Middle Ages: Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past, ed. A. Albin, et al. (New York, 2019), pp. 140–53. Bleeke, ‘Ivory and Whiteness’. See the collections U. Klein and E. C. Spary, Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe: Between Market and Laboratory (Chicago, 2010); S. Clerbois and M. Droth, ed., Revival and Invention: Sculpture through its Material Histories (Oxford, 2011); C. Anderson, A. Dunlop, and P. H. Smith, ed., The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250–1750 (Manchester, 2015); and P. N. Miller, ed., Cultural Histories of the Material World (Ann Arbor, 2013).

193

194

Mirror

Images of the Virgin

Common things in the cypress box

Study at Melun

672 1887 1923 1964 1970

Ung myroer d’yvire garny d’or, à ung esmail de France d’un costé et d’autre. (An ivory mirror decorated with gold, with an enamel of [the arms of] France on one side and on the other) Ung ymage de Nostre Dame, d’yvire, qui est assiz en une chayère. (An image of Our Lady, in ivory, who is seated on a throne) Ung ymage de Nostre Dame, d’yvire, assiz en une chayère. (An image of Our Lady, in ivory, seated on a throne) Une véronicque d’ambre, ronde, à quatre Evangélistes d’yvire. (A round amber veronica, with the four evangelists in ivory) Une ymage d’yvire de saincte Marguerite sur ung serpent. (An ivory image of St Margaret on a serpent)

1897 1944 1833

Troys escrins d’yvire ferrez d’argent, dont les deux sont tous plains et le tiers ouvré. (Three ivory caskets made with silver, of which two are plain and the third worked) Deux palettes dont l’une est d’argent et l’autre d’yvire; celle d’argent pesant six onces. (Two candle holders of which one is of silver and the other of ivory; that of silver weighs six ounces)

Candle holders

1907

Ungs tableaulx d’yvire, garniz d’argent. (An ivory panel, embellished with silver) Ungs tableaulx d’yvire. (An ivory panel)

1903

Ung tableau d’yvire, où sont les représentacions du jour de la Penthecoste dedens et de l’Âscencion. (An ivory panel in which are representations of the day of Pentecost on the inside and of the Ascension)

Ung ymage de saint Piere et ung de saint Pol, d’yvire. (An image of St Peter and one of St Paul, of ivory) 2006

Inv. No.

Description

Caskets

Panels

Other images

Object Type

Location

See J. Labarte ed., Inventaire de mobilier de Charles V, roi de France (Paris, 1879).

Table 1: Charles V Inventory of 1379–80: Ivories in Place-based Categories.

195

1

2063

2057 2058

Une petite boiste d’yvire, ronde, paincte par dessus et par dessoulz, où sont les jeuz des tables et des eschetz. (A small ivory box, round, painted above and below, where there are the table games and chess pieces) Une pallette d’yvire. (An ivory candle holder) Deux haulx myroers, à deux piez d’yvire, l’un plus grant que l’autre. (Two tall mirrors, from two pieces of ivory, one larger than the other)

Boxes

Candle holder

Mirrors

Panels

2018

2030

Ung couronnement de Nostre Seigneur à Nostre Dame, d’yvire, et troys angelotz de mesmes, assiz en ung siège de cèdre. (A coronation by Our Lord of Our Lady, in ivory, and three cherubs of the same, seated in a throne of cedar)

Ungs petiz tableaulx d’yvire de deux pièces, où dedens sont l’Ascencion et la Penthecoste. (A small ivory panel in two pieces, in which are the Ascension and Pentacost)

2105

Ung petit ymage d’yvire de Nostre Dame, assiz en une chayère, et à une couronne où il a troys perles; et est ledit ymage assiz sur une terrasse esmaillée; pesant une once quinze estellins. (A small ivory image of Our Lady seated on a throne, and with a crown in which there are three pearls; and the said image is set on an enamelled base; weighing one ounce fifteen estelins)1

2017

2028

Ung petit ymage de Nostre Dame d’yvire, séant sur ung entablement d’argent, et a une couronne d’argent. (A small image of Our Lady in ivory, sitting on a silver setting, and having a crown of silver)

Ungs tableaulx de brésil par dehors, et dedens a six ymages d’yvire enlevez, c’est assavoir Nostre Seigneiur, saint Jacques, saint Jehan, Nostre Dame, sainte Katherine et la Magdalène. (A panel of Brazilwood outside, and inside having six images of carved ivory, namely Our Lord, St James, St John, Our Lady, St Katherine and the Magdalene)

2027

Ung ymage de Nostre Dame d’yvire, à une pierre de voirre vert en la poictrine, assyze en une chayère, sur ung pyé de cuyvre. (An image of Our Lady in ivory, with a green glass stone on her breast, sitting in a throne, on a leather base)

2033

2026

Ung ymage de Nostre Dame d’yvire, séant en une chayère d’vbénus. (An image of Our Lady in ivory, sitting on an ebony throne)

Ung ymage de saint Jehan d’yvire. (An image of St John in ivory)

Other Images

Images of the Virgin

An estelin is 1/20 of an ounce.

Saint Study Germain en Laye

196

St Pol

Saint Germain en Laye (continued)

High study

Small lower study

Chapel near the study

2079 2096 2130

2138

Ung petit baston d’yvire blanc, ouvré à petiz arbreceaulx. (A little rod/staff in white ivory, worked with little branches) Ung petit tablier de cypraès, bordé de corne, et sont les eschetz d’yvire. (A small board of cypress, surrounded with horn, and ivory chess pieces) Une boiste d’yvire a mectre pain à chanter, garnye d’argent. (An ivory box in which to put eucharistic bread, decorated with silver)

Une boiste d’yvire à mectre pain à chanter, garnye d’argent blanc. (An ivory box in which to put eucharistic bread, decorated with white silver)

Rod or staff

Chess pieces

2189

2212

2211 2267 2271

Une escouse d’yvire, qui est sur ung hault pié, et est sur ung petit chandelier à broche, d’argent doré, et y a une rose esmaillée d’Estampes. (An ivory holder, which is on a high stand, and has a small spike of silver-gilt for candles, and it has a pink enamel of [the arms of] Estampes) Ung lyon d’yvire, qui porte ung chandelier d’argent doré, et tient en sa gueulle ung demy noble d’Angleterre. (An ivory lion, which carries a candle holder of silver-gilt, and holds in its mouth an English half-noble) Ung fouet d’yvire à troys cordes de soye, à deux boutons d’or. (An ivory lash with three silk cords, with two gold buttons) Ung bassin en façon d’un coffre, lequel est d’yvire blanc et noir historié de plusieurs ymages. (A basin in the form of a box, which is of black and white ivory decorated with several images) Ung vieil coustel à manche d’yvire, ront. et la lemelle couppée devant, et une vieille gayne camoissié, pendant à ung vied laz de soye vert. (An old knife with an ivory handle, round, and the blade removed(?), and an old buffed leather sheath hanging from an old cord of green silk)

Candle holders

Boxes

Knife handles

Lash

Ung ymage de Nostre Dame d’yvire, en estant, laquelle tient en sa main dextre ung arbreceau d’or semé 2194 de mernies perles, et ung ballesceau au dessus en sa couroime d’or toute plaine. (An image of Our Lady in ivory, standing, holding in her right hand a small branch of gold set with seed pearls, and a little ruby at the top of her crown of plain gold)

Images of the Virgin

Boxes

2075

Deux cousteaulx en une gayne, les virolles et les bouterolles d’argent esmaillé de France, à deux manches d’yvire. (Two knives in one sheath, the fittings and guards of enamelled silver [with the arms] of France, with two ivory handles)

Knife handles

197

2383

2384 2395

2438 2390

2387

2534

Ungs tableaulx d’yvire, bordez d’argent doré, de deux pièces, à plusieurs ymagineures de Nostre Seigneur et de Nostre Dame ouvrez dedens et esmaillez d’azur. (A panel in ivory, surrounded with silver-gilt, in two pieces, with several images of Our Lord and of Our Lady worked inside and enamelled in azure) Ungs tableaux d’yvire, de deux pièces, à plusieurs ymages pourtraiz dedens, faiz d’enlumineure. (An ivory panel, in two pieces, with several images portrayed inside, made with illumination) Ung cousteau à manche d’yvire, a deux bandes sur le menche, esmaillez de fleurs de lys et daulphins, et la gayne garnye d’or, à fleurs de lys et daulphins. (An ivory-handled knife, with two bands on the handle, enamelled with fleurs-de-lys and dolphins, and the sheath decorated with gold, with fleurs-de-lys and dolphins) Une palette d’yvire, à ung crampon d’argent doré pour tenir les chandelles. (A candle holder of ivory, with a clamp of silver-gilt to hold candles) Ung fouet d’yvire, à troys pomneaulx d’or, esmaillez des armes la royne Jehanne de Bourbon, à quatre chayènes d’or. (An ivory lash with three gold pommels, enamelled with the arms of the queen, Jeanne de Bourbon, with four gold chains) Ung cornet d’yvire, bordé d’or, pendant à une courroye d’un tissu de soye ferré de fleurs de lys et daulphins d’or. (A horn of ivory, surrounded with gold, suspended by a strap of silk worked with fleurs-de-lys and dolphins in gold) Ung ymage d’yvire de Nostre Dame, et ung ange devant luy et le pot, sur ung entablement d’argent, esmaillé de vert, et l’Ave Maria escript autour; non pesé. (An image in ivory of Our Lady, and an angel before her and the jar, on a setting of silver, enamelled in green, and the Ave Maria written around, not weighed)

Knife handle

Candle holders

Lash

Horn

Bois de Vincennes

High oratory

Images of the Virgin

Panels

2279

Ung esmouchouer ront, qui se ployé, en yvire, aux armes de France et de Navarre, à ung manche d’ybénus. (A round fly swatter, which flexes, in ivory, with the arms of France and of Navarre, with a handle of ebony)

Study at the Louvre

2252

Ung vieil coronet d’yvire, à mectre encque. (An old horn of ivory, in which to put ink)

Ink pot

Fly swatter

2265

Une petite palète d’yvire, à tenir chandelle, garnye d’un petit d’argent. (A small ivory candle holder to hold a candle, decorated with a little silver)

Candle holders

Study nearby

St Pol (continued)

198

Bois de Vincennes (continued)

Study in the tower

King’s oratory

2771

2765

Ungs autres tableaux d’yvire, de deux pièces, garniz d’argent très menuenient, ouvrez et ystoriez de la Passion, et est le champ esmaillé d’azur. (Another ivory panel, of two pieces, decorated with silver very minimally, worked and decorated with the Passion, and the enamelled background is blue)

Ungs autres tableaux d’yvire, de six pièces, qui sont faiz comme d’enlumineure dehors, et dedens ystoriez de plusieurs saints, et sont en aucuns lieux les armes de la royne Jehanne de Bourgogne, et sont en ung estuy des armes de mons. d’Estampes, à une courroye d un tissu vert, dont la boucle et le mordant sont d’argent. (Another ivory panel, of six pieces, which are worked with illumination outside and inside decorated with several saints, and there are in other places the arms of Queen Jeanne of Burgundy, and there are on a case the arms of M. d’Estampes, with a belt of green fabric, the buckle and the catch of which are of silver)

2763

Ung tableaulx d’ivyre, de deux pièces historiez de la Passion, et garniz d’argent, et est esmaillé d’azur le champ. (An ivory panel, of two pieces, embellished with the Passion, and embellished with silver, and it is enamelled on a blue background)

Panels

2767

2680

Ung autre ymage de Nostre Dame d’yvire, en estant, tenant son enfant a dextre, el en l’autre main ung lys; sans nulle garnison. (Another image of Our Lady in ivory, standing, holding her child with her right [hand], and in the other hand a lily; without any embellishment)

Images of the Virgin

Ungs autres tableaulx d’yvire, de six pièces, garniz d’argent, tous ystoriez de la vie Nostrc Dame et de la et Passion, dont le champ est esmaillé de la Passion, comme les autres. (Another ivory panel, in six pieces, embellished in silver and decorated with the life of Our Lady and of that and the Passion, of which the background of the Passion is enamelled like the others)

2622

Deux grans beaulx tableaux d’yvire des troys Maries, que fist Jehan le Braellier; en uug estuy de cuir. (Two large, beautiful, ivory panels of the three Marys, made by Jehan le Braellier; in a case of leather)

Panels

2766

2611

Ung autre ymage de saincte Anne, toute pareille; pesant quatorze marcs cinq onces cinq estellins. (Another image of St Anne, all the same [as the above]; weighing fourteen marks, five ounces, five estelins)

Ungs autres tableaulx, tous d’yvire de deux pièces, ystoriez du jour de Pasques flories, de l’Annonciacion. de la Gésine, du Crucifiement et du Couronnement. (Another panel, all of ivory in two pieces, decorated with the day of Palm Sunday, of the Annunciation, of the Nativity, of the Crucifixion, and of the Coronation)

2610

Ung ymage de saincte Anne d’yvire, lequel est en ung tabernacle d’argent à portelètes, où a quatre pièces esmaillées de la vie Nostre Dame; pesant quatorze marcs cinq onces dix estellins. (An image of St Anne in ivory, which is in a tabernacle of silver with gates, where there are four pieces of enamel with the life of Our Lady; weighing fourteen marks, five ounces, ten estelins)

Other images

199

Bois de Vincennes (continued)

Study in the donjon

2716 2974 2847

Une boiste d’yvire, toute percée à jour. (An ivory box, all carved in the current fashion) Ung escrin d’yvire et ung couvescle à festé, taillé d’ymagerie et garny d’argent doré. (An ivory casket and a lid, carved with imagery and decorated with silver-gilt) Ung autre coutel a manche d’yvire blanc. A deux virolles d’or à fenestraiges, où sont ostiaulx sur gest; et sont les forcettes, d’or. (Another knife with handle of white ivory. With two fittings of gold with openings, where there are circles of decorated glass(?); and there are small gold scissors)

3089

Ungs tableaulx rons d’yvire, garniz d’argent, où dedens est, en ung costé Nostre Seigneur, et de l’autre Nostre Dame, en ymages d’yvire enlevez. (A round ivory panel, embellished with silver, in which is, on one side Our Lord, and on the other Our Lady, in raised images of ivory)

Panels

3030

Ung ymage de Nostre Dame d’yvire, à une couronne d’or garnye de trucoises et de ballaiz, qui a ung 3109 fermail en la poictrine, sur ung entablement d’argent doré, ou il a ung cristal carré, à six piez de six lyons. (An image of Our Lady in ivory, with a gold crown decorated with turquoises and rubies, who has a clasp at the breast, on a silver-gilt setting, with a square crystal, on six feet of six lions)

Ung coutel à manche d’yvire blanc, à deux virolles d’or, à fenestraiges, à esteaulx, sur gest; et sont les forcettes d’acier. (A knife with a handle of white ivory, with two fittings of gold, with openings with circles of decorated glass(?), and there are small steel scissors)

Ung autre coutel à manche d’yvire, ouvré à ymages, et est ledit manche couvert d’un estuy cloant, d’argent 2848 doré, et a, en la lemelle dudit coustel, une longue roye à esmaulx de plite, ouvrée à jour. (Another knife with an ivory knife, worked with images, and the said handle covered with an enclosing case, of silver-gilt, and it has, on the blade of the said knife, a long stripe of cloisonné enamel worked in the current fashion).

2739

Ungs tableaulx d’yvire à ymages, garniz d’or, ou dedens sont deux myroers garniz d’or, et deux escussons de France dessus. (An ivory panel with images, embellished with gold, in which are two mirrors embellished with gold and two shields of [the arms of] France above)

Images of the Virgin

Knife handles

Boxes

2928

Ungs tableaux d’yvire par dehors, et dedens sont d’or, où est l’Annonciacion et le couronnement Nostre Dame. (A panel, the outside of ivory, and the inside of gold, in which is the Annunciation and the coronation of Our Lady).

200

St Germain en Laye

Images of the Virgin

Study at Melun

See Table 1

Knife Handles Trois costaux dont […] le tiers a le manche et la gayne d’ivire. (Three knives of which […] the third has a handle and a sheath of ivory)

Un mirrouer d’ivire garny d’argent aux armes de Valois. (A mirror of ivory decorated with the arms of Valois in silver)

Mirror

2026 2027 2028 2105

1486 1487 1488 1556

2038

1959

1944

1897

1960 1996

1907

2006

2052

1965

1970

2022

See Table 1

1964

2016

2019

See Table 1

Images of the Virgin

1923

1978 2053

1887

Charles V 1950

Inv. No.

Deux grans tableaux d’ivire où est entailliée la Passion. (Two great panels of ivory in which is carved the Passion)

See Table 1

Un imaige de Nostre Dame à une couronne d’or garnie de perles, grenats et saphirs, dont le visaige Nostre Seigneur et l’entablement sont d’yvire. (An image of Our Lady with a crown of gold embellished with pearls, garnets and sapphires, in which the face of Our Lord and the setting are of ivory)

See Table 1

Description

Boxes

Panels

Other Images

Object Type

Location

See P. Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI (1380–1422): L’inventaire de 1400 (Paris, 2004).

Table 2: Charles VI Inventory of 1400: Ivories in Place-based Categories.

201

Bois de Vincennes

1516

See Table 1

Fly swatter

Boxes

Big black box

Un coffre de cuir à imaiges enlevez, ferré de laton, ouquel a plusieurs gros eschez d’ivre. (A chest of leather with raised images, fitted with brass, in which are several large ivory chess pieces)

Chess pieces

Square dresser

See Table 1

Grand chamber of the king

See Table 1

Boxes

666

1548

1531

Une petite boiste d’ivire où sont plusieurs pieces d’eschacier. (A small ivory box in which are several chess pieces)

See Table 1

1383

1332

1236

1221

1226

Un petit escrinet d’ivière blanc en facon de layette très petite, plain de reliques, sans 670 aucunne garnison. (A small casket of white ivory in the fashion of the laity, very small, full of relics, without other embellishment)

Panels

See Table 1

Chess pieces

Above the armoires in the tower

See Table 1

Rod or staff

Un autre petit escrinet carré d’ivère taillé sur champ noir et est la serrure semée de petits grenats et est plain de reliques. (Another small square casket of ivory, carved on a black background and the lock set with small garnets and it is full of relics)

See Table 1

Knife handles

Boxes

1512

See Table 1

Mirrors

1528

1511

Candle holder See Table 1

2279

2267

2622

2096

2079

2075

2058

2057

2063

2018

1479

Boxes

2017

1478

See Table 1

2033

1491

Panels

2030

1489

See Table 1

Other Images

Study Leather near the box grand chamber of the King, in the tower

St Germain en Laye (continued)

202

Bois de Vincennes (continued)

Study in the donjon Une Annunciation Nostre Dame d’ivire, et a un po de cristal endroict la pance, assise sur un entablement d’argent esmaillé et est le Ave Maria autour. (An Annunciation to Our Lady in ivory, and a piece of crystal in the place of her abdomen, on a setting of enamelled silver and with the Ave Maria around it) See Table 1

Other images

Panels

Candle holder Une petite palette d’yvire à tenir chandelle dont le clo est d’argent doré. (A small ivory candle holder to hold a candle of which the fixing is of silver-gilt)

See Table 1

Images of the Virgin

1471

1415

1466

1435

3089

3109

203

Un cor d’ivoire garni d’argent doré et verrê en trois lieux. (An ivory horn embellished with silver-gilt and glass in three places)

Big black box

See Table 1

Horns

Grand Chamber of the King

189

See Table 1

Lash

Bois de Vincennes

126

Une palette d’ivoire, dont le clou à mettre la chandelle est d’argent. Non pesée. (A candle holder of ivory, of which the fixing for the candle is of silver. Not weighed)

Candle holder

Un fouet d’ivire, entaillé à figures, et est la chassouère d’un laz de soye 311 azure. (An ivory lash carved with figures, and the scourge of a knotted cord of azure silk)

Lash

Charles V 2390 Charles VI 37

Charles VI 155

Charles V 2395 Charles VI 41

Prev. Inv.

Est

Fault

Charles VI 1383

Fault Charles V 2387 Charles VI 34

Est

Est

Est

1420

309b Est

See Table 2

Boxes

127

186

132

See Table 1

Knife handles

Inv. No.

Study at the Louvre

Description

Object Type

Location

See L. Douët-d’Arcq ed., ‘Inventaire des joyaux de la couronne (1418)’, in Choix des pièces inédites relative au règne de Charles VI, 2 vols. (Paris, 1864), II, 279–361.

Table 3: Charles VI Inventory of 1418: Ivories in Place-based Categories.

204

Bastide St-Antoine

Bois de Vincennes (continued)

Wooden box

Box?

Armoire D

Armoire M

Panels

See Table 1

Une petite boiste longuette, d’ivoire, où sont les escourges de fer de monseigneur saint Loys, dont il se battait. (A small box, quite long, of ivory, where there are the iron scourges of St Louis, with which he beat himself)

See Table 2

Chess pieces Boxes

See Table 1

Boxes

See Table 1

Armoire Candle H? holders

Above the armoires

See Table 1

Un ymage d’ivire de Nostre-Dame, d’environ un pié de hault, tenant son enfant à senestre, ledit ymage couronne d’une coronne d’or. (An image in ivory of Our Lady, about a foot tall, holding her child on the left, the said statue crowned with a gold crown)

Armoire Candle F? holder

Armoires Armoire Images A of the Virgin

106

29

287

282

Est

Charles V 2739 Charles VI 512

Fault Charles VI 1236

Fault Charles V 2267 Charles VI 1221

Fault Charles V 2265 Charles VI 1175

268

Charles V 2212 Charles VI 1059 Fault Charles V 2189 Charles VI 1167

Faut the lyon

Fault

262

238

197

205

Common things embellished with gold

Louvre, study of the king See Table 1

615 616

See Table 1

598

2848

2847

2271

2928

517

See Table 1

Knife handle See Table 1

Knives embellished with gold and with silver

2739

512

602

See Table 1

Panels

Gold panels

2194

2611

228 435

2610

227

155

2395

2390

37 41

2211

2387

Charles V

35

34

Inventory No.

Uns autres cousteaux à manche d’ivire et ont les virolles rondes esmaillées de France. (Another knife with an ivory handle and round fittings enamelled [with the arms] of France)

See Table 1

Gold images Images of of the Virgin the Virgin and many other saints

Bois de Vincennes, study near the grand chamber of the king, in the tower

See Table 1

Une palette d’ivire dont le clo à mattre la chandelle est d’argent, non pesé. (An ivory candle holder of which the fixing for the candle is of silver, not weighed)

Ivory images

Image

Candle holder

Knife handle See Table 1

See Table 1

Lash

Description

Horn

Object type

Bastille SaintAntoine, Armoire G

Common things of silver

Category

Location

See P. Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI (1380–1422): L’inventaire de 1400 (Paris, 2004)

Table 4 : Charles VI Inventory of 1400: Ivories in Object-Type and Materials Based Categories.

206

Panels embellished with silver

Bois de Vincennes cont., Buffet de comptouer

Armoire L

Armoire K

2765 2767 2771

916 917 918

Common things embellished with silver

Candle holder

Une petite palette d’ivire pour tenir chandelle et est le clou d’argent doré. (A 1137 small ivory candle holder to hold a candle and the fixing is of silver-gilt)

Candle holder

2265 2438

1167 1175 1176

See Table 1

2189

2716

2974

See Table 1

1106

See Table 1

Box

1075

1059

2212

2763

914

1047

2383

672

913

711

Common things embellished with silver

See Table 1

See Table 1

Un autre imaige de Nostre Dame d’yvire, tenant son enfant à destre et en la main senestre un lys, sans aucunne garnison. (Another image of Our Lady in ivory holding her child on the right and in her left hand a lily, without other embellishment)

See Table 1

See Table 1

Box

Candle holder

Images of the Virgin

Panels

Mirror

Boxes

Common things embellished with silver

Bois de Silver Vincennes images of cont., armoires the Virgin against the wall in front of the grand chamber of the king, Armoire J

Common things embellished with gold

Bois de Vincennes cont., Cypress marquetry box

207

At Melun, in the big tower

White silver aiguieres, dragoirs, plates, common things

Silver images of the Virgin

Un autre cor d’ivire garny d’argent dorée en trois lieux bien tenuement à un pendant de soye garny d’argent blanc. (Another ivory horn decorated with silver-gilt in three places, well supported by a hanging of silk decorated with white silver) Une couppe d’ivire toutte plaine sans couvescle et sans garnison. (An ivory cup, plain, without cover and without embellishment) Uns petits tableaux d’ivire de quatre pieces tailliez de la Passion. (A small panel of ivory in four pieces carved with the Passion)

Cup

Panels

Un imaige d’ivire de Nostre dame assis en une grande chaière d’argent dorée, laquelle a une couronne d’or sur sa teste, garnie de pierrerie, c’est assavoir huict saphirs, huict balaiz, trente une perles et a un annel en son doit ouquel a un ruby d’Orient, pesant soixante et dix sept marcz d’argent. (An image in ivory of Our Lady sitting on a great silver-gilt throne, who has a gold crown on her head, embellished with stones, that is eight sapphires, eight rubies, thirty one pearls and a ring in which is a ruby of the East weighing seventy-seven marks of silver)

1890

1881

1868

1739

Le Joyau de l’estoille que fist faire le roy Jean où il a une croix dessus et est 1578 garnie le dicte estoille d’esmeraudes, rubiz et de perles et la soustiennent deux angeloz d’ivire et y faut un balay et poise quinze marcz quatre onces. (The Star Jewel which King John had made where there is a cross above and the said star is decorated with emeralds, rubies and pearls, and carried by two ivory angels and there is a ruby missing and it weighs fifteen marks four ounces)

Horn

Images of the Virgin

Gold crosses Cross

892

131

208

Cross

Crosses, in gold and silver

Panels, reliquaries, and small joyaux, in gold and silver

Joyaux for the chapel

Large joyaux and tabernacles

Panels

Object Type

Category

39

42

Uns petis tableaux d’yvoire garniz d’argent, et dedans a un P et une N entaillié, où il a ymaiges (A small ivory panel embellished with silver and inside a P and an N carved, where there are images)

37

3

Inv. no.

Uns autres tableaux d’ivoires roons, en deux pièces, garmiz d’argent á l’environ; et dedans l’un est le Pitié de Nostre Seigneur et deux angels, l’un tenant la croix et l’autre la lance, et en l’autre pièce Nostre Dame en pleurs, et saint Jehan et sainte Katherine aux deux costez. (Another panel of round ivory, in two pieces, decorated with silver around; and in one is the Pity of Our Lord and two angels, one holding the cross and the other the lance, and in the other piece Our Lady weeping, and St John and St Katherine on the two sides)

Deux petis tableaux d’ivoire, en deux pieces, ou il a duex ymaiges esmaillez, l’un de saincte Anne et l’autre de saincte Katherine, garmiz d’or entour. (Two small ivory panels, in two pieces, where there are two enamelled images, one of St Anne and the other of St Katherine, embellished with gold around)

Une belle croix d’ivoire, où il a un crucifix, Nostre Dame et saint Jehan aux deux costez, et deux angels dessus, tenant le soleil et la lune; et dessus la teste du crucifix un angel tenant un roolet, et aux iiii bouz de ladicte croix les iiii euvangelistes; laquelle siet sur un pié d’ivoire fait de maçonnerie garnie de pluseurs ymaiges. (A beautiful cross of ivory, with a crucifix, Our Lady and St John at the two sides, and two angels above, holding the sun and the moon; and above the head of the crucifix an angel holding a scroll, and at the four ends of the said cross the four evangelists; which is on a footing of ivory made of masonry embellished with several images)

Description

See J. Guiffrey ed., Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, 3 vols. (Paris, 1894), I.

Table 5: Robinet d’Estampes 1413–16 Inventory for Jean de Berry: Ivories in Object-Type and Materials-Based Categories.

209

Large joyaux and tabernacles (continued)

Panels Panels reliquaries, and small joyaux, in gold and silver, purchased by the Duke

45

47

Trois tableaux d’yvoire, chascun en deux pieces, de la Vie Nostre Dame et Passion Nostre Seigneur, qui furent de feu Monseigneur d’Estampes. (Three ivory panels, each in two pieces, of the life of Our Lady and the Passion of Our Lord, which belonged to the late M. d’Estampes) Uns tableaux d’yvoire en deux pieces, oú il a plusieurs ymaiges de haute taille tres deliéement ouvrez de plusieurs histoires, garniz d’argent par les bours, et par dehors couvert d’argent esmaillié aux armes de Monseigneur. (An ivory panel in two pieces, where there are several images of large size very delicately worked with several stories, embellished with silver on the edges and covered on the outside with silver enamelled with the arms of my lord)

Uns petis tableaux d’yvoire, fermans à couplez, oú il a en l’un des costez un ymaige de Nostre Dame tenant son enfant et les iii Roys de Couloigne, et de l’autre costé un crucifix, Nostre-Dame, saint Jehan et autres ymaiges, tout de haute taille (A small ivory panel, closing together, where there is on one side an image of Our Lady holding her child and the three kings of Cologne, and on the other side a crucifix, Our Lady, St John and other images, all of large size)

57

Uns tableaux d’yvoire plus petis, où il a plusieurs ymaiges eslevées de la Passion Nostre Seigneur; 48 et en plusieurs lieux sont les armes de Monseigneur d’Estampes (A smaller ivory panel, where there are several raised images of the Passion of Our Lord; and in many places there are the arms of my lord of Estampes)

43

Uns tableaux d’argent doré, ploians, où il a dedans un tabernacle de maçonnerie, ouquel est un ymaige de Nostre Dame eslevé, tenant son enfant et séant en une chaière d’yvoire, acompaignié de pluseurs angels, et est couronnée d’une couronne d’argent doré, et en la poictrine une estoille; et sont lesdiz tableaux garniz d’ymaiges d’yvoire eslevez. (A folding silver-gilt panel, in which is a masonary tabernacle, where there is a raised image of Our Lady, holding her child and sitting in an ivory throne, accompanied by several angels, and she is crowned with a silver-gilt crown, and in her breast is a star; and the said panels are embellished with raised images of ivory).

210

Joyaux and other things of divers types, many of little value

Joyaux for the body of the Duke

Chalices, pax, burettes, in gold and silver, given to the Duke

Pax

Goblet

Joyaux and Chess and other things game pieces of divers types given to the Duke

Vessels in gold and silver for the chancery

1416 Update

Box

Comb, mirror, and hair-parter

98

Ung pourtepaix d’ivoyre, quarré, dedans lequel a ung Crucifiement, Nostre Dame, saint Jehan et pluseurs autres ymaiges entour, faiz d’or (A square ivory pax, in which is a Crucifixion, Our Lady, St John and several other images around, made of gold)

Un goubelet d’yvoire, fait à ymaiges eslevez, garni par dedens d’argent doré, esmaillié ou fons, séant sur un pié d’argent esmaillié; pesant, avec le couvercle de mesmes, II marcs VI onces XV esterline (An ivory goblet made with raised images, embellished within with silver-gilt, enamelled in the bottom, sitting on a foot of enamelled silver; weighing, with the cover of the same, two marks, six ounces, fifteen estelins)

Un jeu de gros eschaz et tables d’yvoire, biens anciens (A large chess set and game pieces of ivory, very old)

Un grant tabler et eschaquier quarré, de ciprès, très bien ouvré de marqueteure, garni de grosses tables et eschaz d’yvoire et de bois noir, et est dedens un estuy de bois paint par dessus à un escuçon des armes de Monseigneur. (A large game set and chess board of cypress, very well worked with marquetry, embellished with large game and chess pieces of ivory and black wood, and it is in a wooden case painted on top with a shield of my lord’s arms)

Une petite boiste d’yvoire, où il a une petite pierre quarrée contre venin, sur couleur de voiree, avec une ptite pierre percée à la semblance d’une fève. (A small ivory box, with a small square stone against poison, of the colour of glass, with a small carved stone resembling a bean)

1118

759

326

301

279

Un pignouer garni d’un pigne, d’un mirouer et d’une greve d’yvoire en un estui, où il a deux 228 escuçons aux armes de feue madame la Duchesse (A comb-case containing a comb, a mirror and an ivory hair-parter in a sheath, where there are two shields with the arms of the late duchess)

Corporalliers Un corporaller d’yvoire, le couvercle de la Passion a ymaiges de taille; et est ledit corporaller fait alentour de plusieurs ymaiges de ladicte Passion (An ivory corporallier, the lid with the Passion in large images, and the said corporallier having around it several images of the said Passion)

Joyaux Chess pieces and other things of divers types purchased by the Duke

Chalices, pax, corporalliers, boxes, in gold and silver

Large joyaux and tabernacles (continued)

211

30s. Par.

Goats

668

Household cloths and napkins

Scissors

413

541

Manuscript

217

Mattress

Silk cloths for front and back of an altar

248

Ivory image

Wood drinking vessel

179

326

Beryl embellished with copper, in a leather case

71

416

Silver-handled knife

9 measures of oats

619

422

Flat basin

530

Ivory buttons or small pieces, smock or tunic, and altar towel or napkin

Towels or napkins

353

379

Ivory mirror and box

420

8s. Par.

20s. Par.

Inventory Object Type and number Material

Price

10 draps petis, pour mesnie, et 4 viez nappes (Ten small cloths, for housework, and four old napkins)

Un viez materas brun, de bougueran (An old brown mattress of buckram)

Un saint Estienne d’yvoire (A St Stephen in ivory)

17 chièvres, que grans que petites, présié l’une par l’autre 20s (Seventeen goats, large and small, all valued at 20 sous)

Item, 2 paere de ciseaux (Item, two pairs of scissors)

Un petit De la Trinité (A small copy of De la Trinité)

Un frontel, un dossier de viès draps de soye (A frontal, a dossal of lengths of silk cloth)

Un hanap de madre (A wooden drinking vessel)

Une béricle garnie de cuivre o tout un estui de cuir (A beryl embellished with copper, all in a leather case)

Uns couteaux à manche d’argent (A silver-handled knife)

12 boutons d’yvoire, une surgenie (ou surqenie) et 1 touaille à autel (twelve ivory pieces, a smock (or tunic) and one towel/napkin for the altar)

9 sextiers d’avoine pour l’aoust l’an XXVII, présié 8s le sextier. (Nine measures of oats for August in the year XXVII valued at 8 sous per measure)

Un bacin plat (A flat basin)

Une douzainne de touailles, chascune de 2 aunes de lonc, 8s p. pièce (A dozen towels/napkins each two ells long, 8 sous per piece)

Un mirouer et une boueste, d’ivoire (A mirror and a box, of ivory)

Description

See M. Proctor-Tiffany, Medieval Art in Motion: The Inventory and Gift Giving of Queen Clément de Hongrie (University Park, PA, 2019).

Table 6: Inventory of Clémence de Hongrie: Ivories by Price with Selected Comparable Objects.

212

60s. Par.

40s. Par.

Enamel A

Sapphire and silver pendant

34

41

Apples

611

Ivory image

Manuscript

215

414

Cloth

310

Strings of pearls

45

Silk and silver purse

Ivory and ebony chess set

320

74

Ivory box embellished with silver

251

Crystal salt dishes

Ivory casket embellished with silver and its contents

69

153

Ivory and silver casket, ivory box, silver vessels

Measures of peas

Barrels for pressing grapes and a vat

66

520

30s. Par. 588 (continued)

Une louppe de saphir assis en argent, à Pent à col. (A sapphire pendant set in silver, to hang at the neck)

Un A esmaillié de France et de Hongrie (An A enamelled [with the arms] of France and of Hungary)

Un petit saint Johan d’ivoire (A small St John in ivory)

Xm de pommes (10,000 apples)

Un roumans des X comandemens de la Loy (A romance of the ten commandments of the law)

2 aunes et demie de drap vert (two and a half ells of green cloth)

Une vielle bourse de soie et d’argent tret (An old purse of silk and silver)

Trois salières de cristal, 40s par pièce (three salt dishes of crystal, 40 sous per piece)

Une liace de perles où il a 21 fil et un chascun fil 20 perles, 2s per pièce, vault le fil 40s (A bundle of pearls where there are twenty-one strings and each string twenty pearls, 2 sous per piece, teach string worth 40 sous)

Un eschiquier, à echas d’ivoire et d’ibernus (A chess set, with pieces of ivory and ebony)

Une boueste d’yviere à mettre pain à chanter, garnie d’argent, (An ivory box for eucharistic bread, embellished with silver)

Un escrinet d’yvoère garni d’argent, à 1 pou de fretin dedens (An ivory casket embellished with silver, with one piece of money inside)

Un escrin d’ivoire garni d’argent, une boueste d’ivoire dedans et deux vaisèlles d’argent dedens (An ivory casket embellished with silver, an ivory box inside and two silver vessels inside)

2 sestiers et 6 bouesseaus de pois, les sestier 12s (Two measures (sestiers) and six bushels of peas, at 12 sous for the measures)

2 tones à fouler et 1 cuvier (Two barrels for pressing and a vat)

213

61. Par.

100s. Par.

Coconut on a silver base

Painting

Silk

77

395

Caskets

431

127

Manuscript

226

Brooch with a cameo and stones

Quilt and cushion

513

32

Short garment

281

Ivory comb and mirror

A box, a chest, a trunk, two silk boxes for a dog, embellished with silver

180

156

Gold coins in an enamelled-silver box

78

Brass or bronze pots

450

Belt and ivory game board

Wool squares

322

425

Napkin or towel

564

2 livres de saye deffillée, de toutes couleurs (Two pounds of unspun silk, of all colours)

Uns tableau de fust paint pour chapelle (A painted panel for a chapel)

Une noiz d’Ende sur un pié d’argent (A coconut on a silver foot)

Un autre fermaillet à un camahyeu, et un pou de pierre entour (Another brooch with a cameo, and surrounded by a small amount of stone)

Un pigne et mirouer d’yvoire (A comb and mirror of ivory)

Huint escrins (Eight caskets)

Le roumans des VII sages et d’Ysopet (The romance of the seven sages and Ysopet)

Une grant coucte en un coissin (A large quilt and a cushion)

Un mantelet d’un marbré brun naïf single (A short garment/cloak in multicoloured fabric woven from the same yarn, unlined)

Une summe, un bahu, une malle et deux coffres de soye pur un chien, garnie d’argent (A storage box, a leather chest, a trunk and two silk boxes for a dog, embellished with silver)

4 florins d’or desguiseés en une boueste d’argent esmalliée (Four gold florins disguised in an enamelled-silver box)

Une ceinture noir, et unes tables d’yvoire (A black belt and an ivory game board)

5 petis pos d’arain (Five small brass/bronze pots)

Neuf carreux de laine vers (Nine squares of green wool)

2 nappes en une pièce (Two napkins/towels in one piece)

Un aube, un amit, non parez, estole et fanons et paremens vies. Et sont les dix paremens de viez draps d’or remanens d’orfrais (An alb, amice, not worn, stole and maniples and old hangings. And there are ten hangings of old cloth of gold reworked with gold)

Quatre tayes à oreilliés de saye (Four silk pillowcases)

Silk pillowcases

Clerical garments and old hangings of cloth of gold

Un godet de cristal (A crystal goblet)

Crystal goblet

259

60s. Par. 148 (continued) 377

214

10l. Par.

Wine

Hay

510

681

3-garment silk robe, lined with rabbit fur

284

Cloth

Jasper containers embellished with silver

158

570

Gold panel

64

Cauldrons

444

Ivory casket embellished with silver

Manuscript

203

387

Cloth

Purse embellished with pearls

343

6l. Par. 399 (continued)

Environ 6 chartées de fain (About six carts of hay)

2 queues de saugié, de vins du Mez (Two casks of a sage wine, [made] of wines of Metz)

Un drap de royé de Gant, entire, moullié et tendu (A striped cloth from Ghent, complete, fulled and stretched)

Une robe de soye d’Illande, de 3 garnemens, fourrée de cuissètes de lièvres blans (A set of clothes made from Irish silk, comprising three pieces, lined with the fur of white hares)

Deux barils de jasper garnis d’argent (Two jasper containers embellished with silver)

Un petit tableau d’or en guise de croissant (A small gold panel in the form of a crescent)

Un escrin d’ivoire à ymages, garni d’argent, (An ivory casket with images, embellished with silver)

2 grans chaudières à 4 anneaux chascune, présie 16l par. C’es assavoir la plus grant 10l, et l’autre 6l par. (Two large cauldrons, each with four rings, valued at 16 1 par. That is to say the bigger at 10 1 and the other at 6 1).

Deux greelz notés (Two annotated grails)

Une pièce de toile de Compiègne, tenant 10 aunes (A piece of Compiègne cloth, measuring 10 ells)

Une bourse garnie de perles (A purse embellished with pearls)

215

Amber crucifix

136

139

100 s.

Gold handled knife, enamelled fork

Emeralds

Alabaster head, on black marble, brass border

613

849

96

Embroidered purse or bag

125

Ivory box with small garnets, relics

Wood image

141

666

Silver pendant and chain Un très petit signet d’argent pendant à une petite chayne où est taillée un A (A very small silver seal hanging on a small chain, which is carved with an A)

929

Une teste d’albastre blanc en façon d’une seraine assize sur une pièce de marbre noir, bordé de laton doré, et semble estre un camahieu (A head (?) of white alabaster in the form of a siren sitting on a piece of black marble, bordered with gilt brass and with the appearance of a cameo)

Plusieurs pièces d’esmeraudes despeciées en un noet (Many pieces of emerald in a lump)

Un autre coustel à manche d’or et une petite forsette esmaillée aux armes de la reyne Jeanne de Bourbon (Another knife with a gold handle and a small pair of scissors enamelled with the arms of Queen Jeanne of Bourbon)

See Table 2

Une très ancienne gibecière de brodeure à un chasteau, un pavillon et deux aigles (A very old purse/bag embroidered with a castle, a tent/flag and two eagles)

Un petit image de Sainct Memer, de fust (A small image of St Memer, in wood)

See Table 2

Ivory box, chess pieces

1383

See Table 4

Un tixu de soye à fleurs de lys (A silk cloth with fleurs-de-lys)

Ivory candle holder, silver candle holder

Silk cloth

Un crucifix d’ambre (An amber crucifix)

Un coustel à un manche cuers de laton et de cor, et ya une bouterole d’argent doré (A knife with a handle of a core of brass and of horn, and it has a fitting of silver-gilt)

See Table 2

See Table 1: Item 2271

Description

155

144

Horn and brass handled knife, silver-gilt end

670

2 s. 6 d.

5 s.

Ivory box, relics

598

None

Ivory knife handle, ? cover, silk cord

Inventory Object Type and Number Material

Estimated Value in 1422

See P. Henwood, Les collections du trésor royal sous le règne de Charles VI (1380–1422): L’inventaire de 1400 (Paris, 2004).

Table 7: Charles VI Inventory of 1422: Ivories by Price with Selected Comparable Objects.

216

12 liv. t.

4 liv. t.

Gold reliquary, chain, cameo, pearls, emeralds, rubies

Jet paternoster, gold seals, pearls, silk cord, gold pin with rubies and pearls

Indigo silk belt, gold buckle

491

565

538

Wood knife handle, cover garnished with gold

44

Ivory and gold panel

Jasper altar, silver-gilt border

69

517

Reliquary with a cameo and a crystal, relic of the True Cross

482

Ivory knife handle with enamel, cover embellished with gold

Ivory candle holder, silver-gilt candle holder

1471

41

Ivory mirror, embellished with gold, enamel

711

Une autre ceinture d’un tixu de soye inde où est une boucle, un mordant et un passant avec six clos d’or à ceindre (Another belt of a cloth of indigo silk with a buckle, a clasp and a tongue with six gold clasps around)

Une petite patenostre de gayet où y a quarante pièces de gaiest à cinq signez d’or à costezet y a huict perles d’Oriant et deux d’Escosse et pend à un lacet de soye vermeille et y tient un fermail d’or garnis de deux balais taillez et quatre troches de perles, pesans une once deux esterlins (A small jet paternoster with forty pieces of jet and five gold seals, next to eight pearls of the Orient and two of Scotland and it hangs from a lace of vermillion silk and holds a gold clasp embellished with two cut rubies and four groups of pearls, weighing one ounce two esterlins)

Un autre reliquaire d’or pendant à une chainette où y a un camahieu ou milieu et une teste blanche, garny de quinze menues perles, deux esmeraudes et deux rubis d’Alixandre, pesans une once sept esterlins obole (Another gold reliquary suspended from a chain where there is a cameo in the middle and a white head, decorated with fifteen seed pearls, two emeralds and two rubies of Alexandria, weighing one ounce seven esterlins)

See Table 1: Item 2928

See Table 1: Item 2395

Un petit coutel à un manche de madre rond, et la guaine estoffée d’or par en hault pour le pendre (A small knife with a rounded wooden handle, and the sheath decorated with gold at the top for hanging it)

Un petit autel benoist de jasper, bordé d’argent doré, entaillé en siprès (A small blessed altar of jasper, surrounded with silver-gilt, carved in cypress)

Un reliquaire ouquel il y a un camahieu longuet à un image couvert de ses cheveux et de l’autre part un cristal où il y a de la vraye croix (A reliquary on which there is a rectangular cameo with an image covered with its hair(?) and in the other part a crystal where there is a [relic] of the True Cross)

See Table 2

See Table 1: Item 672

217

32 liv. t.

30 liv. t.

Knife with enamelled handle, gold cover with enamel

Silver-gilt drinking vessel, base in the shape of a fountain, garnets, sapphires, pearls

White stone containers, silver chains

Black leather lantern, embellished with gold and silver

591

1005

1854

889

Crystal pot and flask, embellished with silver

1920

Ivory panel, garnished with gold, mirrors

Altar, green stone and jasper, reliquary with silver-gilt decoration, rubies, sapphires, and cameo, leather case

1002

512

Ivory lash, gold and enamel, gold chains

37

Une lanterne de cuir noir camoissié garnie d’or par dehors et dedans d’argent, non pesée (A black buff leather lantern embellished with gold outside and silver inside, not weighed)

Deux petitz barillez de pierre blanche qui ont les fons rompus et pendant à deux chainettes d’argent, pesant… (Two small barrels of white stone with the bottoms broken, suspended from two silver chains, weighing…)

Un hanap d’argent doré assis sur un pié en façon de fontaine, laquelle fontaine est assize sur en entablement à six carrés et y a en trois carrés troi gargoules et un crochet dessus et ez autres trois une pièce d’euvre où a en chacun deux grenats, deux saphirs du Puy et une perle d’Ecosse, et semblablement sur le couvescle du dict hanap a trois de dictes oeuvres garnies de semblable pierrerie, que donna au roy la ville de Clermont en Auvergne en son voyage du Puy, pesant treize marcz (A silver-gilt drinking vessel on a foot in the form of a fountain, which is set on a setting of six squares, three of the squares have gargoyles and a hook above and the other three a piece of work where each has two garnets, two sapphires of Puy and a Scottish pearl, and likewise on the cover of the said vessel are three of the said works embellished with similar stones which was given to the king by the town of Clermont in Auvergne on his journey to Puy, weighing thirty marks)

Un autre coustel à une alumelle camuse qui a le manche d’esmaux de plite à roses vermeilles et blanche et est la guaine toutte d’or esmaillée de France, pesant tout cinq onces douze esterlins (Another knife with a blunt blade which has a handle of cloisonné enamel with red and white roses and the sheath is all of gold enamelled with [the arms] of France, weighing all together five ounces twelve esterlins)

See Table 1: Item 2739

Un ancient pot de cristal à deux ances, garny d’argent blanc et l’aiguière de mesmes (An old crystal pot with two handles, embellished with white silver and a flask of the same)

Un autel benoist d’une pierre gouttée de vert, une jasper, et y a un reliquaire au bout de la dicte pierre enchassillée d’argent doré à lettres de Damas d’un costé et d’autre, e a sur l’un des costez trois petitz balaiz, cinq saphirs et deux camahieux, en us estuy de cuir (A blessed altar of a stone flecked with green, a jasper, and a reliquary at the end of the said stone chased with the letters of Damascus in silver-gilt on one side and the other, and on one side three small rubies, five sapphires and two cameos, in a leather case)

See Table 1: Item 2390

218

1

Cloth sack, amber and jet

Glass drinking vessel, leather case

Serpent’s tongue

Crystal egg

Manuscript, leather cover, brass clasps

965/573

406/772

1037

1039

476/890

See Table 5

Un petit livre en francoys, escript de lettre de court, du Gouvernement des Roys et des princes, appellé le Secret des secrez, que fist Aristote; couvert de cuir vert, à deux fermouers de laton. (A small book in French, written in court script, of the Government of Kings and Princes, called the Secret of Secrets, by Aristotle, covered in green leather, with two brass clasps)

Une pierre de cristal en manière d’un oeuf (A crystal stone in the form of an egg)

Une langue de serpent, non garnie; (A serpent’s tongue, undecorated)

Un hannap de voirre, ou fons duquel a un P couronne et un laz d’amours, estant en un estui de cuir (A glass goblet, at the base of which is a P, crown and a love knot, standing in a leather case)

Un petit sac de toille, où il a pluseurs pierres d’ambre et de gest (A small sack of cloth, where there are several pieces of amber and jet)

Une autre teste de camahieu, garnie d’un fillet d’argent par derrière (Another head in cameo, embellished with a fillet of silver on the back)

Une petite croix d’argent doré où il a un crucefix, et est garnie de faulse pierrerie (A small cross of silver-gilt with a crucifix, embellished with imitation stones)

See Table 5

See Table 5

Description

Guiffrey’s first volume is for Robinet d’Estampes’s 1413–16 inventory and he includes descriptions for all of the items it contains. When those items appear again in the 1416 post-mortem inventory, in volume 2, he does not repeat the description, but gives inventory numbers for the 1413–16 text. Likewise, here for items that appear in both inventories, I give both inventory numbers and the description from the 1413–16 text.

Ivory panel

Cameo, embellished with silver on the back

1030

164/57

Silver-gilt cross, fake stones

828/4

40 s. t.

Ivory panel, embellished with silver

838/42

10 s. t.

Object type and material

Ivory box, stones

Inv. No. 1416/14131

7 s., 6 d. t. 905/279

Price in 1416

See J. Guiffrey, ed., Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, 3 vols., (Paris, 1894) I–II.

Table 8: 1416 Post-Mortem Inventory of Jean de Berry: Ivories by Price and Selected Comparable Objects.

219

60 s. t.

Gold pin embellished with stones

Cameo with garnets

Yellow sapphire

Jasper drinking vessel, embellished with gold and stones

Crystal salt dish, silver, relics

Wood panel

Coconut embellished with silver-gilt, cover, serpent’s tongue

1031

1032

414/800

321/616

156/30

1005/758

Mirror in a silk purse

881 /219

209/156

Jasper goblet

439

Ivory panel

Garnet cross

639/581

437

Emerald in a gold ring

Cameo in a gold ring with enamel

614/418

40 s. t. 646/595 (continued)

Une noix d’Inde, garnie d’argent doré, et dessus le fretelet du couvercle a un lion, auquel pend une langue de serpent; pesant vii onces v esterlins (A coconut embellished with silver-gilt and above the top-piece of the cover is a lion, which suspends a serpent’s tongue, weighing seven ounces five esterlins)

Un autre tableau de bois où il a un ymaige fait de marqueteure, et entour garni d’argent a ouvraige de Damas; non poisie. (Another wood panel with an image in marquetry, surrounded with silver Damascene work, not weighed)

Une salière de cristal, garnie d’argent, en laquelle souloit avoir des reliques (A crystal salt dish, embellished with silver, in which there are relics)

Un hannap de jaspre, garni d’or et de pierrerie (A jasper drinking vessel, embellished with gold and stones)

Un gros saphir citrin, glaceux (a large yellow sapphire, frosty)

Une autre teste de camahieu, avecques les espaules et yeulx ouquel a deux petis grenez (Another cameo head, with shoulders and eyes in which are two small garnets)

Un autre fermaillet d’or, garni de pierrerie de petite valeur (Another gold pin, embellished with stones of little value)

Un tableau d’yvoire en deux pièces tenans à deux petiz couplez, en l’un desquelz est la Passion, et de l’autre costé Nostre Dame (An ivory panel in two pieces folding together, in one is the Passion and on the other side Our Lady)

Un mirouer d’acier estant en une bourse de soye (A steel mirror in a purse of silk)

Un gobelet d’une pierre de jaspre, sanz couvercle et garnison (A goblet made of a stone of jasper, without cover or embellishment)

Un grant grenat taillié en manière d’une croix double, hors oeuvre (A great garnet carved in the form of a double cross, without working)

Une petite esmeraude, assise en un annel d’or (A small emerald, set in a gold ring)

Un camahieu assis en un annel d’or esmaillié à ours et florettes (A cameo set in a gold ring, enamelled with bears and flowers)

220

8 liv. t.

Ball of must, embellished with gold and emeralds

Three rubies

Crystal flask, embellished with silver-gilt

2 long-necked flasks of coconut, embellished with silver-gilt

Serpentine stone, embel- Une pierre serpentine roonde, garnie d’or, pendant à une chaienne d’or, en laquelle est la devise lished with gold, gold de Lermite de la Faye (A round serpentine stone, embellished with gold, hanging from a chain gold chain, on which is the device of Lermite de la Faye)

Wood goblet, embellished with silver-gilt, cover with a piece of gold

252/256

289/362

413/795

857/101

968/593

1020/822

Un goubelet de madre, garni d’argent doré; et sur le fretelet du couvercle a une pierre de mine d’or (A wooden goblet, embellished with silver-gilt and on the top-piece of the cover is a stone of mined gold)

Deux buretes de noix d’Inde garnies d’argent doré, à un long col, sans ances (Two long-necked flasks of coconut embellished with silver-gilt, without handles)

Une aiguière de cristal, en façon d’un poisson, garnie d’argent doré (A crystal flask, in the form of a fish, embellished with silver-gilt)

Trois petis balaiz (Three small rubies)

Une autre pomme de must, garnie d’or à iv bandes, et dessoubz a un petit grain d’esmeraude (Another ball of must, embellished with gold with four bands, and below a small grain of an emerald)

See Table 5

Ivory case for altar linens

See Table 5

Vint serviettes de lin, de l’euvre de Reins (Twenty linen napkins, of the work of Rheims)

856/98

20 linen napkins

704

Uns petis tableaux de broderie, où il a une Pitié de Nostre Dame tenant son enfant qui s’entretiennent, à deux petites charnières (A small embroidered panel, where there is a Pity of Our Lady holding her child which is supported by two small hinges)

Ivory panel, embellished with silver

Embroidered panel

157/32

Un petit orinal de voirre, garni et pendant à iiii chaiennes d’or (A small glass urine flask, decorated and supported by four gold chains)

Un ymaige d’ambre de Nostre Dame, le visaige et la main d’ambre blanc, une petite couronne d’or sur sa teste, tenant son entfant d’ambre blanc (An amber image of Our Lady, the face and the hand of white amber, a small crown of gold on her head, holding her child [which is] of white amber)

837/39

Glass urine flask, gold chains

Amber Virgin and Child, gold crown

256/265

60 s. t. 854/92 (continued)

221

10 liv. t.

8 liv. t. (continued)

Gold ring, sapphire, rubies

Silver candle holder

Copper wine chiller

Amber images in a silver-gilt setting

21 pearls

Amethyst goblet, embel- Un petit goubelet d’une amatiste, sans couvercle, garni d’argent doré; pesant i marc ii onces (A lished with silver-gilt small amethyst goblet, without cover, embellished with silver-gilt, weighting one mark, two ounces)

604/394

586

884/225

1063

298/466

375/716

XXI perles brutes, hors oeuvre (Twenty-one rough pearls, without working)

Plusieurs ymages d’ambre de l’Apparicion, estans en une maisonnette d’argent doré qui est soustenue sur iiii pilliers (Many images in amber of the Epiphany, standing in a small house of silver-gilt which is supported on four pillars)

Un reffroidouer à vin, de cuivre ouvré à oeuvre de Damas (A copper wine chiller worked with Damascene work)

Une palette d’argent blanc pour mettre feu à faire fumées, pesant 1 marc iiii onces 1 esterlin (A candle holder of white silver to put fire to make smoke/incense, weighing one mark four ounces one esterlin)

Un annel d’or où il a un escu d’un saphir à iii fleurs de lis d’or, endenté de menuz balaisseaulx aux armes de Monseigneur (A gold ring with a shield of a sapphire with three fleurs-delys, set with small rubies with the arms of my lord)

Un petit reliquiere d’or, ouquel a un petit ymaige de Nostre Dame de cassidoine tenant son enffant, et en sa main un bien petit ruby, et pend ledit reliquière à une petite chaienne (A small gold reliquary, with a small chalcedony image of Our Lady, holding her child, and in her hand a very small ruby, and the said reliquary hangs on a small chain)

Gold reliquary, Chalcedony image of the Virgin and Child, ruby, chain

Un ymage d’yvoire de Nostre Dame tenant Dieu le père en ses mains (An image in ivory of Our Lady holding God the father in her hands)

Un autre tappis, de l’ouvrage de Paris, de l’Istoire du Dieu d’Amours, rompu en plusieurs lieux (Another tapestry, Parisian work, of the history of the god of love, damaged in several places)

581/192

Tapestry

1153

Deux draps de lin, chascun de quatre lez et de quatre aulnes de long, l’un dentelé et l’autre non (Two linen cloths, each four lengths wide and four ells long, one with lace and the other without)

Ivory Virgin and Child

2 linen cloths

682

Une vieille ceincture de cuir estroicte, garnie d’argent, clouée au long de pluseurs camahieux et autres pierres de petite valeur (An old belt of stretched leather embellished with silver, fixed along its length with several cameos and other stones of little value)

1026

Leather belt, embellished with silver, with cameos and stones

866 /150

222

13 liv. 10 s. t.

Wood cross, embellished with gold

Leather

Linen cloth

Wool tapestry

1076

131

681

792

Chess set, cypress wood board, pieces of ivory and black wood, in a wood case

Diamond in a gold ring with black enamel

913/301

619/436

Manuscript, embossed leather cover, brass clasps and fasteners

3 wood panels

845/51

1116/952

Crystal

Crystal fork, embellished with gold, pearls

719/1132

10 liv. t. 326/627 (continued)

Un dyament poinctu non fait, assis en un annel d’or esmaillié de noir (An uncut diamond, set in a gold ring with black enamel)

See Table 5

Un livre de la Mutacion de Fortune, escript en françoys rimé, de lettre de court, compilé par une demoiselle appellée Cristine de Pizan, historié en aucuns lieux; et au commencement du second fueillet a escript: travail penible; et est convert de cuir vermeil empraint, à deux fermouers de cuivre et V boullons de mesmes sur chascune aiz (A book of the changes of Fortune, written in rhyming French, in court script, compiled by a lady called Christine de Pizan, decorated with figurative images in many places, and at the start of the second leaf is written travail penible: and it is covered in stamped vermillion leather, with two copper fasteners and five bosses of the same on each side)

Un tappis rond de drap de laine, armoié des armes de feu monseigneur le conte d’Estampes que Dieu pardoint, semé de plusieurs chiens emmantelez desdictes armes; (A round hanging of woollen cloth, bearing the arms of my lord the late count d’Estampes, whom God forgive, covered with several dogs embracing the said arms)

Un drap de lin delié, de parement, de vi lez et de vi aulnes de long ou environ. (A piece of fine linen cloth, for hanging, of six lengths wide and six ells long or thereabouts)

Un autre cuir fauve, où il y a un hosteau ou milieu, ouvré de divers ouvrages, contenant quatre aulnes et demie de long et deux aulnes et un quartier de large ou environ (Another tanned leather, with a medallion in the middle, worked with diverse designs, four and a half ells long and two and a quarter ells wide or thereabouts)

Une petite croix de bois, ouvrée de plusieurs ymages, garnie d’or fin (A small wooden cross, worked with several images, embellished with fine gold)

Trois tableaux de bois où il a ymaiges de marqueterie de bien ancienne façon (Three panels of wood with images in marquetry of avery old fashion)

Ung cristal roont et creux, hors oeuvre (A round and hollow crystal, without working)

Une broche de cristal, garnie d’or, pour menger frezes, en laquelle a v perles (A crystal fork, embellished with gold, for eating strawberries, on which are five pearls)

223

Uns tableau de bois en quatre pieces, où il a quatre demiz ymaiges de paincture, c’est assavoir une Pitié de Nostre Seigneur, un ymaige de Nostre Dame et deux ymaiges de saint Pierre et de saint Pol; non poisez (A wooden panel in four pieces, where there are four half images painted, that is a Pity of Our Lord, an image of Our Lady, and two images of St Peter and St Paul; not weighed)

Painted wood panel

3 ivory panels

Ivory game and chess pieces

Ivory panel

Ball of must embellished with gold, sapphires, and pearls

Gold pin, rubies, sapphires, pearls

Serpent’s tongue, silvergilt base, enamel

Yellow sapphire on a cord

Diamond

3 rubies

Flat crystal and crystal scourge, embellished with silver-gilt, silk threads, and pearls

840/45

921/326

842/48

251/255

867/153

983/675

318/589

615/422

724/1141

886/233

18 liv. t.

20 liv. t.

Une piece de cristal plat, contenant un espan de long et iii doiz de large, et un fouet dudit cristal, garni d’argent doré et de plusieurs filez de soye et boutons de perles. (A piece of flat crystal, one span long and three digits wide, and a scourge of the said crystal, embellished with silver-gilt and several threads of silk and buttons of pearl)

Trois petis rubiz (Three small rubies)

Un dyament poinctu, non fait (A diamond, uncut)

Un grant saphir citrin, du gros de plain poing, sur le long, à pluseurs costes, pertuisié au long, pendant à un laz (A large yellow sapphire, the size of an full fist, on the long side it has several facets, pierced on the long side, suspended from a cord)

Une espreuve d’une grant langue de serpent, séant sur un pié d’argent doré en façon d’un arbre auquel pendent deux escuçons esmaillez aux armes de Monseigneur (A [food] tester of a large serpent’s tongue, set on a foot of silver-gilt in the form of a tree from which hang two shields enamelled with the arms of my lord)

Un fermaillet d’or, garni d’un balay, iii petis saphirs et vi perles, et y faillent iii perles; non poisié (A gold pin, decorated with a ruby, three small sapphires and six pearls, and missing three pearls; not weighed)

Une autre pomme de must, garnie d’or; à l’un des boux a un saphir et viii perles, et à l’autre vii perles (Another ball of must, embellished with gold, on one of the chains a sapphire and eight pearls, and on the other seven pearls)

See Table 5

See Table 5

See Table 5

Un saphir citrin cabochon en une broche d’or. (A yellow cabochon sapphire in a gold pin)

Yellow sapphire in a gold pin

13 liv. 630/493 10 s. t. (continued) 158/34

224

Quilt

2 tapestries

Manuscript, leather cover, and brass clasps

551

497/929

Silk tent, curtain, and quilt

83–85

544

Leather

2 black jasper bottles, embellished with silvergilt, each with a silk cloth, with silver-gilt buckles

128

20 liv. t. 418/ 804 (continued)

Un livre appelle le Livre Goddeffroy de Bouillon, qui parle du passaige d’oultremer et du conquest de la Terre saincte, escript en françoys, de vieille lettre de fourme; et au commancement du second fueillet a escript: pentiers et fist; convert de cuir vermeil empraint, à deux fermouers de cuivre, et sur chascune aiz v boullons de mesmes (A book called the Book of Godfrey of Bouillon, which tells of the journey to the Middle East and the conquest of the Holy Land, written in French, in old letter forms, and at the start of the second leaf is written: pentiers et fist; covered in vermillion stamped leather, with two copper fastenings, and on each side five bosses of the same)

Deux pièces de tappis de l’ouvrage d’Arras, à ymages, de la Chasse à l’usage de Romme; (Two textiles of Arras work with images of the hunt, of the use of Rome)

Une vanne de taffetas verde, à façon de coustepointe (A panel of green taffeta, in the form of a quilt)

83. Un paveillon de cendail vermeil, bien vielz, ouquel sont les quatre Euvangelistes, contenant trois aulnes et demie de long et trois aulnes et un quartier de large. 84. Du dossiel dudit paveillon, ouquel a deux lyons et cinq escuçons aux armes de Monseigneur, contenant troys aulnes de long et deux aulnes et demie de hault ou environ. 85. Et d’une coustepointe de mesmes, pareille audit dossiel, contenant quatre aulnes et un quartier de long et quatre aulnes de large ou environ. Ces trois parties prisées ensemble (83. A tent of vermillion taffeta, very old, where are the four Evangelists, measuring three and a half ells long by three and a quarter ells wide. 84. The dossal of the said tent, on which are two lions and five shields with the arms of my lord, measuring three ells long and two and a half ells wide or thereabouts. 85. And a quilt of the same, like the said dossal, measuring four and a quarter ells long and four ells wide or thereabouts. The three parts priced together)

Un autre grant cuir fauve, où il a aux bouz quatre rondeaux de diverses couleurs et une couppe ou milieu desdiz rondeaux où il a du jaune, contenant vi aulnes et un quartier de long et trois aulnes et trois quartiers de large (Another large tanned leather, where there are at the ends four roundels of diverse colours and a cutting in the middle of the said roundels where there is yellow, measuring six and a quarter ells in length and three and three-quarter ells in width)

Deux bouteilles de Jaspre noir, garnies d’argent doré, et en chascune un tixu de soye garnie de boucle, mordant, et les clos d’argent doré (Two bottles of black jasper, embellished with silver-gilt, and in each a cloth of silk embellished with a buckle, catch and fastenings of silver-gilt)

225

Ivory pax, gold images

Silver-gilt salt boat, silver-gilt mast, serpent’s tongues,

Emerald in a gold ring

Serpentine stone Une ampole ou fiole roonde de pierre, sur couleur de pierre serpentine, garnie d’or, pendant à ampoule, embellished un tixu de soye (An ampoule or phial of round stone, of the colour of serpentine stone, with gold, on a silk cord embellished with gold, suspended on a silk cloth)

Must pasternoster, gold and silk cord, pearls

Wood Virgin and child, gold crown with rubies, sapphires, pearls, silvergilt base with enamel

Ostrich egg cup, embellished with silver-gilt, enamelled cover

Tapestry

714/1118

354/674

609/407

421/807

718/1131

175/84

398/757

109

Un autre grant tappis velu vert, armoié d’un escu d’or à trois fesses de sable et une bende de gueules, contenant cinq aulnes de long et trois aulnes de large, ou environ (Another large hanging of green fabric, with a shield of gold with three fesses sable and a bend gules, measuring five ells long and three ells wide, or thereabouts)

Une coupe d’un oeuf d’austruce, garnie d’argent doré, esmaillée sur le couvercle a un J, une R et un E, et sur le fretelet un aigle volant; pesant v marcs iiii onces x esterlins (A cup of an ostrich egg, embellished with silver-gilt, enamelled on the cover with a J, an R and an E, and on the top-piece a flying eagle; weighing five marks four ounces ten esterlins)

Un ymaige de bois de Nostre Dame, couronne d’une couronne où il a deux balaisseaux, ii saphirs et iiii perles; et tient son filz entre ses braz, séant sur un entablement d’argent doré, esmaillié entour de pluseurs ymaiges et de deux escuçons des armes du feu sire de la Rivière (A wooden image of Our Lady, crowned with a crown in which are two rubies, two sapphires, and four pearls, and holding her son in her arms, sitting on a setting of silver-gilt, enamelled around with several images and two shields of the arms of the late lord de la Rivière)

Une paternostres faictes de must, enfillées en ung laz fait de filet d’or et de soye bleue, garnies de troys boutons de perles (A paternoster made of must, suspended on a cord made of gold thread and blue silk, decorated with three pearl buttons)

Une esmeraude quarrée, assise en un annel d’or (A square emerald, set in a gold ring)

Une sallière d’argent doré, faicte en maniere d’un petit galiot, ou milieu duquel a un mast d’argent doré, garni entour de vi langues de serpent, et dessus un grant serpent volant et deux petis; et à chascun bout dudit galiot a un autre serpent volant (A silver-gilt salt boat, made in the form of a small galleon, in the middle of which is a silver-gilt mast, embellished around with six serpent’s tongues, and above a large flying serpent and two small; and at each end of the said galleon is another flying serpent)

See Table 5

See Table 5

30 liv. t.

2 ivory panel, enamels

159/37

See Table 5

24 liv. t.

Ivory goblet, garnished with silver-gilt, enamel, enamelled silver base

399/759

22 liv. t.

226

70 liv. t.

Jasper portable altar, embellished with silver, enamel

Amethyst salt dish, embellished with gold, rubies, sapphires, pearls

Velvet tapestry

Silk hangings for a room

338/650

802

1146

Gold pax, ruby

179/100

190/121

Silver-gilt panel with ivory images, Virgin and Child seated in an ivory chair, silver-gilt crown, star in the chest

Manuscript, leather cover, silver-gilt clasps, silk cloth

1085/873

839/48

Cloth of gold for a cover, velvet border

Six embroidered cloths, bed cover

1165

30 liv. t. 538 (continued)

Une autre chambre de drap de soye, ciel et dossiel tenans ensemble, aux armes d’Estampes, et trois courtines de cendail vermeil (Another set of silk hangings for a chamber, canopy and back held together, with the arms of d’Estampes, and three curtain walls of vermillion taffeta)

Un grant tappis velu, bordé entour des armes du pappe Clément VII, contenant sept aulnes de long et trois aulnes et trois quartiers de lé ou environ (A large velvet hanging, surrounded with the arms of pope Clement VII, measuring seven ells long and three and threequarter lengths wide or thereabouts)

Une sallière d’une amatiste, garnie d’or et de menue pierrerie, c’est assavoir : de iii balaiz, iii saphirs et xvi perles (An amethyst salt dish, embellished with gold and small stones, that is: three rubies, three sapphires and sixteen pearls)

Un aultier portatif de jaspre, garni d’argent, esmaillié alentour de la vie de Nostre Seigneur et de Nostre Dame, et siet sur iiii petis léoneaux; pesant avec ledit jaspre xviii marcs. (A jasper portable altar, embellished with enamelled silver around with the life of Our Lord and of Our Lady, and set on four small lionesses; weighing with the said jasper eighteen marks)

Un petit portepaix d’or, ouquel a un ymaige de saint Antoine en manière de haulte taille, et en sa poictrine a une fleur de lis de balay (A small gold pax, in which is an image of St Anthony of large size, and in his breast a ruby fleur-de-lys)

See Table 5

Un livre escript en françois, de lettre de fourme, d’Ovide, Metamorphozeos; couvert de cuir vermeil empraint, à deux fermouers d’argent dorez, touz plains, et les tixuz de soye vermeille. (A book written in French, in formal script, of Ovid’s Metamporphoses, covered in vermillion stamped leather, with two clasps of silver-gilt, plain, and the textiles of vermillion silk.

Un drap d’or de sodanis pour couvertoer, bordé de veluyau vert (A cloth of royal gold cover, edged with green velvet)

Six pièces de sarge à tendre, brodées de branches d’orengier, et la couverture du lit pareille; et y a escript en chascune pièce Le temps vendra (Six pieces of serge, embroidered with branches of an orange tree, and the bed cover of the same; and written on each piece is: Le temps vendra)

227

160 liv. t.

6 tapestries

Hanging with velvet border

547

790

Chalcedony and gold salt dish, sapphire, pearls, rubies

346/665

Striped bench cover, with gold, backed with blue cloth

Mirror, enamel

263/283

92

Ivory panel, embellished with silver, enamelled silver exterior

841/47

Un dosselet aux armes de France, bordé alentour de veluyau cramoisi, bien usé, contenant cinq aulnes et un quartier de long et deux aulnes de lé ou environ (A hanging with the arms of France, bordered with crushed velvet, well used, measuring five and a quarter ells long and two ells wide, or thereabouts)

De six tappiz vers, semez d’orengiers, et ou milieu a un orengier ouquel pend un escu aux armes de feu mondit Seigneur, et y a ours et cynes aux armes de mondit Seigneur, et sont du fille et ouvrage d’Arras, et contient chascun xviii aulnes de quarreure; par ainsi les vi contiennent cviii aulnes; prisez chascune aulne xxiiii sous paris., (Six green hangings, decorated with orange trees, and in the middle an orange tree from which hangs a shield with the arms of my said late lord, and there is a bear and swans with the arms of my said lord, and it is of thread and work of Arras, and each measures eighteen ells square so that the six measure 108 ells; each one valued at twenty-four parisian sous)

Un grant bancquier eschacqueté de vert, bleu et rouge, à plusieurs rayes d’or, doublé de toille bleue, contenant neuf aulnes et un quartier de long et une aulne et demie de lé (A large striped bench cover in green, blue and red, with several lines of gold, lined with blue cloth, measuring nine and a quarter ells long and one and a half ells wide)

Une sallière de cassidoinne, garnie d’or, en façon d’une cuvete, et ou fretelet du couvercle a un saphir, et est assise en une charrete d’or à deux roes; ou moyeu de chascune roe une perle, et entre les lymons a un petit chevalet d’or, au col duquel pend un petit balaisseau ; et à chascun lymon pendent deux autres petis balaisseaux et iii perles (a chalcedony salt dish, embellished with gold, in the form of a basin, and where the top-piece of the cover is a sapphire, and it is set in a gold cart with two wheels, where in the middle of each wheel is a pearl, and between the shafts is a small gold horse from the neck of which hangs a small ruby; and from each shaft hang two other small rubies and three pearls)

Un mirouer à une lunete, esmaillié par darrieres de Nostre Dame, un serpent à vii testes, un angel et saint Jehan euvangeliste; garni entour de fueillaiges et d’oiseaulx; pesant ii marcs, ii onces vii esterlins obole (A mirror with a glass, enamelled on the back with Our Lady, a serpent with seven heads, an angel and St John the Evangelist, embellished around with foliage and birds, weighing two marks, two ounces seven esterlins)

See Table 5

11 Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives Katherine Baker

To fill the voids of material absence, documentary sources – whether literary or archival – can provide a precious, if sometimes precarious, path to the reconstruction of what has been lost. The estate inventory, a recounting of a decedent’s worldly goods, is a category of historical informant whose revelations can redefine how we think about objects, both their qualities and quantities. While pitfalls exist with using this type of record, including issues of translation and representative sampling, estate inventories can nonetheless provide unique opportunities for insight. In the following examination of Parisian painting around the year 1500, a sample of seventy-three inventories from 1480 to 1515 is deployed to redefine how we think about this visual art. Depending on the definition, the study of painting in Paris at the turn of the sixteenth century is either characterised by a resplendent field of extant objects that can be found in libraries and museums across the globe, or a striking paucity of material, totalling less than twenty-five published works.1 In its broader classification, painting encompasses illuminated manuscripts and triumphs by proxy through the production of models and cartoons for tapestries and stained glass, and prints used to illustrate books. A more restricted definition of the painterly arts, where the medium is exclusively associated with works on panel and canvas, produces a much different picture, an emaciation of the object record that appears at odds with the artistic fecundity seen in other, allied arts. Despite the efforts of scholars like Charles Sterling to redress this dearth, the number of paintings attributed to Paris remains conspicuously low, especially when compared with the veritable glut of contemporary Italian and Netherlandish works.2 Explanations for this disparity have varied. Some have seen the hand of iconoclasm, whether Huguenot or 1

2

Critical texts for the compilation of a Parisian painting record are C. Sterling, La peinture médiévale à Paris:1300–1500, 2 vols. (Paris, 1990), II; F. Elsig, La peinture en France au XVe siècle (Milan, 2004); and G. M. Leproux, La peinture à Paris sous le règne de François Ier, Corpus vitrearum, France, Études 4 (Paris, 2001). As noted by M. Hérold, ‘France was perhaps the poorest country in terms of altarpieces and easel painting in all of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages’ (my

228

Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives Revolutionary, in the lacunae. For large-scale altarpieces destined for the church, published excerpts from contemporary documents seem to confirm material devastation, and of the fifteen ecclesiastical commissions that can be found in the archives, almost all have been lost.3 Of this sample, even very large, multi-panelled works – of which, given their size, one might expect at least a small portion to remain – have been completely deleted from the record. Take, for example, an altarpiece made for the governors of the confraternity of St Vincent at the church of St Paul in 1507.4 The talents of one Jean Hamelet were secured for the project, and he was asked to paint de sa main (by his hand) four altar wings, with fourteen to fifteen images from the life of St Vincent on the interior, and a large grisaille Annunciation, St Vincent, and St Lawrence on the exterior. Not one section from this project has emerged, a vacancy reflective of the general state of affairs for Parisian ecclesiastical painting of the period.5 While no scholar has denied the losses that the Parisian object record must have suffered, an alternate, or at least co-contributory, hypothesis for the material disparity in painting has also been put forth. In this understanding of contemporary artistic practice, the most successful Parisian painters were not predominately engaged in the production of easel painting, but instead spent much of their time generating models and cartoons for other media.6 A premise that forces a reorientation of traditional concepts about media segmentation and the autographic artwork, this pattern of artistic multi-tasking at the turn of the sixteenth century is undoubtedly borne out by the material and documentary evidence. The émigré Gauthier de Campes (1468–1531) is a good example of the tendency,

3

4 5

6

translation), M. Hérold, ‘Le triomphe du peintre? 1440–1510’, in L’art du Moyen Âge en France (Ve-XVe siècle), ed. P. Plagnieux (Paris, 2010), pp. 501–53 (p. 508). Archival citations for altarpieces commissioned during this period can be found in E. Hamon, Une capitale flamboyante. La création monumentale à Paris autour de 1500 (Paris, 2011), pp. 271–83; Leproux, La peinture à Paris, pp. 191–2; F. Baron, ‘Enlumineurs, peintres, et sculpteurs parisiens des XIVe et XVe siècles d’après les archives de l’Hôpital Saint-Jacques-aux-Pèlerins’, Bulletin archéologique du CTHS 6 (1971), 77–115. For a full transcription of this contract, see Leproux, La peinture à Paris, p. 191. Scant as it may be, the extant object record only confirms a lost corpus of painted material destined for the church. Painted altarpiece fragments include the famous panels by the Master of Saint Giles in Washington DC and London; a Flight to Egypt and Presentation at the Temple also attributed to the Master of Saint Giles, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; the Master of the Pietà of Saint-Germain-des-Prés’s eponymous painting in the Louvre, a Bearing of the Cross at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, and a currently lost Resurrection, a Presentation at the Temple and Wedding Feast at Cana, Louvre, convincingly associated with the capital by Leproux (La peinture à Paris, pp. 75–89); and a Saint Louis and Donor in a private collection (Sterling, La peinture médiévale, no. 16). A viewpoint that was pioneered by André Chastel, it is Henri Zerner who most thoroughly developed the idea of artistic ‘polyvalence’, see H. Zerner, Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism (Paris, 2004).

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Katherine Baker and his frequent involvement in the production of tapestries and stained glass is known from both documentary evidence and surviving objects.7 The notion of artistic versatility among French painters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was transformative for the field of late medieval art history. With success being measured by the diffusion of an atelier style, the city’s artistic landscape seemed to come to life, and could be studied through a few workshops that frequently participated in collaborations across media. One of the most prominent late-medieval examples was the d’Ypres (Dipre) workshop, a multi-generation enterprise whose members most probably provided designs for such magna opera as the Battle of Troy and Lady of the Unicorn tapestries, the rose window at the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and many of the greatest printed Books of Hours from the period.8 Also associated with surviving painted works, such as the Crucifixion of the Parlement of Paris and the Very Small Hours of Anne of Brittany, the productive polyvalence of the d’Ypres would not have been the norm for the majority of Paris’s seventy or so painters at the turn of the sixteenth century.9 The Cochon clan were a Parisian painting dynasty who made their home on the right bank. From 1391 to the mid sixteenth century, a Cochon resided on the corner of Rue St Denis and Rue aux Ours at the sign of the Croissant d’argent, situated not far from the d’Ypres’s home on Rue Quincampoix.10 With one of the longest pedigrees we have from the Parisian archives, the Cochon family seems to have been a major, or at least venerable, presence in the Parisian artistic milieu. Their succession of names, however, comes with almost no recorded output, the exception being Philippot Cochon, whose work for the hospital of Saint-Jacques aux Pèlerins included painting circled crosses in that building’s choir and a sign

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Leproux, La peinture à Paris, pp. 39–108. In addition to attributing numerous models to Gauthier de Campes, Leproux puts forth a very convincing identification of this artist with the Master of Saint Giles. A connection laid out by N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peinture en France, 1440–1520 (Paris, 1993), three generations of the d’Ypres family have been associated with prominent anonymous artists: André d’Ypres (d. 1450) with the Master of Dreux Budé, Nicolas d’Ypres (d. 1497–1500), also known as Colin d’Amiens, with the Master of Coëtivy, and Jean d’Ypres (d. 1508) with Master of the Very Small Hours of Anne of Brittany. While these identifications have received a certain degree of acceptance, Jean’s abbreviated career and the wide variations in quality of work in the “d’Ypres style” remains debated, although the connection has been affirmed in two exhibition catalogues: M. Wolff, ed., Kings, Queens and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France (Chicago, 2011); and S. Lepape, M. Huynh, and C. Vrand, ed., Mystérieux coffrets: Estampes au temps de La Dame à la licorne (Paris, 2019). The Battle of Troy tapestries are held by the V&A, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Lady of the Unicorn tapestries are at the Musée Cluny, Paris. In Une capitale flamboyante, Hamon states that there were approximately 75 painters in Paris between 1480 and 1515 (p. 278). For discussions of the building’s location, see Paris, Arch. nat., S 1194, no. 6; and Arch. nat., S 1101, 17 February 1536 (n.st.), which is cited in E. Hamon, Documents du Minutier central des notaires de Paris. Art et architecture avant 1515 (Paris, 2008), p. 284.

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Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives with an image of St Avoye.11 This does not mean that the Cochons were not productive, of course. Instead, the projects they engaged in – probably of little cost and relative simplicity – did not produce a paper trail. The general silence of the archival record in regards to more quotidian objects is not absolute, however, and while notarised documents for specific commissions are generally lost (or were never made because of the inexpensive nature of the objects), another type of legal text does offer a view of lost paintings – the aforementioned estate inventories. Typically instigated when assets were significant in size or there was an issue with succession, these sources provide room-by-room repertoires of household goods, including furniture, bedding, manuscripts, jewellery, clothing, tapestries and, of course, paintings. From 1480 to 1515, seventy-three extant estate inventories from Paris have been identified.12 Although not insignificant, this number is certainly below the actual output from the period, and even at the most favorable moment for document survival, the second quarter of the sixteenth century, more than one-third of the city’s practicing notaries are not represented in the archives.13 Taking this deficit into consideration, the set can nevertheless be understood as comparatively representative, as it encompasses a seemingly broad spectrum of Paris’s population, both in terms of professions and levels of wealth. From carpenters and butchers, to squires, labourers, and the wives and mothers of royal administrators, many of this group had painted objects in their possession at the time of death. Of the extant inventories, forty-three contain at least one painted figural composition on a two-dimensional substrate.14 When one includes decorative paintings like bed canopies and chimney covers, the number of inventories with paintings is even larger, increasing to forty-nine, or just over two-thirds of the sample. An important question raised by these documents is the fate of the inventoried works. Certainly, changes in taste would have put the survival of these painted things in question, and some undoubtedly were discarded outright.

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Baron, ‘Enlumineurs, peintres, et sculpteurs parisiens’, p. 97. A primary source for the study of estate inventories is the indispensable M. Jurgens, Documents du Minutier central des notaires de Paris. Inventaires après décès, t.I (1483–1547) (Paris, 1982). My sample also includes two inventories from Hamon, Documents du Minutier central des notaires de Paris, pp. 459–60 and p. 574, and twelve hitherto unpublished inventories found through the searchable database of the Minutier central and sheer luck. Jurgens, Inventaires après décès t. 1, p. 13. Looking at documents in the aggregate is an important technique for understanding lost material culture, even when we acknowledge that the archival record is not perfectly representative, as we neither have every inventory nor are all of the survivors complete (a number are missing pages etc.). The DALME project – The Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe – is a testament to the usefulness of collective data and its cross-disciplinary appeal. As a contributor to this project, in the coming years I will be publishing a number of the inventories discussed here (dalme.org). While most of these works were executed on fabric or wood panel, a few of the inventoried painted objects were on more unusual materials, like slabs of limestone from Tonnerre or the backs of mirrors.

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Katherine Baker The preponderance of devotional subject matter in the data-set may have also marked some for early obsolescence due to changes in religious practice with the rise of Protestantism. The most prominent cause for disappearance, however, seems to have been coded in materiality. From the inventories, we learn that approximately 77% of domestic paintings were executed on fabric, or toile, a support whose fragility is well known.15 In her seminal work on Netherlandish canvas painting in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Diane Wolfthal was able to assemble a corpus of only ninety-four works for her catalogue, a shockingly low number for a region whose cities often included a special professional category for painters who worked on fabric.16 Considering Didier Martens’s estimation that approximately 97 to 98% of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Flemish paintings on canvas are lost, the large proportion of fabric painting in the inventories makes the pitiable state of the Parisian object record more comprehensible.17 An equally crucial line of inquiry that arises from the inventoried paintings is the identity of their makers, meaning do the records allow us to assume that these works were produced within the French capital. While a definite affirmative for every object mentioned is neither possible nor prudent, auxiliary evidence points to a Parisian provenance for much of the work. The documentary trail for Parisian painting begins at the turn of the previous century, with Jehan de Folleville’s amendments in 1391 to the guild rules for the corporation of painters and sculptors.18 Ratified without change in 1548, and thus applicable to the turn of the sixteenth century, most of the notices pertain to the quality of works destined for the public sphere, including polychromed statuary, wall painting, and wood-panel altarpieces. For cloth painting, one article appears especially pertinent. Close to the end of the document, the fifteenth article states: That any painter who makes cloth painting with oil or with distemper is careful to work on fabric that is sufficient and strong so the painting can hold, and that tin is not used, since it is worth nothing (when mixed with) either oil or distemper.19

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Of the 197 painted objects listed in the inventories, 152 mention toile as the substrate. Numerous objects in the set lack a description of the support, however, so this percentage was likely even higher. D. Wolfthal, The Beginnings of Netherlandish Canvas Painting: 1400–1530 (New York, 1989). For a discussion of schilders versus cleederscrivers in Bruges, see pp. 6–8. D. Martens, ‘À propos d’un ‘Tüchlein’ flamand du XVIe siècle conservé au Louvre’, La Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France 36 (1986), 394–402. For a general discussion of paintings on fabric in the English context, see S. E. James, ‘Domestic Painted Clothes in Sixteenth-Century England: Imagery, Placement, and Ownership’, in Medieval Clothing and Textiles 9, ed. R. Netherton and G. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge, 2013), 139–60. R. Lespinasse, Les métiers et corporations de la ville de Paris: XIVe-XVIIIe siècles, 3 vols. (Paris, 1892), III, 192–5. ‘Que nul paintre qui face drap de painture a huille ou a destrampe, se garde de

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Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives In its essentials, this rule reveals that even at the opening of the fifteenth century, Parisian painters were in the habit of executing works on fabric, using both oil-based pigments and distemper.20 Further evidence for the practice of painting on fabric and wood comes from a mid sixteenth century contract of professional association between Louis Dubreuil and Jacques Labbé. First published by Guy-Michel Leproux in 2001, the terms of this 1537 alliance include a detailed list of artistic responsibilities split conveniently into two distinct categories: besogne d’estoffe and besogne de portraiture.21 Perhaps best described as decorative painting, the work of besogne d’estoffe made up the bulk of painters’ quotidian activities, and included working on banners, signs, and coats of arms. Besogne de portraiture, on the other hand, required a level of skill that was not within the realm of all practising painters, not only incorporating the execution of altarpieces, models, and cartoons, but also paintings on wood and fabric that could be used in the home. While only Dubreuil was permitted to execute commissions of besogne de portraiture during the three-year alliance, it is important to note that Labbé would have been allowed to produce the type of figural paintings we see in the inventories after their association had concluded.22 In contrast to many Netherlandish guilds, Paris’s painters were free to execute a variety of painted objects, constrained only by their skill and the market.23 Although we have very little information about the productive contours of these careers, I believe we can safely assume that at least some of Paris’s painters were engaged in production for their neighbours’ homes at the turn of the sixteenth century. Accepting that a significant percentage of the inventoried paintings must have originated in the capital city, inventories can be mined for information about the objects themselves, including cost, material characteristics, and subject matter. Price is a particularly interesting facet of the sample’s data-set, in that it may help to explain the documentary lacunae connecting domestic painting with named artists. Using only the entries where paintings are exclusively appraised, the average valuation for these objects is just under 5 sous parisis.24 Keeping in mind that the sums found in the inventories

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ouvrer sur toille qui ne soit suffisante et forte, pour la paincture soustenir, et n’y face riens d’estaim, car il n’y vaut rien, soit a huille ou a destrampe’, ibid., III, 194. In my translation, I removed superfluous negatives for comprehension. An early example of this type of painting in Paris may be the Vierge au Manteau at Puy-en-Velay, discussed in H. Millet and C. Rabel, La Vierge au manteau du Puy-en-Velay. Un chef-d’œuvre du gothique international (vers 1400–1410) (Lyon, 2011). For a full transcription of the contract of 1537, see Leproux, La peinture à Paris, pp. 198–9. For a discussion of the text, see p. 28. Not necessarily by his hand, we do find a number of figural paintings on fabric in Labbé’s own estate inventory (Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XX, 71; 2 January 1543/44). Hamon, Une capitale flamboyante, p. 36 and p. 278. While many of the paintings were appraised well below the 4.92 sous average, a number of higher-priced outliers are recorded, such as the tapestry models discussed below that were valued at 64 sous parisis.

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Katherine Baker were typically deflated, and purchase prices could have been at least twice the inventoried cost, these figures are nevertheless well below the 100 sous threshold set by the guild in 1391 for when a textual record had to be created for a commission.25 Notarised documents were typically only drawn up when a project was either of significant expense or when the resulting work was individualised with elements like portraits and coats of arms. The ability to repaint wood panels and cut down canvas – overpainting a patron or cutting out a family crest for example – may have always made the issue of resaleability moot. This means that it is likely that documents related to the commission of domestic paintings were never made, and that the only paper trail for this type of object was and will be inventories. Despite the near annihilation of their referents, inventories can be used to formulate some hypotheses about the material qualities of the paintings discussed within their pages. Works on wood panel make up the smallest percentage of inventoried paintings, although an exact number is difficult to determine with precision since the records are inexact as to whether a true panel painting or polychromed relief sculpture is being described, as the term tableau de bois could refer to either technique. It is certain, however, that panel paintings were made in Paris during the period. With its compact composition and relatively small size, the Pietà first published by Sterling in 1990 could easily have been intended for the home (private collection).26 To this we can add a small number of portraits on panel, including the anonymous Man and Woman by the Master of Saint Giles in the Musée Condé (Château de Chantilly, Inv. PE104), and the Portrait of Denise Fournier (lost).27 Paradoxically, in spite of their material survival, portraits are rarely mentioned in the inventories. Only one, very partial document from this sample includes a description of a portrait, stating that the deceased sitter was painted au vif, or in life.28 As noted above, works on fabric make up the largest percentage of the inventoried paintings. In addition to the decoration of bed hangings and chimney covers, two categories of figural painting on fabric are also

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Lespinasse, Les métiers et corporations, p. 194, article 17. While information about the original price of domestic paintings is non-existent for the period, a few examples of potentially comparable works can be found in the account books of Parisian religious establishments. The church of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, for example, paid an unnamed painter 47 sous parisis for the execution of an altar frontal on fabric to be used during Lent (Paris, Arch. nat., H54615; 1505–10). In 1497, the painter Jehan La Trisque received a much smaller sum from the hospital of Saint-Jacques-aux-Pèlerins, being paid only 6 sous for a grisaille altar-frontal on oilcloth (Baron, ‘Enlumineurs, peintres, et sculpteurs parisiens’, p. 114). A number of reasons may be behind this large difference in payment, including the artists’ reputations, the size of the objects, or whether the painters had to provide their own materials. See Sterling, La peinture médiévale à Paris, no. 37. Ibid., no. 39. The Portrait of Denise Fournier was listed at ‘location unknown’ in Sterling’s corpus and has not yet resurfaced. Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 16; 2 March 1501, ‘tableau de la portraiture au vif dudit deffunct’.

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Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives recorded: ymage or tableau paint sur toille, which I will refer to as cloth painting, and the enigmatic and abundant tappis paints, which in the French-English dictionary of Randle Cotgrave (1611) is translated ambiguously as ‘painted tapestry/hanging’.29 Both executed on toile, a generic term for textiles used throughout the inventories, the frequent coexistence of cloth paintings and tappis paints, often within the same entry, would seem to indicate a recognition of difference on the part of appraisers. For example, in an inventory penned for the widowed furrier François Roust in 1505, a single entry includes one dresser, a six-piece woven bench covering with dogs and flowers, an ‘ymage de sainte Barbe painte sur toile’ (image of St Barbara painted on cloth), and finally, two ‘grans tappis paintz sur toille, l’un a la Nativité Nostre Seigneur et l’autre aux Trois Maries’ (large hangings painted on cloth, one of the Nativity of Our Lord and the other of the Three Marys).30 Appraised together, it seems as though Gilles Langlois, the evaluator for this inventory, identified features in these paintings that set them apart. While it would be an overextension of the documentary evidence to state categorically that there were identical criteria amongst appraisers for the particular characteristics of cloth painting versus tappis paints, a comparative approach for the discussion of their material qualities is helpful. In terms of size, very little information remains. For cloth paintings, only one inventory provides dimensions. Owned by at least two generations of the De Marle family, this painting was recorded as a ‘tableau paint sur toille a la Nativité Nostre Seigneur, enchassé en boys, de deux piez de large et de trois piez de hault’ (picture painted on cloth of the Nativity of Our Lord, embedded in wood, of two feet wide and three feet high), meaning approximately 64.8 by 97.2 cm (Fig. 1).31 When compared with contemporary Parisian panel paintings, the Nativity’s size is closer to extant altarpiece fragments than smaller, more domestic devotional images like the Master of Saint Giles’s Virgin and Child with Dragonfly in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Inv. 1975.1.131).32 This cannot be taken as concrete proof, however, that De Marle’s cloth painting was an exceptionally large example of the type, since the comparison is not based on identical media. For the size of tappis paints, the statistical pool is slightly larger, and five examples ranging from 145 cm to 348 cm appear in the inventories. From the household of a butcher in 1500, two tappis paints featuring the vague

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R. Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (London, 1611). Amongst the works on fabric, 28% are cloth paintings and 72% are tappis paints. Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/CXXII, 3; 30 December 1505. Germain de Marle’s painting can be found in his inventory, Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/VIII, 26; 7 January 1507 (nst. 1508). The same object is also recorded in the inventory of Germain’s mother, Marguerite Vivien, Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/VIII, 37; 15 October 1490. Interestingly, the work seems to have appreciated in value over time. In the inventory of Marguerite in 1490, the painting was appraised at 6 solz parisis, while in the inventory of Germain in 1508, it was given a price of 8 solz parisis. The reasons for this monetary gain are unknown. The size of the Virgin and Child with Dragonfly is listed as 26.6 by 18.2 cm.

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Figure 1: Excerpt from the inventory of Germain de Marle, 7 January 1507/08. Paris, Archives nationales, Minutier central des notaires de Paris, box ET/VIII, 26.

subject of ‘pluseurs personnages’ (several figures) were recorded with the length of ‘deux aulnes et demy’, which translates to 290 cm – three times larger than De Marle’s cloth painting of the Nativity.33 An inventory from 1504 records an even bigger tappis paint, this image of ‘pluseures personages’ being ‘trois aulnes de long’ (348 cm).34 The smaller sizes in the sample for tappis paint are still larger than the Nativity: one featuring an ‘ymage de Nostre Dame’ (image of Our Lady) from 1499 measuring ‘V cartiers de long’ (145 cm),35 while another owned by a water valet had a length of ‘aulne et demy’ (174 cm).36 Considering these examples, it appears as though at least one of the differences between cloth paintings and tappis paints was related to dimensions. The ways in which these objects were hung may have also marked their character. Although framing is not universal amongst the cloth paintings, it is fairly common for these objects to be recorded as either enchassé, ensarsellé or encirclé en boys, that is to say with some manner of framing. With the term tappis itself being broadly applied to decorative hangings during the period, one might expect painted tappis to have hung in a similar manner to their woven counterparts. This analogy of use seems borne out by the inventories, and we find many tappis paints hanging directly on the walls without frames and, when older, draped across furnishings such as benches and dressers. While enticing, the presence or absence of a frame does not appear to have been determinant for type, however, since we can also find examples of tappis paints that are enclosed in wooden borders. Granting that it would have required a certain degree of visual acumen on the part of the appraisers, another possible distinction between cloth paintings and tappis paints could relate to materiality, to the substrates used in their execution. From textual evidence that bookends the turn of the sixteenth century, we know that Parisian painters used both linen and hemp as supports for painting.37 Could an element of differentiation, 33

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Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 66; 4 May 1500. For this calculation, I am using the aune de Paris, which equalled approximately 1.16 m. Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 68; 23 September 1504. Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 14; 28 December 1499. Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 66; 24 November 1508. Jehan Lebègue advocated for the use of fine linen in his census of artistic knowledge in 1431, and in 1549, the painters Girard Josse, Pierre Préau,

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Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives then, be one of finer linen used for cloth painting and the lower-cost hemp support for tappis paints? If this is the case, a preliminary question is whether appraisers would have been able to spot the difference. Most often this responsibility in Parisian inventories was occupied by members of the guild of fripiers, or dealers in second-hand goods, whose eyes would have been trained in the differentiation of fabrics. While proficiency with this type of task is frequently on display in the documents, where many pages are taken up by detailed descriptions of bedding and napery, it cannot be guaranteed that their skill would have been capable of recognising these same fabrics once they were covered with layers of pigment. This does not mean, however, that material differences did not exist, and the extant object record does provide some suggestive examples. While no securely Parisian linen paintings survive, material and visual homologues for tappis paints may be found amongst the unique collection of large-scale French fabric paintings at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims, including a set with visual and literary connections to the capital – the Vengeance of Christ (Inv. D.876.1.19, Fig. 2). Painted in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, the seven hangings in this set feature decorative borders and textual insertions that connect them to contemporary woven arts. In terms of media, it is likely that this work used hemp paired with distemper, a combination that has been confirmed through technical study with other hangings in the Reims collection.38 In the French capital, the use of distemper had been practised since at least the fourteenth century, as mentioned in the guild rules of 1391. Some have hypothesised that this medium was the go-to material for hanging cloths across the continent and England during the period, a sentiment echoed by Karl van Mander, who said in his discussion of Rogier Van der Weyden that ‘[i]t was the custom to paint large cloths with large pictures and to decorate rooms with these cloths in place of tapestries, executed in egg or glue tempera’.39 Looking towards the possibly of Parisian examples in Reims, the Vengeance of Christ cycle appears to find its textual source in popular editions of this mystery play printed in Paris, the first produced by Antoine Vérard in 1491.40

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Guillaume and Jean Rondel purchased together an extraordinarily large quantity of hemp, most likely for the execution of entry decorations for Henri II (Leproux, La peinture à Paris, p. 180). L. Chomienne and C. Beugnot, ‘Les détrempes sur toile du musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims: un corpus exceptionnel, une restauration d’envergure, un protocole de nettoyage inédit’, Techné 41 (2015), 94–100. N. Mander, ‘Painted Cloths: History, Craftsmen and Techniques’, Textile History 8:2 (1997), 119–48 (p. 133). In his discussion of technique Mander states that ‘surviving painted clothes are invariably painted in distemper on linen’, although he notes that ‘Hempen canvas and various twills and blended materials […] are recorded for later cloths’ (p. 137 and p. 139). Given that his study begins in the fourteenth century, the combination of hemp and distemper we see in Reims hangings could very well be an example of this ‘later’ tendency. For a thorough discussion of the Vengeance set, including their connection to the history of theatre, see L. Weigert, ‘Cy s’sensuit le mystère: Creating a Spectator

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Katherine Baker Certain compositional elements from the series also reflect this publisher’s printed illustrations, such as the dramatically receding bed of the painted Vespasian’s Sickness and Healing, which recalls the central image of the First Intervention of the Angel in Vérard’s Ars de bien mourir (Fig. 3).41 Published as early as 1492, this book included floriated borders that can also be compared to the Vengeance painting, with curling tendrils and wrapping foliage (Fig. 4). Other cognates to Parisian printing can be found in the Reims collection as well, such as an early sixteenth century painted hanging with Susannah and the Elders (Inv. D.876.1.3), which imitates elements from contemporary Books of Hours, although in reverse. Refreshingly abundant in comparison with the information we have about materials and size, the subjects provided by the inventoried paintings tend to be more clearly recorded.42 Dominated by religious imagery, paintings of Notre Dame make up the largest fraction of the known subject data-set at 20%. While solitary images of Christ’s mother do exist in the Parisian compositional cannon, the most likely configuration for this subject is that of a mother and child, a scene that is in keeping with the iconographic preferences of France’s neighbours.43 Although not as dominant, other compositions are also repeated, including the Crucifixion and images of the Dieu de pitié (probably the Man of Sorrows), at 12% and 7% respectively. While exceptional subjects can also be found – like the tappis paints of an Entry into Jerusalem mentioned in 1498 – the impression the inventories give is one of serial production, of the repetition of subjects, and possibly even compositions, intended for the open market.44 Despite their relative rarity, secular subjects also appear in the inventories. Primarily amongst the tappis paints, earthly subjects like shepherds and birds on millefleur fields certainly reinforce this category’s connection to contemporary tapestries, and it is unsurprising that many references to tappis paints have previously been interpreted as cartoons for the woven arts. This supposition finds support in the domestic remains of men like Germain de Marle, who in addition to his Nativity cloth painting also owned finished tapestries and tappis paints with the same subjects, the

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and a Reader of French Plays’, in French Visual Culture and the Making of Medieval Theater (New York, 2015), pp. 161–88. A popular text with instructions on how to die well, Verard’s Ars de bien mourir was republished multiple times during the 1490s, a testament to public interest in a good death. In the sample, 116 paintings are given clear, recognisable subjects. The remaining works have more ambiguous descriptions such as plusieurs personages, plusieurs ymages, or no subject at all. Images of notre dame de pitié, or the pieta, can also be found as a subject, although in much smaller quantities (4% of the sample). Typically attributed to his pre-Parisian career, four compositionally identical paintings of the Virgin and Child by the Master of Saint Giles are a good example of this type of serialised production (see Sterling, La peinture médiévale, nos 18–21). For the entry with tappis paint featuring an Entry into Jerusalem, see Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 66; 11 July 1498.

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Figure 2: Vespasian’s Sickness and Healing from the Vengeance of Christ series. Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Collection of the Dépôt Hospices civils de Reims, D.876.1.19.

Figure 3: First Intervention of the Angel, in Ars de bien mourir, Antoine Vérard, Paris, 1493/94. Washington DC, Library of Congress, Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Incun.1494.A75.

Parisian Painters and their Missing Œuvres: Evidence from the Archives

Figure 4: Detail: lower border of Vespasian’s Sickness and Healing from the Vengeance of Christ series. Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Collection of the Dépôt Hospices civils de Reims, D.876.1.19.

latter being expressly described as models in his inventory.45 While it is true that painted fabric seems to have been the preferred support for the execution of cartoons in Paris, many of the individuals who owned tappis paints would not have been wealthy enough to commission a tapestry, whether for their own home or the church. This does not mean that these cost-effective decorative treatments exclusively appealed to the thrifty, unable to afford tapestries, however, and tappis paints were equally popular with the more moneyed classes, appearing in great numbers on the walls of their homes. A good example of this phenomenon is the inventory of Marie Turquam. A member of an illustrious Parisian family, she married the equally prominent Nicole Gilles, secretary and notary to Louis XI, comptroller of Charles VIII’s royal treasury, and author of the Annales et chroniques de France (1492).46 They were great patrons of the arts and their homes in Paris and the countryside were furnished with over 100 metres of tapestry, an extensive library, numerous panel and cloth paintings, and thirteen tappis paints. Perhaps a reflection of their owner’s literary bent, the subjects for their tappis paints include some unusual compositions, such as two versions of the Wheel of Fortune. Due to the inexpensive nature of tappis paints, it may be the case that this medium provided a site for experimentation – in content or style – that artists were perhaps not afforded by more luxurious materials. 45

46

‘Item, deux tappiz paincts sur toile nommez les patrons de Habram et de la Vache’ (Item, two painted hangings on cloth named the models of Habram and of the Cow), Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/VIII, 26; 7 January 1507/08. Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 66; November 1500 (first pages missing).

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Katherine Baker This last perhaps is undoubtedly one of the issues we face when dealing with a history of objects without their referents. Engagement with this area of (non-)material history is never a straightforward task, and documents can only say so much. Working in a liminal space, between real and imagined, can often feel slippery, as if one is trying to hold sand in a sieve. With the careful utilisation of the archives, however, the hope remains that through dogged work, we can begin to reconstitute the lost materials of the Middle Ages, coming ever closer to picturing absent visual patrimony.

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12 The Mythical Outcast Medieval Leper: Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints Victoria Yuskaitis

When giving public talks about the archaeology of anchorite cells, I often receive questions from the audience about the distinction between leper and anchorite squints, since both are small windows usually located in the chancel wall of the church, offering a view to the altar. This chapter has developed out of answering these queries, which involves exploring the impact of physical and theoretical reconstructions of the medieval material past. The context that gave meaning to unexplained windows located low in parish church walls, which antiquarians, eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury researchers, called low side windows, is now lost, either through the erasure of other archaeological remains (such as the fragmentary survival of anchorite cells) or through the loss of local memory or church documents that explained the presence and use of windows that now seem arbitrary. Interpreting these features involves a consideration of both lost architecture and lost practices. Antiquarians developed various theories to explain these windows, most of which are now discredited – however, the leper and anchorite squint theories are still popular today and are the only antiquarian theories for low side windows that remain well known, especially in non-academic contexts. This has resulted in re-imaginings of squints as access points for ostracised medieval lepers, and physical reconstructions of anchorite cells that include fabricated squints. Answering questions about anchorite and leper squints involves considering not only medieval responses to lepers, but also modern responses both to the medieval past, and to the diseased and/or marginalised in the present.1 When confronted with a fragmentary medieval past, antiquarian scholars attempted to fill in the gaps with theories rooted in nineteenth-century concerns, and today we continue to reconstruct – physically and theoretically – the leper squint, resulting in real consequences in our present-day world.2 1

2

The term “leper” is here used when referring to the ideas about and perceptions of people diagnosed with leprosy as found in historical sources, in keeping with the concepts put forth in those sources. More person-centred language has been used when referring to people in our own period who have been diagnosed with Hansen’s disease. Twenty-first century scholarship brings many different approaches to the study

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Victoria Yuskaitis This chapter will first describe the leper’s squint theory and place it into its antiquarian and early twentieth century context. Next, an evaluation of the historiography of medieval leprosy will show that the leper’s squint theory is not based on medieval evidence, but on antiquarian assumptions and fears. The following sections will show how leper and anchorite squints are still relevant in current non-academic discourse, even though they are ignored within archaeology and other branches of medieval studies. Squints of both types are a locus for exploring modern anxieties about community, illness, and spirituality. This has become especially relevant since the advent of Covid-19, with physical separation from our everyday communities and concern over spreading illness becoming a new normal. The conclusion will discuss ways to bridge the gap between scholarly and non-academic perspectives of squints, and will highlight how leper and anchorite squints are both medievalisms that create meaningful, if inaccurate, connections between the medieval past and present.

Low Side Window Research The leper’s squint theory evolved out of antiquarian interest in medieval parish church architecture, which became newly visible as plaster was stripped from internal and external walls and significant renovations were undertaken.3 The category of features called “low side windows” encompassed any window or aperture – blocked or open, of any size – set low in the church wall, and some of these features were regularly interpreted as either leper or anchorite squints. For example, apertures sketched in 1874 by the antiquarian Archdeacon Edward Trollope at Dodington Church were both interpreted as low side windows, although the windows differed in style and placement (Fig. 1).4 Another antiquarian, Reverend R. P. Coates, interpreted the window with the desk as an anchorite squint, originally part of a cell.5 Antiquarian-style research into low side windows continued into the early twentieth century.6 By the time Philip Mainwaring Johnston, an antiquarian who published widely on low side window research, discussed Surrey examples in 1899, the leper squint theory was firmly established:

3

4 5 6

of anchorites. For just one recent example, see: C. Gunn and L. Herbert McAvoy, ed., Medieval Anchorites in their Communities (Cambridge, 2017). P. M. Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Sussex Churches’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 41 (1898), 159–202; P. M. Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Sussex Churches’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 42 (1899), 117–79; E. Trollope, ‘Low Side Window in Dodington Church.—Letter from Archdeacon Trollope’, Archaeologia Cantiana 9 (1874), 236–9. Appeal for renovation funds, and a low-side window: F. F. Komlosy, ‘The Parish and Church of Chickney’, Essex Review 36:144 (1927), 161–3. Trollope, ‘Low Side Window’, p. 236. Ibid., p. 239. J. F. Hodgson, ‘On Low Side Windows’, Archaeologia Aeliana 23 (1902), 43–235; F. T. S. Houghton, The Low Side Windows of Warwickshire Churches: A Paper Read to the Birmingham Archaeological Society, Mar. 21st, 1906 (Walsall, 1907).

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints

Figure 1: The two low side windows, facing each other, at Dodington Church, Kent, identified by Archdeacon Edward Trollope, after Trollope’s illustration in ‘Low Side Window in Dodington Church.—Letter from Archdeacon Trollope’, Archaeologia Cantiana 9 (1874), 236.

We have the idea, widely held and of some antiquity, that low side windows were made for the use of lepers and others suffering from infectious diseases, or cagots and excommunicates to assist at Mass and to receive the Holy Communion […]. The existence of a certain number of leper hospitals, with their own chapels, does not do away with the probability that in many cases the parish churches were resorted to by such wandering outcasts.7

7

P. Mainwaring Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Surrey Churches: To Which are Added Some Remarks Upon the Restoration of Warlingham Church’, Surrey Archaeological Collections 14 (1899), 83–133 (pp. 120–1).

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Victoria Yuskaitis Other theories for low side windows were numerous, and included the confessional theory, various forms of the lychnoscope theory (described in more detail below), the sanctus-bell theory and the mortuary office theory. Antiquarians suggested that other secondary uses may have involved ventilation, use as a relic shrine for pilgrims, to offer light in general or for the vestry specifically, as architectural symbolism, for offertory use, for bell ringing, for distributing alms, and for passing a censor.8 Discussing all these theories in detail is beyond the scope of this essay; only the leper and anchorite squint are still well-known today. Antiquarian researchers agreed that low side windows are most likely to have had multiple uses, and that they were too diverse for a single explanation to fit all examples.9 Low side window research lacked consensus, and definitions of these theories varied; the lychnosope theory is a prime example. Johnston described the lychnoscope theory as either relating to viewing the Paschal light or using light to keep demons from graves in the churchyard.10 The former theory was already abandoned by the Cambridge Camden Society which first proposed it by the time Johnston’s article was published.11 Meanwhile, Johnston called the latter theory ‘far-fetched’.12 In contrast, a contemporary assessment of Compton Church by Lewis J. André described a lychnoscope as ‘admirably placed for the administration of the Eucharist in connection with the south altar’, indicating a different purpose from either of the explanations offered by Johnston.13 Johnston argued that the principal use of the majority of low side windows was for confession, as did contemporaries such as John Piggot, but these other theories continued to be supported by various antiquarian researchers.14 As the debate around the use and terminology of low side windows continued, the leper and anchorite squint remained popular as viable interpretations for some side windows. Antiquarian researchers like Johnston often mentioned these features together, and also justified the existence of the leper squint through the anchorite squint: If we know for a fact that the Sacred Elements were administered through an opening in one of the walls of a church to a recluse [anchorite] in his cell, why may not the Host have been conveyed in some cases to those

8

9 10 11

12 13

14

Ibid., pp. 119–26; J. Piggot, ‘On Lychnoscopes’, The Reliquary 9 (1868), 9–16 (pp. 9–13). Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Sussex Churches’, pp. 167–8. Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Surrey Churches’, pp. 121–2. Ibid., pp. 121–2. Society members called themselves Ecclesiologists and sought to restore churches to an idealised medieval template as a way to encourage ‘religious regeneration’. S. Bradley, Churches: An Architectural Guide (London, 2016), p. 143. Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Surrey Churches’, pp. 121–2. A. J. Lewis, ‘Compton Church’, Surrey Archaeological Collections 12 (1895), 1–19 (p. 11). Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Surrey Churches’, pp. 126–33, 167–70; Piggot, ‘On Lychnoscopes’, p. 13.

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints numerous classes of unfortunates, such as the lepers, through some of the openings we class as low side windows?15

These squints shared function and design; they were small openings that allowed a view of the altar, and gave sight-only access to individuals unable to enter the church physically as part of the congregation, due either to sickness or religious vocation. This architectural similarity reinforced the anchorite as metaphorically dead to the world and physically separated from it by the walls of the cell, and the leper as physically part of the world but functionally separated from it. Antiquarians interpreted lepers as outcasts – all but dead to the world in practice, although without the holy sanction of the anchorite.16 The leper’s squint theory was not universally accepted by antiquarians, and criticism continued into the twentieth century. In 1900, Henry Philbert Feasey dismissed the leper squint, which ‘seems to be scouted and ignored of late by modern antiquaries […] for it has been asserted as a fact that the term is scarcely half a century old, having been first applied by Mr. Street’.17 Piggot also mentioned G. E. Street’s popularisation of the leper squint theory, and recounted how in 1848 Street discovered a painting at Eton College Chapel that depicted a Jewish boy being given the Sacrament through a low side window, in the same way that antiquarian researchers assumed lepers would have been treated.18 Nonetheless, Piggot noted that the placement of most low side windows would prevent this purpose, since ‘some are so close to the ground that it would be necessary for the lepers to lie down to see through them, and others are some feet above their heads, and the majority do not command a view of the altar at all’.19 An anonymous review of a book about English architecture written by Francis Bond in 1914 declared the leper squint to be one of ‘several of the fantastic theories which are still prevalent’ for low side windows despite the evidence by ‘antiquarian experts’ – and the reviewer disparagingly described how ‘nevertheless, many a worthy person, and not a few local guide-books, still persist in drawing attention to the “leper windows” of their respective churches’.20 This evident fascination with a version of the medieval world that is harsh, primitive, and reliant on religious belief also served to reinforce the superiority of nineteenth- and twentieth-century innovations. For instance, a 1931 article titled ‘The Leper’s Squint and Rays of Health’ described how injections combatting an infectious disease were given through a small window, thereby harnessing an ‘ancient method’ for modern use:

15 16

17

18 19 20

Johnston, ‘The Low Side Windows of Surrey Churches’, pp. 120–1. Ibid., pp. 120–1. Note that Johnston discussed leper and anchorite squints in the same section, as a single theory for low side window use. H. P. Feasey, ‘Curiosities of and in our Ancient Churches’, The Antiquary 36 (1900), 22–6 (p. 23). Piggot, ‘On Lychnoscopes’, p. 11. Ibid., p. 13. Anon., ‘Fine Arts’, The Athenaeum, 17 January 1914, p. 96.

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Victoria Yuskaitis As in the old days Spiritual consolation used to be given to those unfortunates afflicted with leprosy through a tiny window in the church […] so, in this materialistic age, wherein science has achieved the position formerly held by Religion, the Leper’s Squint […] makes an appearance in the Plague Hospital of China, through which physical, not spiritual aid is given.21

Similarly, Henrietta Auden compared the austere life and strict enclosure of early ascetics ‘especially in the East’ to ‘Hindoo devotees’, and emphasised how later medieval anchorites like Julian of Norwich (1342– c. 1416) practised a more moderate version of the vocation.22 Auden offered no further clarification of this colonialist description, and the rest of the article focuses on later medieval anchoritism. This implicitly portrayed British anchoritism as more sophisticated and rational. Anchorite and leper squints were elements of a more brutal and ignorant medieval past, but also part of what antiquarians viewed as a steady progression towards the scientific advancements of modern Britain. Despite the growing consensus among antiquarian and twentieth-century researchers as to the lack of archaeological or medieval documentary evidence for the leper’s squint, the concept remained popular as a historical attraction for a general audience. For instance, a 1927 article discussing attractions in Bournemouth included a mention of a leper’s squint and Norman Priory, ‘still to be seen in all their glory’.23 The anonymous reviewer of Bond’s 1914 volume included a description of Bond critiquing churches that still advertised leper’s squints in guidebooks, demonstrating that this interpretation of squints remained common.24 Similarly, a 1930 article written by the Hon. Lady Fortescue about English Hospitality described a leper squint in a nearby ‘tiny chapel’ that was part of the idyllic scenery surrounding a country manor house.25 For twentieth-century visitors to medieval churches, the leper squint was a familiar feature, and so recognisable that further explanation of its purpose was unnecessary.

Historiography of the Medieval Leper Although some antiquarians and early twentieth century researchers acknowledged the lack of evidence for the leper squint, the underlying assumptions about medieval leprosy that encouraged this interpretation were widely accepted, and still affect perceptions of leprosy today. Anthony

21 22

23

24 25

Anon., ‘The Leper’s Squint and Rays of Health’, The Sphere, 6 June 1931, p. 429. H. M. Auden, ‘Shropshire Hermits and Anchorites’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological & Historical Society 9 (1909), 97–112 (pp. 100–1). Anon., ‘Bournemouth the Beautiful, The Town of Chine and Shine: The Numerous Attractions Offered by the South Coast Resort’, The Sphere 109, May 21 1927, p. 334. Anon., ‘Fine Arts’, p. 96. Hon. Lady Fortescue, ‘In Time for Tea’, The Graphic, 4 October 1930, p. 20.

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints Weymouth’s Through the Leper Squint: A Study of Leprosy from Pre-Christian Times to the Present Day (1938) is regularly cited in twentieth-century scholarly historical research, even though Weymouth’s perspective is far from the medieval reality.26 In the first chapter, Weymouth translated the ‘Leper’s Mass’, a funeral rite performed over the living leper which concluded with injunctions against interactions with the rest of society.27 This late medieval source was often cited in the late 1800s and 1900s as evidence for the societal separation of lepers.28 However, Weymouth did not provide any context for the translation, and he also placed the ‘Leper’s Mass’ in the same chapter as a news story with a graphic description of the execution of Chinese lepers in 1937, a passage from Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert (published in 1862) describing a deformed leper, a brief excerpt from a commentary on Salammbô focusing on the leper, and two biblical accounts of lepers from Job and 2 Chronicles.29 The chapter concluded without a discussion of these sources, and the overall impression is one of the suffering, hideous, excluded leper throughout the ages, from biblical times to the present. Weymouth’s work evolved out of nineteenth-century concerns over leprosy. Carole Rawcliffe’s Leprosy in Medieval England (2006) showed that interest in medieval leprosy during this time, and an emphasis on the segregated and grotesquely deformed leper, was not coincidental, but directly linked to a medical and moral panic over the disease.30 As the British empire encountered endemic leprosy in colonies, fear grew over the transmission of leprosy to Britain.31 Doctors and clergy in Britain supported strict segregation and used the Middle Ages as an example of successful containment of the disease through the exclusion of lepers from society.32 Some antiquarian researchers criticised this misinterpretation of medieval sources and suggested focusing on environmental or hygienic causes, but the propaganda campaign based around the suffering and isolated leper – an image ‘intended to shock rather than inspire or even moralize’ – drowned out dissenting voices.33

26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33

A. Weymouth, Through the Leper-Squint: A Study of Leprosy from Pre-Christian Times to the Present Day (Plymouth, 1938); C. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2006), p. 21. Examples of twentieth-century Weymouth citations: D. R. Brothwell, ‘Evidence of Leprosy in British Archaeological Material’, Medical History 2 (1958), 287–91 (p. 289); P. A. Kalisch, ‘Tracadie and Penikese Leprosaria: A Comparative Analysis of Societal Response to Leprosy in New Brunswick, 1844–1880, and Massachusetts, 1904–1921’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 47 (1973), 480–512 (p. 480). Kalisch critiqued Weymouth’s volume as ‘popular but very superficial’ in the footnotes; these other examples cite Weymouth uncritically. M. W. Dols, ‘Leprosy in Medieval Arabic Medicine’, Journal of the History of Medicine 34 (1979), 314–33 (pp. 314, 326). Weymouth, Through the Leper-Squint, pp. 14–17. Ibid. pp. 14–17; Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, pp. 19–20. Weymouth, Through the Leper-Squint, pp. 13–21. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, pp. 13–43. Ibid., p. 24. Ibid., pp. 23–5. Ibid., pp. 26, 37.

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Victoria Yuskaitis Missionary activity only reinforced this viewpoint: ‘if the nineteenthcentury bacteriologist had created a dangerously communicable disease, the missionary covered it with a glowing patina of evangelical piety’.34 Working with leper communities was seen as a higher calling akin to sainthood that demanded great sacrifice from the missionary due to the risk of contracting the disease, and treatment followed a medieval model emphasising the spiritual as much as the physical, sometimes much to the frustration of those diagnosed with leprosy.35 Concerns over the spread of leprosy were physical as well as moral; for instance, Archdeacon Wright felt leprosy would also promote ‘promiscuity and racial degeneration’.36 Antiquarian researchers in Britain created an image of the medieval leper that exaggerated suffering and isolation to justify policies of segregation and reinforce British identity in response to interaction from the colonies. Interpreting leprosy within this framework continued until late in the twentieth century, even if Weymouth or his contemporaries were not directly cited. Roberta Gilchrist included a chapter about the archaeology of medieval hospitals in a 1995 monograph, and dedicated one section to leper hospitals or leprosaria.37 Gilchrist claimed that in medieval Europe ‘there was no precise medical definition of leprosy, but rather a clear moral definition […] the disease was generally brought about by sin, particularly sins of a sexual nature’.38 Gilchrist also emphasised segregation and the placement of leper hospitals outside of towns or cities: ‘It has generally been assumed that leprosaria were isolation hospitals, with the aim of segregation taking priority over any form of treatment’.39 However, in 2012 Simon Roffey argued that this perspective is largely due to ‘Victorian scholars’, and that ‘we need to exercise caution with respect to how we understand medieval perceptions of leprosy […] both as a contagious disease that warranted formal segregation, and as a spiritual stigma linked to sin’.40 For instance, Roffey showed that placing leper hospitals on the outskirts afforded many advantages, including plentiful land both for cultivation and for hosting fairs necessary for earning income, access to alms offered by visitors to towns and cities, accommodation for travellers (and therefore more revenue), and identification as status symbols for the patrons of these institutions.41 More recent research evaluating medieval responses to leprosy rejects antiquarian and twentieth-century claims about how leprosy was

34 35 36 37

38 39 40

41

Ibid., p. 31. Ibid., pp. 30–4. Ibid., p. 24. R. Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism (London, 1995), pp. 38–48. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., pp. 40, 43. S. Roffey, ‘Medieval Leper Hospitals in England: An Archaeological Perspective’, Medieval Archaeology 56 (2012), 203–33 (pp. 203, 221). Ibid., pp. 221–2.

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints perceived in the Middle Ages. For instance, Rawcliffe demonstrated that the ‘Leper’s Mass’ first appeared in the Sarum Missal dated to the 1500s, which was copied from a French text – by this time, leprosy was no longer common in England, and it is doubtful that the mass was ever performed in England.42 Similarly, some medieval records referring to the exclusion of lepers survive, but these records are related to specific circumstances and are not injunctions against all those who suffered from leprosy.43 One of Weymouth’s chapters included these kinds of records, but again lacked context.44 Roffey has shown that over 300 documented leper hospitals operated during the Middle Ages, with the majority built before 1400. Many were short-lived, and sometimes converted into more general hospitals.45 This demonstrates that communities planned for and accommodated lepers – these hospitals ‘were clearly recipients of public and civic charity as well as concrete expressions of civic and ecclesiastical responsibility’.46 The abundance of leper hospitals throughout England, often built in conjunction with a chapel, makes the antiquarian leper squint in the parish church designed for the outcast, wandering leper redundant.47 Medieval responses to leprosy varied. Although antiquarian and twentieth-century scholarship focused on medieval accounts in which lepers were considered dangerous, with their illness the result of sin, other texts from this period indicate that lepers were viewed positively. Some theologians associated lepers with Christ: ‘a growing preoccupation with the macerated body of Christ, along with the scorching fires of purgatory, meant that, for many people, the leper seemed to have been blessed rather than cursed by God’.48 Theories about the origin of the disease, and how it spread, also varied, showing that leprosy was not always considered highly infectious.49 Moreover, we now use the term Hansen's disease to refer to a specific condition that was previously often described as leprosy, but in medieval Europe leprosy was an umbrella term for a host of skin conditions.50 Leper hospitals often accommodated other individuals with varied medical conditions, indicating that lepers were not always segregated from others.51 The medieval evidence, then, does not indicate that people with this disease were universally excluded and condemned, as antiquarian and twentieth-century researchers envisioned, but rather that they were often integrated into society, with the illness being interpreted in different ways in specific circumstances. 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51

Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, p. 20. Ibid., pp. 22–3. Weymouth, Through the Leper-Squint, pp. 87–100. Roffey, ‘Medieval Leper Hospitals’, pp. 203, 214. Ibid., p. 221. Ibid., pp. 206, 213. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, p. 354. Ibid., p. 354. Roffey, ‘Medieval Leper Hospitals’, pp. 204, 217; Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, pp. 4–5. Roffey, ‘Medieval Leper Hospitals’, p. 217.

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Victoria Yuskaitis Lepers were also not the only members of the medieval community to be considered dead to the world – anchorites, monks, and nuns took similar vows.52 The vows of anchorites in particular are comparable, and antiquarian researchers like Mary Rotha Clay studied anchorites and lepers, and cited both ceremonies.53 Anchorites were enclosed in cells to ensure they had no contact with the outside world, with the exception of windows – and yet, these individuals were still valued and contributed to the wider community through daily prayer. Religious communities of monks and nuns living in enclosed monasteries and convents that offered limited interaction with those outside of the order were also essential. In the same way, leper hospitals and leprous individuals were part of medieval society, and people with leprosy interacted with and were perceived by the wider community in myriad ways that did not always include segregation, horror, or a presumed link to consequences of sin.54 The idea of the excluded, disfigured leper shunned by society is a product of nineteenth-century anxieties over health and identity that continued to be highly influential into the twentieth century, and not an accurate representation of medieval attitudes towards leprosy. For instance, some twentieth-century advocates protested against the stigma still associated with leprosy, and argued that understanding leprosy through the grim lens of the medieval ‘Leper’s Mass’ relied on ‘Dark Age ignorance’.55 Nineteenth-century fears of leprosy have resulted in a narrative that exaggerates examples of exclusion, and fails to take into context medieval views of illness, medicine, and healing that could include both positive and negative perceptions of leprosy. When the leper is viewed outside this antiquarian legacy and within a medieval context, the leper’s squint no longer makes sense. Neither the documentary nor the archaeological record mention the leper’s squint, and the complex responses to leprosy in medieval documentary records, as well as archaeological evidence for widespread leper hospitals, show that the leper’s squint is an antiquarian invention, not a medieval feature.

The Leper’s Squint Today Even when antiquarian and early twentieth century researchers are not directly cited, the ideas they proposed about ostracised lepers continue to resonate today, in diverse fields, from the sciences to the arts. In 2019, A. MacFarlane used the leper’s squint at St Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick

52 53

54 55

Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, pp. 28–9. R. M. Clay, The Medieval Hospitals of England (London, 1909), pp. 273–6; R. M. Clay, The Hermits and Anchorites of England (London, 1914), pp. 193–8. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, p. 43. Ibid., p. 27. Quoting Stanley Stein, editor of The Star.

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints City, Ireland as a way to ‘explore how the leper squint is an image that we can use to develop our understanding of spaces for participation in primary health care’.56 The leper’s squint is described as: an architectural feature in the outer wall of the 800-year-old building that was designed to allow lepers to see Mass without having to come into the main body of the church. This was because lepers were feared and considered socially undesirable […] they could not be admitted to the main space of the church.57

This evokes the nineteenth- and early twentieth century isolated medieval leper, which the author attempts to ground in historical reality through citing a specific feature. An obituary for Begoña Anne Bovill, a physician who specialised in infectious diseases, stated that Bovill first became interested in the topic through reading an article about leprosy, and recorded her disappointment in failing to find a leper squint in an early medieval church in Dorset.58 Fascination with the physical evidence for the ostracised medieval leper is still present, even outside the field of history, and many church pamphlets still highlight a leper’s squint as a historical point of interest.59 Leper squints also serve as a rhetorical device and as inspiration for the arts. On the eve of the twenty-first century, The Guardian used the leper squint as a metaphor for the Troubles in 1991: Looking at Northern Ireland through its jokes was a leper’s squint on the Troubles, a secret spyhole. You had never seen it from this angle. Never seen it so off guard and unsuspecting. And then again, you were very aware of being on the outside looking in.60

Dorothy Molloy’s 2004 poetry collection Hare Soup included ‘Cast Out’, which described a funeral rite being performed over a medieval leper: She joins the living dead. / At Mass I see her lean into the leper-squint, receive / from some gloved hand the Sacred Host / […] I wear beneath my robe her running sores. Under my hood / her face.61

56

57 58 59

60

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A. MacFarlane, ‘The Helen Lester Memorial Lecture 2018: The Leper Squint: Spaces for Participation in Primary Health Care’, British Journal of General Practice 69 (2019), 255–6 (p. 255). Ibid., p. 255. S. Rose, ‘Obituary: Begoña Anne Bovill’, British Medical Journal 36 (2018), 1–2 (p. 1). Examples of church pamphlets describing an anchorite squint as a leper’s squint include: What to See in the Parish Church of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Ellesmere, Church Pamphlet (Shropshire, undated). Welcome to St Mary’s Acton Burnell: Short Guide for Visitors, Church Pamphlet (Shropshire, undated). The Church of St. Peter Barnburgh (The Cat and Man Church): A Guided Tour, Church Pamphlet (St Peter’s District Church Council, undated), p. 14. N. Banks-Smith, ‘Leper’s Squint at the Troubles’, The Guardian, 16 November 1991, p. 25. D. Molloy, ‘Cast Out’, in Hare Soup (London, 2004), p. 55.

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Victoria Yuskaitis The artist Michael Simpson displayed a series entitled Squint Paintings in a private show in Berlin in 2017, with the squint depicted as ‘a small black square or rectangle, the width of a brushstroke’.62 The leper's squint is described as ‘a small aperture’ for ‘the undesirable viewer’ to participate in the church service, and the paintings create a feeling of ‘social exclusion, ostracizing, and stigmatization’: If […] we are stationed on this side of the wall alongside, or identified with, the undesirable outcast, it is the institutional regime of the church that looks back out at us from the dark unseeing eye of the squint, as impassive as a tinted shatterproof visor concealing a CCTV camera.63

The leper’s squint, then, is hardly an outdated relic; it still functions as a rhetorical device and historical artefact in various perspectives, and explicitly references beliefs about medieval leprosy grounded in eighteenthand nineteenth-century anxieties, despite current scholarly research that has challenged the outcast medieval leper.

Leper and Anchorite Squints: Scholarly and Non-Academic Perspectives A sharp division between current scholarly and non-academic responses to the leper squint is evident: scholarly analysis disregards the leper squint, but for a non-academic audience, the leper squint is still relevant both as a metaphor and as an architectural feature. For example, Gilchrist’s archaeological analysis of leper hospitals and anchorite cells discussed anchorite squints at various sites, but mentioned leper squints only once: ‘Evidence for anchorholds [anchorite cells] was compiled by antiquaries who stripped render and unblocked openings in search of “low side windows” and the mythical lepers’ squints in chancel walls’.64 Gilchrist offered no further analysis. Roffey’s archaeological investigation of leper hospitals also did not refer to leper squints, even in the context of discussing antiquarian perceptions.65 Rawcliffe’s thorough examination of nineteenth-century attitudes towards medieval leprosy again did not mention the leper squint, although Weymouth’s work was referenced.66 My research has shown that current scholarship on anchoritism focuses on literary instead of archaeological evidence, and also fails to place squints within an archaeological context.67 Eddie A. Jones has described this situation aptly: 62

63 64

65 66 67

A. R. Price, ‘On the Leper Squint paintings of Michael Simpson’, Journal of Contemporary Painting 4:2 (2018), 249–65 (p. 257). Ibid., pp. 257–8. Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action, pp. 8–61 (hospitals), pp. 157–208 (anchorites), p. 192 (quote). Roffey, ‘Medieval Leper Hospitals’, p. 229. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, p. 21. V. Yuskaitis, ‘Archaeology and Medievalism at Julian of Norwich’s Anchorite

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints It is a brave historian who postulates the presence of an anchorite on architectural evidence alone […]. In such cases documentary evidence is the ‘gold standard’, without which the architectural testimony is only doubtfully admissible.68

Since the anchorite squint as a feature has received comparatively little scholarly attention, it is no surprise that the related leper’s squint is ignored in current research.69 A brief reference to lepers’ squints in the context of anchorite squints at a 2019 academic conference is the only recent scholarly response I have found.70 This is partly because low side window research was a catch-all for a variety of features with different purposes, and is no longer used as a research category; however, the Figure 2: The so-called squint at St Julian’s lack of engagement with the leper’s Church, Norwich. squint despite its influence well into the twentieth century is surprising. Although recent scholarly analysis has ignored the leper’s squint, popular interest in squints – associated with both anchorites and lepers – is still sustained. The squint is central to modern adaptations of anchorite cells at King’s Lynn, Chester-le-Street and Norwich, where visitors can connect with anchoritism in a physical way.71 Julian of Norwich’s cell is more accurately described as a shrine, as it was completely rebuilt after substantial damage from the Second World War and constructed for a modern audience, which includes visitors from around the world.72 These

68

69

70

71 72

Cell’, Studies in Medievalism 29 (2020), 123–54 (pp. 125–31). E. A. Jones, ‘Hidden Lives: Methodological Reflections on a New Database of the Hermits and Anchorites of Medieval England’, Medieval Prospography 28 (2013), 17–34 (p. 28). M. M. Sauer, ‘Architecture of Desire: Mediating the Female Gaze in the Medieval English Anchorhold’, Gender and History 25 (2013), 545–64. This is an unusual example where the anchorite squint is directly addressed in current scholarship; however, the analysis is still grounded in a literary instead of archaeological framework, and I disagree with Sauer’s gendered interpretations. The leper squint is not mentioned. M. M. Sauer, ‘Caskets, Purses, and Chests: The Shape of Anchoritism in Medieval England’, Session 1338, ‘Vessels of the Spirit: Recluses, Reliquaries, and Architecture’, presented at Leeds International Medieval Congress, 3 July 2019. Yuskaitis, ‘Archaeology and Medievalism’, pp. 143–50. Ibid., pp. 123, 150.

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Victoria Yuskaitis spaces all emphasise the squint – even though the “squint” at the Norwich cell is a full-length lancet window, while the “squint” at King’s Lynn is a repurposed piscina (Figs. 2–3). The squint at Chester-le-Street is part of a medieval cell that has been remodelled into a museum, which has obscured much of the medieval fabric (Figs. 4–5).73 Meanwhile, church pamphlets continue to highlight leper squints and describe isolated medieval lepers, who would need the squint ‘to see the blessing of the bread and wine at services they were not allowed to attend’.74 The diamond-shaped squint at Barnburgh is described as a leper squint and reliquary (according to the pamphlet available at the site). After being used for lepers, the niche held ‘the heart of a king who died abroad […] encased in a lead box, Figure 3: The so-called squint at All Saints, surrounded by jewels, and placed in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. this niche’ (Fig. 6).75 Since no current academic scholarship about leper squints is available, amateur historians rely on antiquarian or twentiethcentury interpretations.76 Moreover, as indicated above, anchorite and leper squints are often referenced together in antiquarian sources, thereby emphasising connections between these features. These factors play a significant role in the prevalence of church pamphlets mentioning anchorite and leper squints. Current academic scholarship views antiquarian research on anchorite cells as outdated, biased, and not rigorous enough for modern standards, an attitude apparent in the works discussed above that mention both anchorite and leper squints.77 This perception of antiquarian scholarship can also be seen, for example, in Liz Herbert McAvoy’s and Mari HughesEdwards’s characterisation of antiquarian research as permeated by ‘traditionalist and masculinist intellectual thought’.78 This has been a 73 74 75 76 77

78

Ibid., pp. 146–50. Welcome to St Mary’s Acton Burnell, Church Pamphlet. The Church of St. Peter, Church Pamphlet, p. 14. Ibid., p. 27. Note the antiquarian and twentieth-century sources cited. A. B. Mulder-Bakker, ‘Foreword’, in Anchorites, Wombs and Tombs: Intersections of Gender and Enclosure, ed. L. Herbert McAvoy and M. Hughes-Edwards (Cardiff, 2005), pp. 1–5 (pp. 1–2). L. H. McAvoy and M. Hughes-Edwards, ‘Introduction’, in Anchorites, Wombs

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints major factor behind the lack of research into anchoritic archaeology, as the descriptions offered in antiquarian reports are often dismissed despite the importance of the data.79 My own archaeological methodology separates antiquarian interpretation from data so that these sources can be used effectively.80 Similarly, I argue that the so-called leper’s squint has not received further academic analysis because of its association with antiquarian research. Other antiquarian explanations for low side windows remain unaddressed Figure 4: The so-called squint at the Church of St for the same reason. Current Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street, Durham. scholarly historical discourse has refuted the nineteenthcentury image of the disfigured and ostracised leper, but has not addressed the leper’s squint; however, popular and non-historic perspectives tend to view the leper’s squint as integral to understanding medieval leprosy, and also sometimes as a lens through which to analyse modern attitudes to disease and social isolation. More research is necessary to articulate a different interpretation for windows previously considered by antiquarians to be lepers’ squints, as these features are currently insufficiently studied. It is certainly the case, as I have shown elsewhere, that at least some windows that antiquarians considered to be lepers’ squints functioned as anchorite squints instead.81 Apertures and niches within parish church chancels are common, and consideration of the individual context of specific churches is essential to assess the use of such features.82 The antiquarian impression that low side windows served myriad and sometimes multiple uses is reasonable. However, the historiography of the leper squint shows that the concept

79

80 81

82

and Tombs: Intersections of Gender and Enclosure in the Middle Ages, ed. L. Herbert McAvoy and M. Hughes-Edwards (Cardiff, 2005), pp. 6–26 (p. 7). Ibid., p. 7; B. Hasenfratz, ‘The Anchorhold as Symbolic Space in Ancrene Wisse’, Philosophical Quarterly 84 (2007), 1–22 (p. 7); Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action, p. 192. Yuskaitis, ‘Archaeology and Medievalism’, pp. 125–6. My Ph.D. research indicates these three squints are anchoritic: V. C. Yuskaitis, ‘Anchorites in Shropshire: An Archaeological, Historical, and Literary Analysis of the Anchoritic Vocation’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2020); What to See in the Parish Church of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Church Pamphlet; Welcome to St Mary’s Acton Burnell, Church Pamphlet; The Church of St. Peter, Church Pamphlet. Yuskaitis, ‘Archaeology and Medievalism’, p. 125.

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Victoria Yuskaitis

Figure 5: View of the second storey of the anchorite cell in which the squint is found, which has now been repurposed into a museum, Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert, Chester-le-Street, Durham.

originated with antiquarian assumptions about uses of low side windows, and that the leper squint has no medieval provenance. Nonetheless, the continued interest in leper and anchorite squints shows that these architectural features still serve as a locus for current ideas and fears about access, illness, and separation, and this enduring fascination with the leper’s squint deserves further analysis.

Conclusions The architectural features often described as squints stand today as fragmentary reminders of a lost medieval past, lost in the sense of both material remnants and knowledge of cultural practices. Our interpretations of these material remains, for various audiences and as part of multiple discourses, reflect our own concerns as much as, indeed

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints often more than, the concerns of people who lived in medieval Europe. Engaging with the historiography and perception of the leper’s squint over time is essential to addressing misconceptions about the apertures often described with this term, as well as medieval responses to leprosy. Churches that already highlight the presence of a leper’s squint could use interest in the feature to prompt reflection about the Figure 6: The anchorite squint at St Peter’s process of historical interpreChurch, Barnburgh. tation and the reasons behind the continued popularity of the so-called leper’s squint today. The squint could function as a powerful indicator of how ideas about the past continue to influence current perceptions and anxieties. Even though the leper’s squint is not a medieval reality, it is a tangible reminder of a constructed medieval past. In this way, the leper squint and the anchorite squint come full circle. Julian of Norwich’s cell is a medievalism constructed for modern visitors seeking a genuine connection with Julian of Norwich.83 In contrast, the squint is a medieval architectural feature, still extant at many locations, unlike Julian’s cell which is fully a post-medieval construction. However, interpreting the squint as a leper’s squint relies on a constructed version of the medieval past, consciously created in response to post-medieval concerns. Drawing attention to this might enable visitors to these sites to recognise the differences between the medieval past as it exists in popular imagination, and our demonstrable knowledge of that historical past. The leper’s squint also highlights questions about the accessibility of scholarly research, and the kind of research scholars publish. The communities with which I have interacted through public engagement activities are interested in local history, as shown through their personal research at local archives and libraries, and online. The most accessible material is antiquarian up to early twentieth century, with the most current scholarly research about medieval leprosy remaining inaccessible behind paywalls. Current scholarly books are also often not available at local libraries. Even at this level, scholars need to consider the audience they are writing for, and how to disseminate research most effectively. These concerns are part of a much wider conversation about writing for non-scholarly audiences and the importance of disseminating research beyond academic

83

Ibid., pp. 150–2.

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Victoria Yuskaitis institutions. The leper’s squint demonstrates not only that there is interest in this topic beyond the academy, but also that engaging local communities is imperative to exploring both medieval history, and the ways in which medieval history and architecture continue to influence communities and individuals today. Public engagement of this type would encourage a two-way dialogue between communities and experts about how the leper squint has shaped real and imagined cultural backgrounds, while also raising the perceived value of historical research in academia. The leper’s squint still plays a role in shaping how individuals view themselves, their local history, and their environment. This is especially evident when considering other outdated suggestions for low side windows proposed by antiquarians; only the leper and anchorite squint remain well-known, showing that the idea of the isolated leper and the devout anchorite still resonate. Similarities between the anchorite and leper squint are evident: both function as medievalisms and engage viewers with ideas about isolation and community participation (or the lack thereof).84 The leper’s squint is also a locus to explore fear and potential stigma over illness, and the link or divide between illness and spirituality. Although the medieval ostracised leper is ultimately an antiquarian bogeyman, this image references current concerns, such as refugees requesting asylum; anxiety over border relations, sometimes expressed through worries over exposure to disease; the social stigma involved with diseases such as HIV; and the role of prayer in recovering from illness, or the role of sin in becoming ill. Indeed, the leper squint is now more relevant than ever: quarantine and social distancing guidelines made necessary by Covid-19 have forced us to consider how to maintain our connection to community rituals key to our humanity, while also protecting our own health and the health of those around us. Even the strict enclosure of the anchorite, allowed to view the world only through small windows, encourages us to consider our own enclosure and separation from the familiar – and also to consider how the anchorite created meaning out of a physically restricted existence. The squint was the connector to community for both the mythical outcast leper and the literally enclosed anchorite, making this feature an important focal point in exploring ideas of connection, illness, community and physical separation. The medieval anchorite and leper squint continue to impact current perceptions because interpretations of squints engage with ideas of a romanticised medieval past, constructed as a response to the loss of context that provided meaning for low side windows. Although anchorites are well attested in the historical record, unlike the outcast medieval leper invented by antiquarians, both are lost in the sense that, while some people today do choose an eremitic lifestyle and some suffer from Hansen’s disease, neither the anchorite nor the leper are still part of our everyday social fabric. At the same time, medieval architecture that may have clarified

84

Ibid., pp. 150–2.

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Perceptions of Leper and Anchorite Squints the uses of some of these windows, such as a complete anchorite cell, rarely survives.85 The fascination with the anchorite and the leper show the simultaneous idealisation of the medieval as spiritually pure, and the condemnation of the medieval as barbaric and backwards, with modern attitudes demonstrating progression towards further sophistication. On the one hand, the devotion to God shown by the anchorite and the leper’s dedication to participating in the church service despite such extreme isolation are admired; on the other, the practices themselves are viewed as inhumane and shocking. I met one visitor at the cell of Julian of Norwich who was overwhelmed with emotion at the thought of Julian enclosed in a cell so small and wretched – and yet she found deep personal meaning in Julian’s writings, and respected her commitment to her faith. The wandering leper and tranquil anchorite are technically lost to modern society. While the architectural feature known as the squint can be seen to offer clues to their experiences, the gaps in our knowledge of such features have been used to reconstruct these figures through interpretations that reinforce antiquarian assumptions about medieval lepers and romanticised ideas about spiritually pure anchorites that reached heights of devotion no longer seen today.

85

I argue that more archaeological features of anchorite cells survive than is often claimed, however, complete cells are rare. The only ones that I know of are located at Much Wenlock, Shropshire; Compton, Surrey; and Chester-le-Street, Durham (although as already stated, this cell has been significantly altered).

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285

Index of Manuscripts Bern, Burgerbibliothek MS 611  28 n.6 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 7  144 n.23 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 16  105, 114 n.2 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26  94 n.10, 105, 114 n.2 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 144  36 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 319  46 n.30 Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.1 (Liber Eliensis E)  58 n.2, 60–2, 64, 66, 68, 70 Cambridge, Trinity College MS O.2.41  58 n.2, 59 n.4–5, 62 Cambridge, Trinity College MS R.4.11 79 Cambridge, University Library Ely Diocesan Registry, Liber M  58 n.2 Cambridge, University Library MS EDC 1 (Liber Eliensis F)  58 n.2, 60–2, 64, 66 Cambridge, University Library MS Ff.1.29 79 Chantilly, Musée Condé MS 65  169 Dublin, Trinity College MS 177  94 n.10, 105, 109–10, 114, 120, 139–40 Exeter, Cathedral Library MS 3501  19, 28–39 Hildesheim, Dombibliothek HS St. God. 1 (The St Albans Psalter)  94, 103, 105, 107, 111 n.46 Hildesheim, Dom Museum, Domschatz 18  93–4 London, British Library Add. MS 9822  67 n.65 London, British Library Add. MS 36615 163 London, British Library Cotton MS Claudius B II  104 n.36

London, British Library Cotton MS Claudius B VI  3 n.10, London, British Library Cotton MS Claudius E IV  130, 151 London, British Library Cotton MS Cleopatra A III  36 London, British Library Cotton MS Cleopatra E IV  87, 138, 139 n.11, 143, 156 London, British Library Cotton MS Domitian A XV  58 n.2, 61-2 London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D I  8, 91 n.3, 95 n.15, 114, 116, 119–20, 127–9, 134, 139 n.11, 140–1 London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D IV  3 London, British Library Cotton MS Nero D VII  117, 132–4, 138, 139 n.11, 144–50, 153 London, British Library Cotton MS Otho B IV  91 n.4 London, British Library Cotton MS Otho B VI  3 London, British Library Cotton MS Tiberius A VI  58 n.2 London, British Library Cotton MS Titus A I  58 n.2, 61–2 London, British Library Cotton MS Vespasian B XIX  79 London, British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A XV  3, 16 London, British Library Cotton MS Vitellius D XV  83 London, British Library Harley MS 1005 83 London, British Library Harley MS 2278  9, 10 London, British Library Harley MS 5102  104 n.36 London, British Library Royal MS 14 C VII  114 n.2, 118, 139 n.8 London, British Library Yates Thompson MS 47  9, 10 Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum MS Ludwig XI 7  169–70 Munich, Bayern Staatsbibliothek Clm. 2592  42 n.10

286

Index of Manuscripts Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 240  84 Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 297  83, 86 Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 647  58 n.2 Oxford, Corpus Christi College MS 157  83 Oxford, University College MS 165  104 n.36 Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/VIII, 26  235 n.31, 236, 241 n.45 Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/VIII, 37  235 n.31 Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 14  236 n.35 Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 16  234 n.28

Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 66  236 n.33, n.36, 236 n.44, 241 n.46 Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XIX, 68  236 n.34 Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/XX, 71  233 n.22 Paris, Arch. nat., Min. cent., ET/CXXII, 3  235 n.30 Paris, Arch. nat., H54615  234 n.25 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France Clairambault 471  160 n.10 Wormsley Library MS 6  102, 104 York, Minster Archives MS XVI.1.II. 42

287

General Index Abingdon 2–3 Adrian IV, pope  144–7, 156 Æthelred II, king  131–3, 142–3, 146, 150 Africa  28, 191–2 Alan Strayler  132 Alban, saint  37, 94–5, 97–8, 103, 105–11, 115–16, 121–2, 132, 137, 139–40, 155 Relics of  99, 108–9, 154 n.44 Reliquary of  123 Shrine of  8 n.23, 147–8 Aldhelm  28, 30 n.14, 32 Alexis, saint  155 Altars  24, 46–7, 49–50, 52, 54, 56, 81, 84, 93–5, 99, 111–12, 120–4, 137, 154 n.46, 211, 216–17, 220, 226, 243, 246–7 Altarpieces  229, 232–3, 235 Amphibalus  98, 116, 123–4, 139–40, 154 n.44 Anchorites  12, 243–8, 252, 254–61 Anketill, goldsmith  122, 132 Andreas (poem)  34 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle  20, 27 Antoine Vérard  237–8, 240 Archaeology  4, 6, 8, 12–14, 17, 23, 27, 29, 38, 130, 243–4, 250, 252, 254, 257 Aristotle  69, 162, 218 Arm rings  22–3 Armoires (see cupboards) Ashburnham House fire  3, 16, 83 Augustine of Canterbury, saint  27 Augustine of Hippo, saint  32, 52, 55–6

Boxes (see also caskets)  74, 85, 88, 122, 151, 153, 158, 161, 163, 167, 176, 184–9, 191–2, 194–6, 199, 201, 203–4, 206, 210–13, 215, 256 Brass  48, 155, 201, 213, 215, 218, 222, 224 Bury St Edmunds  7, 10, 61, 63 n.18, 64, 77–8, 83–9 Byrhtnoth Tapestry  100

Barnburgh, St Peter’s church  253 n.59, 256, 259 Baudri de Bourgeuil  4 Bayeux Tapestry  4, 100 Bede  27, 58 Bells  47, 120–1, 144, 246 Beowulf  3, 6, 15–22, 26–8 Bernard of Clairvaux  126–7 Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim 93–4 Boethius 20 Bournemouth 248

Cameos  121–2, 127, 131–2, 136, 142–3, 146, 150, 156–7, 213, 215–19, 221 Candles  84, 86, 121 Candlesticks  88, 121–2, 124–7, 186, 188, 192, 194–7, 201–6, 215, 221 Canterbury  42, 63 n.18, 79–82, 87, 137 n.5 Cathedral  4–5, 7, 77–82, 87–9, 101, 112 Caskets  158, 161–4, 171, 175–6, 194, 199, 201, 212–14 Chalices (see also cups)  65, 71, 125, 144, 210 Charles V, king of France  168, 175, 182–7, 194 Charles VI, king of France  182–90, 192, 200, 203, 205, 215 Charters  58, 61, 63 n.18, 65, 72, 115, 120, 125, 134, 140, 144, 146–7, 150 Chess pieces  167, 186, 188, 192, 195–6, 201, 204, 210, 212, 215, 222–3 Chrétien de Troyes  163–4, 176 Christ, images of  99, 100 n.31, 112, 123, 134, 172 n.51, 179, 185, 237 Christopher, saint  185 Clémence de Hongrie  159–71, 173–7, 181–2, 184, 187–8, 190–1, 211 Cochon family  230–1 Coconuts  213, 219–20 Coins  13, 21–2, 25, 120, 144, 213 Columns  44, 47–8, 54, 56 Combs  158, 161, 167, 169, 171–2, 174–6, 185, 188–9, 192, 210, 213 Coventry 1 Crosses  2–3, 14–15, 23, 47, 68, 71, 73, 84, 87, 116, 123–6, 139–40, 143, 157, 185, 187, 190, 207–8, 216, 218–19, 222, 230

288

General Index Cupboards   74, 123 n.45, 143, 184, 186, 189, 201, 204, 206 Cups (see also chalices, mazers)  15–18, 85, 88, 125–6, 169, 185–6, 188, 190 n.54, 191, 207, 210–11, 213, 217–20, 225 Cuthbert, saint (see also Durham)  100, 125–6, 155 De Marle family  235–6 Dodington 244–5 Dragons  15–18, 20–2 Drinking vessels (see cups) Durham  82, 100, 154, 155 n. 48, 257–8 Eadmer of Canterbury  63 n.18, 81–2, 88 Ebony  167, 195, 197, 212 Edgar, king  68, 71, 73, 75 Edmund, saint  9–10, 84–7, 154 n.44 Edmund Rich, saint  131 Eleanor of Castile  92 Eleanor of Provence  125, 127 Elias of Dereham  123 Ely  7, 9, 58–76, 99 Embroidery (see also textiles)  65, 73, 91, 92 n.6, 97–101, 104, 125, 185, 215, 220, 226 Étienne Boileau  173–5, 192 Eustace, saint  151–3 Fire (see also Ashburnham House)  2–3, 5, 7, 9, 16, 24, 63 n.18, 77–89, 112 n. 51, 122, 160, 221, 251 Fly swatters  186, 191–2, 197, 201 Galloway Hoard  15, 23–6 Gauthier de Campes  229–30 Gems (see jewels) Geoffrey, abbot of St Albans  8 n.23, 95, 98–100, 107–8, 112, 122 Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances  65 Geoffrey of Monmouth  2 Gervase of Canterbury  5, 7, 78–89, 112 n. 51 Gesta abbatem monasterii Sancti Albani  8, 95–9, 114–24, 132, 134, 137–40, 143, 151, 153–6 Glass (see also mirrors, windows)  40–1, 53, 91, 94, 111–12, 195, 199, 203, 210, 218, 220, 227, 228, 230 Gold  2–3, 9, 14, 19–20, 22, 48, 59, 66, 68–9, 73, 81, 85, 87, 94 n.9, 95 n.15, 117–18, 121–4, 126–7,

130–1, 142–4, 150, 153, 163, 166, 168–9, 180 n.3, 184, 187–91, 193–4, 196–7, 199–200, 205–10, 213–17, 219–23, 225–7 Goldsmiths  118–24, 131, 167 n.31, 190 Gospel books  3, 70–2, 93–4, 126 Gregory the Great, pope  48 Hacksilver 23 Hagiography  2, 7, 58, 78, 81, 124, 154 Hammerwich 14 Hangings  9, 84, 88, 90–5, 99–101, 111–12, 134, 153, 196, 207, 213, 222, 225–7, 234, 236–8 Hedwig, saint  169–70 Henry III, king of England  123, 125, 134 Henry VI, king of England  115, 134, 147, 149–50 Henry of Blois  130, 142, 143 n.21 Hoards (see also Galloway Hoard, Leominster Hoard, Staffordshire Hoard)  6, 13–26 Honorius Augustodunensis  7, 40–57 Horns  35, 125–6, 144, 186, 196–7, 203, 205, 207, 215 Hugh of Saint Victor  5, 44–6, 49, 51–3, 56 Icebergs  30, 34–5, 38 Ink pots  186, 197 Inventories  7–9, 11, 58–76, 90, 96, 137, 140, 144 n.24, 153–4, 158–228, 231–41 Ivory (see also caskets, mirrors)  1, 3, 9, 11, 122, 125–6, 153, 158–227 Jacques Labbé  233 Jean, Duc de Berry  169, 175–6, 182–5, 187–90, 208, 218 Jean Hamelet  229 Jean le Bon  182, 186, 190 n.50 Jeanne de Boulogne  182, 184–5, 190 n.50 Jeanne d’Évreux  167, 175, 182, 184 n.23, 191 Jehan Le Seeleur  158, 171–5, 177 Jerusalem  49, 80 Jewels (see also joyaux)  5, 8–9, 16, 41, 59, 66, 70, 112, 114–16, 119, 121–5, 127–36, 140–3, 156, 166, 176, 182 n.9, 207, 231, 256 Emeralds  87, 127, 130, 187, 207, 215–16, 219–20, 225 Pearls  130, 142–3, 187–8, 190, 195, 200, 207, 212, 214, 216–17, 221–3, 225–7

289

General Index Rubies  127, 130–1, 187–8, 190, 196, 199, 207, 216–17, 220–1, 223, 225–7 Sapphires  127, 130–1, 142, 187–8, 190–1, 200, 207, 212, 217, 219, 221, 223, 225–7 Jocelin of Brakelond  7, 9, 77–8, 83–9 John, saint, images of  2, 84, 123–4, 167–8, 171, 173, 191, 195, 208–10, 212, 227 John Beleth  43–4 John, bishop of Ardfert  124, 131 John de Crundale  130 John de Maryns, abbot of St Albans 147–8 John de Wymondham  127 John Lydgate  9–10 John Whethamstede, abbot of St Albans  147, 149 Joyaux  167, 169, 176, 187–91, 203, 207–10 Julian of Norwich  248, 255, 259, 261 King’s Lynn  255–6 Knife handles  175, 186, 196–7, 199–201, 203, 205, 211, 215–17 Lancelot 162–3 Leofric, abbot of St Albans  121–2 Leominster Hoard  15, 20–1, 23–6 Lepers 243–61 Leper’s Mass  249, 251 Liber benefactorum (of St Albans)  9, 117, 123, 130, 132–3, 137–8, 143–51, 154, 157 Liber Eliensis  7, 58–76, 99 n.27 Limerick 252–3 Liturgy  7, 40–4, 49, 54–6, 59, 70–1, 93–5, 115, 136 Louis, saint  134, 168, 185, 204 Louis d’Anjou  182–4, 187 Louis Dubreuil  233 Lychnoscopes 246 Mahaut d’Artois  158–68, 171–8 Marble  86, 150, 215 Marie of Brabant, queen  172–3 Marie Turquam  241 Master of Saint Giles  229 n.5, 230 n.7, 234–5, 238 n.44 Matthew Paris  7–8, 91 n.3, 92, 94–8, 105, 107–8, 114–35, 137–43, 146, 150, 154, 156 Mats  2, 83–4, 88 Mazers  144, 147, 156 Metal-detection  8, 13, 21–2, 25, 130

Mirrors  1, 158, 167, 169, 171–2, 174, 176, 185–6, 188–90, 192, 194–5, 199–201, 206, 210–11, 213, 216–17, 219, 227, 231 n.14 Nigel, bishop of Ely  59, 63, 67–8, 72–4 Norwich, St Julian’s church  255–6, 259, 261 Odo of Cambrai  43 Odo of Châteauroux  40, 51, 55 Offa, king  98, 108, 110, 120, 125, 137 Orderic Vitalis  1, 83 Oswald, saint  82, 184 n.44 Oswine, saint  154–6 Painting  11, 117, 123–4, 134, 137, 143, 147 n.29, 185–6, 193, 195, 213, 228–42, 247, 254 On textile  84, 231–41 On wood  5, 181 n.6, 210, 223, 232–5, 241 Tappis paints 235–41 Wall paintings  1, 4–5, 91, 94, 112, 230, 232 Paris  11, 162, 158, 183–4, 189, 192, 221, 228–42 Bastille  184, 189 Notre-Dame Cathedral  3, 77, 80 Saint-Victor, abbey of  5–6 Sainte-Chapelle  160, 169, 171, 173, 230 Trésor des Chartes  160 Paul of Caen, abbot of St Albans  98 n.24, 121 Pendants  22, 127, 131, 212, 215 Pilgrims  94–5, 246 Prittlewell 6 Ralph of Diceto  87–8 Ranulf Flambard  66, 69, 72 Ratramus, abbot of Corbie  52–3 Relics  3, 77, 80–1, 84, 86–8, 94, 98–100, 107–9, 116, 120–3, 126, 139, 144, 147, 153–5, 189–91, 201, 215–16, 219, 246 Reliquaries  1, 3, 8, 71, 80, 85, 95, 101, 104 n.36, 112, 114, 121–3, 136, 151–6, 164 n.22, 188, 190, 208–9, 216–17, 221, 256 Richard Animal  127, 142 Richard d’Aubigny, abbot of St Albans  95, 97–100, 105, 107–8, 112, 121, 124, 151, 153–6 Richard of Saint Victor  44, 53–4

290

General Index Richard of Wallingford, abbot of St Albans 143 Riddles  6, 19, 28–39 Rings  8, 22, 127–31, 140–4, 155, 187, 190, 207, 214, 219, 221–2, 225 Robinet d’Estampes  183, 185, 187–8, 208, 218 Roger of Howden  87 Rooves  53, 77, 80, 82, 87, 123 Rupert of Deutz  43 St Albans Abbey  2, 5, 7–9, 90–157 Abbots of (see individual names) Saint-Denis, abbey  81, 93, 112, 127 Salt cellars  169, 212, 219, 225–7 Samson, abbot of Bury St Edmunds  83, 86–7 Scissors  199, 211, 215 Simon, abbot of St Albans  123, 143 Ships  6, 19, 27–39, 169 Shrines  2, 4–5, 7–10, 68, 71, 78, 84–7, 94–5, 99, 101, 104 n.26, 112, 115, 121–7, 131–2, 147–8, 150, 153–4, 246, 255 Silver  2, 21, 23, 48, 65, 73, 85, 87, 117–18, 121–6, 163, 166–7, 180 n.3, 184, 187–92, 194–200, 202–3, 205–15, 217–21, 225–7 silver-gilt  24, 68, 101 n.34, 112, 123, 185, 187–91, 196–7, 199, 202–3, 206–7, 209–10, 215–21, 223–6 Snape  27, 30 Squints  12, 243–61 Staffordshire Hoard  6, 14, 25 n. 52 Stained glass (see windows) Stephen, king  59, 67, 122, 127 Stephen Langton  127, 130, 142 n.20 Stonehenge 2 Storage, spaces and containers for (see also boxes, cupboards)  74, 184, 186, 213 Sutton Hoo  6, 25, 27, 30 Symeon of Durham  126 Symphosius  28, 32, 36 Tax records  174 Textiles (see also embroidery, hangings, painting and vestments)  1, 8, 11, 24, 66, 90–113, 115, 122, 134, 144, 147, 181 n.6, 189–91, 226, 235

Theodoret 50 Thomas Becket  4, 78, 82, 86–7, 101–2, 104, 107, 111 Thomas of Marlborough  1–2 Thomas Walsingham  115, 117–19, 132, 143, 150–1, 155 Thuribles  71, 73, 123 Tombs  81, 83, 85, 100, 121, 123, 137, 150 Treasure Act (1996)  13–14, 20, 25–6 Treasuries  1, 64, 66–71, 73–4, 120, 132, 136 n.2, 138, 140, 144, 156, 160, 164, 241 Tynemouth 154–6 Typology  44–52, 56 Urine flasks  220 Vestments  2, 65–6, 82, 93, 95, 97 n.21, 122–3, 125–6, 136, 144, 150, 153, 213 Virgin (images of)  2, 84, 123–4, 168–9, 171–3, 185–9, 194–200, 202, 205, 207 Virgin and Child  139 n.8, 169, 171–3, 179, 204, 206, 220–1, 225–6, 235, 238 n.44 Walter of Colchester  123–4, 139 n.8 Westminster  92, 100 William Clinton  150 William Durand  43–4, 46 n.32 William of Malmesbury  82–3, 98 n.24 William of Trumpington, abbot of St Albans  116, 124 William Rufus  66, 72, 126 William the Conqueror  1, 58, 63–4, 72, 126 Windows  40–1, 44, 47, 53, 56, 91, 94, 111–12, 230, 243–8, 252, 254–61 Wood (see also painting on wood)  3, 5, 28, 32, 41, 47, 80, 84–5, 123, 139, 144, 147, 174, 186–7, 190 n.54, 191, 204, 210–11, 215–16, 219–20, 222–3, 225, 231 n.14, 232–6 Worcester  2, 4, 82–3, 88 Chronicle  82–3, 86 Wulfstan, saint  2, 82–4, 124

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Writing History in the Middle Ages

1 Dudo of Saint-Quentin’s Historia Normannorum: Tradition, Innovation and Memory, Benjamin Pohl (2015) 2 The Classicist Writings of Thomas Walsingham: ‘Worldly Cares’ at St Albans Abbey in the Fourteenth Century, Sylvia Federico (2016) 3 Medieval Cantors and their Craft: Music, Liturgy and the Shaping of History, 800–1500, edited by Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, A.B. Kraebel and Margot E. Fassler (2017) 4 Universal Chronicles in the Middle Ages, edited by Michele Campopiano and Henry Bainton (2017) 5 The Construction of Vernacular History in the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle: The Manuscript Culture of Late Medieval England, Julia Marvin (2017) 6 Writing History in the Anglo-Norman World: Manuscripts, Makers and Readers, c.1066– c.1250, edited by Laura Cleaver and Andrea Worm (2018) 7 Writing History in the Community of St Cuthbert, c.700–1130: From Bede to Symeon of Durham, Charles C. Rozier (2020)