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A ‘Winchester School’ wall-painting at Nether Wallop, Hampshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Richard Gem  and
Pamela Tudor-Craig
Richard Gem
Affiliation:
The Department of the Environment, London
Pamela Tudor-Craig
Affiliation:
London, England
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Extract

A wall-painting at Nether Wallop church, Hampshire (SU303365), recently conserved, is here discussed and related to its architectural context. Previously thought to be of the thirteenth century, it is for the first time attributed to the ‘Winchester School’ of late Anglo-Saxon art, and a late-tenth-to-early-eleventh-century date is suggested for it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 9 , December 1980 , pp. 115 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 We wish to express our gratitude to all who have helped or encouraged us: the Rector, the Revd M. J. Benton, and the Churchwarden, Eric Hughesdon, of Nether Wallop; Richard Sawyer; Kevin Stubbs; Derek Keene; and, especially, Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle.

2 The Victoria History of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (London, 1900–12Google Scholar) 1, 452b–3a.

3 Ibid. p. 468b.

4 Ibid. iv, 506.

5 Ibid. pp. 530 and 534.

6 Ibid. p. 503.

7 Taylor, H. M., Anglo-Saxon Architecture III (Cambridge, 1978), 959Google Scholar.

8 Ibid. p. 797.

9 Oswald, F., Schaefer, L. and Sennhauser, H. R., Vorromanischt Kirchenbauten III (Munich, 1971), 278–82Google Scholar.

10 Biddle, M., ‘Excavations at Winchester, 1969’, AntJ 50 (1970), 315–21Google Scholar.

11 See the report on the conservation carried out by Clive Rouse and Ann Ballantine, app. 1, below, p. 134.

12 Ibid.

13 Described (as thirteenth-century) and illustrated by Tristram, E. W., English Medieval Wall Paintings: the Thirteenth Century (London, 1950), p. 582Google Scholar and pls. 65 and 64. Professor Tristram is believed to have uncovered these paintings in the 1920s.

14 Theophilus, , De Diversis Artibus (ed. Dodwell, C. R. (London, 1961), p. 18Google Scholar) describes the polishing of gesso though not the preparation of wall plaster.

15 Weaver, J. R. H., ‘A Masterpiece of Preservation: History of Kempley Wall Paintings’, Country Life 3105 (19 07 1956), 124–6Google Scholar (with photographs). But see also the comment by Clive Rouse, app. I, below, p. 134.

16 See app. II on the plaster by Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, below, pp. 135–6.

17 Theophilus (ed. Dodwell, p. 13) describes the use of grey as a ground for azure and veridian.

18 Wormald, F., English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1952Google Scholar).

19 London, British Library, Add. 49598, 4r; see Temple, E., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the Brit. Isles 2 (London, 1976Google Scholar). no. 23 and ills. 85, 86, 88, 90 and 91.

20 BL Cotton Vespasian A. viii, 2v; see Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 16 and ill. 84Google Scholar.

21 Ibid. no. 41 and ill. 142; see also Wormald, English Drawings, colour frontispiece.

22 Ibid. p. 18.

23 Illustrated Hubert, J., Porcher, J. and Volbach, W. F., Carolingian Art (London, 1970), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

24 BL Cotton Claudius B. iv, 2r; see Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 86, ills. 265–72Google Scholar and fig. 34. edition, Facsimile, The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, ed. Dodwell, C. R. and Peter Clemoes, EEMF 18 (Copenhagen, 1974Google Scholar).

25 Beckwith, J., Ivory Carvings in Early Medieval England (London, 1972), no. 16Google Scholar.

26 Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 103 and ill. 312Google Scholar.

27 BL Stowe 944; see Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 78 and ills. 244, 247 and 248Google Scholar.

28 BL Cotton Titus D. xxvi and xxvii; see Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 77 and ills. 243, 245 and 246Google Scholar.

29 Bayerisches Nationalmuseum MA 164; see Beckwith, , Ivory Carvings, no. 9 and ill. 24Google Scholar.

30 C. 844–55; Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Lat. 1141; Hubert, illustrated, Porcher, and Volbach, , Carolingiam Art, pp. 154Google Scholar and, esp., 158.

31 See Alexander, J. J. G., Norman Illumination at Mont St Michel (Oxford, 1970), p. 155Google Scholar and pls. 41c and 42d, illustrating Rouen, Bibiotheque Municipale, Y. 109, 4r, and BL Add. 17739.

32 Utrecht, University Library, 32. edition, Facsimile, Wald, E. T. de, The Illustrations of the Utrtcbt Psalter (Princeton, N.J., 1933Google Scholar).

33 Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 64, ills. 200–7 and 210Google Scholar and fig. 1.

34 English Drawings, p. 34; see also p. 69 and pl. 16a.

35 See above, p. 128 and n. 28.

36 E.g. in the eighth-century ivory, Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, MA 158, discussed Beckwith, Ivory Carvings, no. 7, and in the Christ in Majesty of the Codex Amiatinus in the seventh century.

37 Both illustrated Rice, D. Talbot, English Art, 871–1100 (Oxford, 1952Google Scholar), pls. 7 and 8a.

38 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, 869, 9V; see Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no.; 6 and ill. 171Google Scholar.

39 Paris, BN Lat. 943, 4V; see Temple, , Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, no. 35 and ill. 134Google Scholar.

40 Zarnecki, G., The Early Sculpture of Ely Cathedral (London, 1958), pp. 31–2Google Scholar and pls. 43 and 44.

41 Illustrated Tristram, E. W., English Medieval Wall Paintings: the Twelfth Century (London, 1944), pl. 28.Google Scholar

42 Ibid. pl. 36.

43 See Steer, F. M., Guide to the Church of Coombes (Winchester, 1966), p. 5Google Scholar.

44 Hubert, Illustrated, Porcher, and Volbach, , Carolingian Art, pp. 230–1Google Scholar.

45 Wilmart, A., ‘La Légende de Ste Edith par le moine Goscelin’, AB 56 (1938), 87Google Scholar, and Horstmann, C., S. Editba sive Cbronicon Vilodunense (Heilbronn, 1883), p. 46Google Scholar.

46 Wilmart, ‘Légend de Ste Edith’, pp. 86–7.

47 Gem, R. D. H., ‘The Origins of the Early Romanesque Architecture of England’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge Univ., 1973), pp. 443–6Google Scholar.

48 Liber Eliensis, ed. E. O. Blake, Camden 3rd ser. 92 (1962), 290–1Google Scholar.

49 Ibid. pp. 149 and 292.

50 Goscelin, Hisloria Translations S. Augustini Episcopi, Migne, Patrologia Latina 155, col. 16.

51 Cambridge, Trinity Hall 1, 77r.

52 Gervase, of Canterbury, , Chronica, ed. Stubbs, W., Rolls Ser. 73 (1879), 13.Google Scholar

53 Cf. the four statues of saints behind the high altar of Ely in the late tenth century; Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, p. 79.

54 Annalts Eccltsiae Wintoniensis, ed. H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra (London, 1691) 1, 293Google Scholar.

55 Thom, William, Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores Decem, ed. Twysden, R. (London, 1652), cols. 1785–6Google Scholar.

56 Libtr Eliensis, ed. Blake, p. 168; for evidence that in the twelfth century this cross had been placed on a beam over the high altar, see p. 290.

57 Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, ed. W. D. Macray, RS 29 (1863), 84.

58 Chronica Pontificum Ecclesiae Eboracensis, ed. Raine, J., Historians of the Church of York, RS 71 (1879–1894), 11, 354–5Google Scholar

59 For the fragment of a Winchester wall-painting, c. 900, possibly from a ‘City of God’, see Wormald, F., ‘Anniversary Address to the Society of Antiquaries’, AntJ 47 (1967), 162–9Google Scholar, frontispiece. The only other English wall-paintings of the period at present known are the fragments of drapery-pattern at Glastonbury Abbey, though it may prove that the many fragments of plaster from the Winchester excavations and those at Colchester mentioned by Clive Rouse, below, once formed part of wall-paintings.

60 See above, p. 125.

61 See Biddle, Martin and Kjølbye-Biddle, Birthe, The Anglo-Saxon Minsters at Winchester, Winchester Stud. 4.i (Oxford, forthcoming).Google Scholar

62 It is obviously most important that these observations should be confirmed in the laboratory by microscopic examination of the plaster and its aggregate. Until that is possible, it should be stressed that these comments are based on (i) the general pinkish tone of the plaster, and (ii) inspection of only limited areas under low magnification. In particular, the possible effect on the colour of the plaster of the red overpainting removed by Professor Tristram and Mr Rouse should not be underestimated, for it may have played a rôle in reddening the underlying plaster surface to which it was itself applied. We have, however, handled many hundreds of fragments of the arguably comparable plaster from Winchester and feel reasonably confident that the comparison with the Winchester plaster is valid at the level of inspection that has been possible at Nether Wallop.