Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:53:51.247Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

King Edgar's reliquary of St Swithun

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

John Crook
John Crook
Affiliation:
Winchester Research Unit
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In May 1909 a medieval wall-painting was discovered behind the fitted bookshelves of the Morley Library at Winchester Cathedral. A brief description was published locally at the time of the discovery, but neither the precise subject matter nor the date of the painting were established. Thereafter the wall-painting lay virtually forgotten until it was re-examined early in 1990 by the present writer. It now seems possible that the painting includes the earliest known representation of Winchester Cathedral in its original, Romanesque form, and that it also portrays an important artifact within that church: the reliquary of St Swithun. This identification is supported by the other scene in the wall-painting, which, it is argued, represents either the saint's burial in 862 or (more probably) his translation in 971. In the second part of this paper the history of the reliquary of Swithun is traced. This important and welldocumented artifact had been presented by King Edgar to the Old Minster in 971–4 and was transferred to the Romanesque cathedral in 1093. It is suggested that this major piece of Anglo-Saxon metalwork may have survived until c. 1450.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 21 , December 1992 , pp. 177 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Nisbett, F.N., ‘Winchester Cathedral’, Winchester Diocesan Chronicle 17 (07 1909), 121–2; The Hampshire Observer, 22 May 1909 (a note on their discovery).Google Scholar

2 This work took place in the context of the author's current research programme on the architectural context of the cult of St Swithun in the Romanesque period.

3 The present vaulting of the Slype appears to have been rebuilt in the 1850s, when the passage was adapted to serve as a carriage-drive to No. 1, The Close.

4 The question of the date of the transepts is discussed in Crook, J. and Kusaba, Y., ‘The Transepts of Winchester Cathedral, Archaeological Evidence, Problems of Design, and Sequence of Construction’, Jnl of the [Amer.] Soc. of Archit. Historians 50 (09 1991), 293–310, at 308.Google Scholar The evidence for the construction of the Slype was briefly described and discussed by a former Architect to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester, Wilfrid Carpenter Turner (‘The Story of a Wall’, Winchester Cathedral Record 39 (1970), 39–48), who considered that the two superimposed vaulted tunnels, the Slype and the Morley Library, were built c. 1105 (p. 42).Google Scholar

5 This north-south building is evidenced by the scar of the weathering crease of its roof, where it abutted the south wall of the transept. Carpenter Turner (ibid. p. 42) considered that this north-south building was the actual dorter.

6 This was also the view of Carpenter Turner, ibid. pp. 42–3.

7 For the work of preservation, see Henderson, I. and Crook, J., The Winchester Diver (Winchester, 1984). The discovery was reported by the Clerk of Works, who stated that ‘there is colour on the wall in places and the remains of figures. It has had several coats one on the other. I cannot make much of it.’ (Clerk of Works' Report, 22 May 1909, Winchester Cathedral Library, ‘Jackson Collection E’).Google Scholar

8 Nisbett, , ‘Winchester Cathedral’, p. 122.Google Scholar

9 Signed and dated ‘M.K. Spittal, 7 May 1928’.

10 A local antiquary and acknowledged expert on the history of Winchester Cathedral.

11 Nisbett, , ‘Winchester Cathedral’, p. 122.Google Scholar

12 The secondary material may be identified by comparing Nisbett's drawing with my own reconstruction. The main elements of the secondary work are the heavy diagonal lines across the roof of the church; the diagonal lines to the right of the standing figure, and the flower, may also be secondary, but it is impossible to verify this as these portions are now concealed.

13 The Dean and Chapter of Winchester have commissioned the Conservation of Wall Painting Department, Courtauld Institute of Art, to undertake this work.

14 Nisbett, ‘Winchester Cathedral’.

15 Carver, M., ‘Contemporary Artefacts Illustrated in Late Saxon Manuscripts’, Archaeologia 108 (1986), 117–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, 32 (Rheims, s. ixin), published in facsimile as Der Utrecht-Psalter, 2 vols., Codices Selecti 75 (Graz, 1984).Google Scholar The architectural features are conveniently illustrated together in Dufrenne, S., Les illustrations du Psautier d' Utrecht (Strasbourg, 1978), plGoogle Scholar. 105, discussed ibid. pp. 187–92.

17 London, British Library, Harley 603 (Christ Church, Canterbury, s. xiin). Some miniatures from the Psalter are reproduced in Temple, E., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 2 (London, 1976), pls. 200–7 and 210Google Scholar, discussed ibid. pp. 81–3.

18 London, BL, Cotton Claudius B. iv (St Augustine's, Canterbury, s. xi2/4), fol. 19, reproduced in Rickert, M., Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1954), pl. 35Google Scholar, and discussed ibid. p. 47.

19 London, BL, Royal 15. A. XVI (St Augustine's, Canterbury, s. xi2/4), 84r, reproduced in Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pl. 211, and discussed ibid. p. 102. Carver, ‘Contemporary Artefacts’, p. 144, n. 51, suggests that this drawing was copied directly from the Harley Psalter, Harley 603, 15r.Google Scholar

20 Carver, ‘Contemporary Artefacts’, p. 121Google Scholar, refers to the convention as ‘one of the [architectural] images most generally adopted in tenth-century England’. The use of shingles is discussed by Wood, M., The English Mediaeval House, rev. ed. (London, 1981), p. 293.Google Scholar Examples of shingles have been excavated at Winchester: Keene, D., ‘Shingles’, in Object and Economy in Medieval Winchester, ed. Biddle, M., 2 vols., Winchester Stud. 7.ii (Oxford, 1990) I, 320–6Google Scholar. Most of the excavated examples are rectangular, but one shingle with a rounded end has been found in Winchester, and one in Southampton. Derek Keene comments (ibid. p. 321): ‘It is often assumed that the fish-scale pattern shown in many medieval manuscript and other illustrations of buildings depicts a shingled roof in which each shingle has a rounded lower end. Discounting the likelihood that this was a purely conventional representation, the Winchester evidence suggests that such a pattern must have been rare.’

21 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183 (?Glastonbury, s. x1), 1v, reproduced in Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pl. 29, and discussed ibid. pp. 37–8.

22 Haith, C., ‘The Pershore Censer-Cover’, The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, 966–1066, ed. Backhouse, J., Turner, D.H. and Webster, L. (London, 1984), p. 90.Google Scholar

23 London, BL, Cotton Tiberius C. vi (Winchester, s. ximed), 11r, reproduced in Temple, AngloSaxon Manuscripts, pl. 309, and discussed ibid. pp. 115–17.

24 The Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Stenton, F. (London, 1957). pl. 3Google Scholar shows scalloped shingles on Bosham Church; pl. 4, on Harold's manor at Bosham; they also occur on the gable ends of the house being burned and in the adjacent structure representing the town of Hastings (ibid. pl. 52). But C. Gibbs-Smith (‘Notes on the Plates’, ibid. pp. 162–76, at 163) considered that the scalloped coverings were tiles.

25 Cambridge, Pembroke College 120 (Bury St Edmunds, s. xii2/4), 2v, reproduced in Kauffmann, C.M., Romanesque Manuscripts 1066–1190, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 3 (London, 1975), pl. 94Google Scholar, and discussed ibid. pp. 74–5; also reproduced in English Romanesque Art 1066–1200, ed. Zamecki, G., Holt, J. and Holland, T. (London, 1984), p. 96.Google Scholar

26 London, BL, Cotton Nero C. iv (Winchester, ?St Swithun's Priory, s. xiimed), passim (reproduced in Wormald, F., The Winchester Psalter (London, 1973)).Google Scholar

27 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 6401 (Fleury, s. xex), 158v; reproduced in Temple, AngloSaxon Manuscripts, pl. 94, and discussed ibid. p. 59.

28 Cambridge, Trinity College R. 17. 1 (Christ Church, Canterbury, s. xiimed), discussed in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pp. 96–7.Google Scholar A few of the drawings in this manuscript, between 144v and 164v inclusive, have the square boards held by pegs that are commonplace in the Utrecht Psalter. For a black-and-white facsimile of the Eadwine Psalter, see James, M.R., The Canterbury Psalter (Canterbury, 1935).Google Scholar

29 Saint-Etienne (Loire), Bibliothèque Municipale, 104 (Chartres, s. xi2/4), reproduced in Merlet, R. and Abbé, Clerval, Un manuscrit chartrain du xi siècle (Chartres, 1893), between pp. 46–7.Google Scholar The authors believed that the treatment was not a convention but an actual representation of the appearance of the roof: ‘Les toits de la nef et des bas-côtés devaient être en tuiles plates, vernissées sans doute, en formant des dessins à losanges’. The miniature, by Andrew of Micy and datable to 1028, has been discussed more recently by Hilberry, H.H., ‘The Cathedral at Chartres in 1030’, Speculum 34 (1959), 561–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 869 (Christ Church, Canterbury, s. xex), 57v, reproduced in Ohlgren, T.O., Insular and Anglo-Saxon Illuminated Manuscripts: an Iconographic Catalogue (New York, 1986), pl. 17.Google Scholar

31 Likewise square roofing boards in Carolingian manuscript illuminations are frequently shown with similar central dots (Carver, type 1c).

32 An illustration in the Winchester Psalter, Nero C. iv, 11 r (reproduced in Wormald, Winchester Psalter, pl. 14) has a roof with a tesselation of diamond-shaped cells with extra parallel lines on one side only, as if indicating a raking light, and tiny circles in the centre of each cell.

33 Trinity R. 17. 1, 9r (reproduced in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pl. 184), 144v and 147r.

34 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 619 (St Swithun's, Winchester, s. xii¾), verso, reproduced in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, p. 241Google Scholar, and discussed ibid. pp. 111–12.

35 Paris, BN, lat. 8846, (Canterbury, s. xiiex), 50r, reproduced in Dodwell, C.R., The Canterbury School of Illumination (Cambridge, 1954), pl. 69.Google Scholar

36 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Glazier 25 (PLondon, s. xiiiin), 3v, reproduced in Morgan, N.J., Early Gothic Manuscripts, I, 1190–1250, Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4.1 (London, 1982)Google Scholar, frontispiece, discussed ibid. pp. 96–8.

37 London, BL, Harley 5102 (PEast Midlands, s. xiiiin), 17r, reproduced in Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts I, pl. 137, and discussed ibid. pp. 88–9. Morgan notes that this manuscript has often been ascribed to the late twelfth century from the miniatures which he describes as ‘either by a very archaic artist or re-used from an earlier book’.

38 Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Stenton, pl. 32.

39 Trinity R. 17. 1, 285r (c. 1160–5), reproduced in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pl. 181, and discussed ibid. p. 97.

40 Carver, , ‘Contemporary Artefacts’, p. 121.Google Scholar

41 Oxford, University College 165 (Durham Cathedral Priory, s. xiiin), p. 26, reproduced in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pl. 61Google Scholar, and discussed ibid. pp. 66–7. The entire manuscript is published in microfiche by Hassal, W.O. (ed.), Bede's Life of St. Cuthbert (MS. Univ. Coll. 165, Medieval Manuscripts in Microform 7 (Bicester, 1978)).Google Scholar

42 Tristram, E.W., English Medieval Paintings: the Twelfth Century (London, 1944), pl. 32Google Scholar, discussed ibid. p. 31.

43 BN, lat. 8846, 39r, reproduced and discussed by Michael Kauffmann in English Romanesque Art, ed. Zarnecki, et al. , p. 127Google Scholar, and also discussed in Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts I, 47–9.Google Scholar

44 Winchester, Cathedral Library, The Winchester Bible (St Swithun's, Winchester, s. xii¾), 170v, reproduced and discussed in Oakeshott, W., The Two Winchester Bibles (Oxford, 1981), fig. 1 (facing p. 5), where it is attributed to the ‘Morgan Master’.Google Scholar

45 Pierpont Morgan M. 619 verso.

46 Pierpont Morgan M. 619 recto, reproduced in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pl. 240.

47 As emphasized by Neil Stratford in his introductory article ‘Metalwork’, in English Romanesque Art, ed. Zarnecki, et al. , p. 232.Google Scholar The lists of church plate published from pre-Dissolution inventories by Charles Oman in his English Church Plate 597–1830 (London, 1957), pp. 15–30Google Scholar, is a vivid testimony to what has been lost. The twelfth-century shrines at Ely are particularly well described in an inventory first compiled in 1134 and updated some time after 1143: Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, E.O., Camden Society 3rd ser. 92 (London, 1962), 288–94.Google Scholar

48 Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Stenton, , pl. 29.Google Scholar For N.P. Brooks and the late H.E. Walker, however, the item on the altar seems to have been a monstrance: they state that Harold swears the oath ‘at Bayeux, with one hand on a great reliquary with the sacred relics of the church, the other hand on an altar with the host laid out, plain for all to see – though twentieth-century historians have missed it’: Brooks, N.P. and Walker, H.E., ‘The Authority and Interpretation of the Bayeux Tapestry’, Proc. of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 1. 1978, ed. Brown, R. Allen (Ipswich, 1978), pp. 1–34 and 191–9, at 5.Google Scholar

49 The initial opens Ps. CX1II In exitu Israel, which relates this event.

50 Hildesheim, St Godehard, ‘St Albans Psalter’ (St Albans Abbey, s. xiiin), p. 304, reproduced in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pl. 73Google Scholar, and discussed ibid. pp. 68–70.

51 Oxford, University College 165.

52 Dublin, Trinity College 177 (E. I. 40) (St Albans Abbey, s. xiiimed), 55r, reproduced in Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts I, pl. 282, and discussed ibid. pp. 130–3.

53 Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Stenton, , pl. 32. The roof of Harold's palaceGoogle Scholar (ibid. pl. 35) has similar finials: the building has a roof very similar to a reliquary.

54 Wilson, D.M., Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700–1100 in the British Museum (London, 1964), pl. xxxivGoogle Scholar; Oman, , English Church Plate, p. 39 and pl. I.Google Scholar

55 English Romanesque Art, ed. Zarnecki, et al. , pp. 75 and 278.Google Scholar

56 Biddle, M. and Kjølbye-Biddle, B., ‘Chalices and Patens in Burials’, in Object and Economy, ed. Biddle, II, 791–9.Google Scholar

57 Oman, , English Church Plate, p. 41 and pl. 3.Google Scholar

58 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, 521 (?Christ Church, Canterbury s. xiimed), recto, illustrated in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pl. 177, and discussed ibid. pp. 93–6.

59 Cambridge, University Library, Ee. 3. 59 (Westminster Abbey, s. xiiimed), fol. 21, reproduced in facsimile in La estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, ed. James, M.R. (Oxford, 1920).Google Scholar

60 Winchester City Museums, Ace. No. 483.34. For further discussion of this and other similar lamps, see Biddle, M., ‘Early Medieval Vessel Glass’, in Object and Economy, ed. Biddle, II 935–6.Google Scholar

61 London, BL, Cotton Nero C. iv (St Swithun's, Winchester, s. xiimed), 10r, reproduced in Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, fig. 45, and discussed in Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pp. 105–6.Google Scholar

62 Park, D., ‘The Wall Paintings of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel’, Medieval Art and Architecture at Winchester Cathedral, Brit. Archaeol. Assoc. Conference Trans. 6 (1980), 38–62.Google Scholar

63 Rouen, Bibliothèque Muncipale, Y. 7 (Old Minster, Winchester, s. xex), 54v, reproduced in Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pl. 87, and discussed ibid. pp. 53–4.

64 Romanesque Art, ed. Zarnecki, et al. , p. 277.Google Scholar

65 London, BL, Harle y 510 2 (s. xiiiin), fol. 17, reproduced in Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts 1, pl. 137, and discussed ibid. pp. 88–9.

66 Hildesheim, ‘St Albans Psalter’, p. 48 (Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts, pl. 74).Google Scholar

67 CUL, Ee. 3. 59, 29v, reproduced in Age of Chivalry, ed. Alexander, J. and Binsky, P. (London 1987), p. 217Google Scholar; and in facsimile in Estoire de Seint Aedward, ed. James, .Google Scholar

68 Mitres do not appear to have come into general use as an article of episcopal headwear until the eleventh century, but might have been expected in a twelfth-century painting of the burial of a bishop.

69 Harley 5102, 17r.

70 Oxford, Universit y College 165, p. 118.Google Scholar

71 Rickert, Painting in Britain, pl. 180. Margaret Rickert describes the scene as showing ‘either her interment or her translation’ (ibid. p. 202). The gestures of surprise being made by the nuns certainly suggest the latter, but the author's hesitation is indicative of the similarity between representations of burials and elevations.

72 Crook, J., ‘The Romanesque Crypt and East Arm of Winchester Cathedral’, JBAA 142 (1989), 1–36.Google Scholar

73 Such composite treatment of buildings also occurs in the Bayeux Tapestry.

74 Countless examples could be given of this confusion. For example, in a fifteenth-century chronicle from Winchester (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 110, p. 318) the body of Cen walh is said to have been buried in predicta ecclesia quam construxit, sub summo altare, ubi usque in hodiernum diem adhuc iacet humatum. The Liber historialis (Galba A. xv, 83v) refers to Walkelinus, natione Normannus, qui turrim in medio chori, cum quatuor columpnis, a fundamentis renovavit.Google Scholar

75 Annales Monastici II: Winchester and Waverley, ed. Luard, H.R., RS (London, 1865), p. 88.Google Scholar

76 I have considered, and rejected, another possibility: that the building depicted was the ‘modest chapel’ that continued to mark the site of St Swithun's original burial until the Reformation (see below). Despite obvious anomalies in proportion, the height of the building depicted and the presence of a prominent eastern chapel seem to invalidate this identification; furthermore, there is no evidence that in the twelfth century a reliquary was located in the chapel, whose main feature was a monument which I have identified as a ‘tombshrine’ (Crook, J., ‘The Typology of early Medieval Shrines a Previously Misidentified ‘Tomb-Shrine’ Panel from Winchester Cathedral’, Ant J 70 (1990), 49–64).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

77 Sharon Cather tentatively suggests ‘part of a wing and censer chains’ (pers. comm.).

78 Needless to say, Swithun was not a Benedictine monk. However local tradition in the later Middle Ages maintained that he was: as, for example, the Liber historialis, a fifteenth-century chronicle which was copied many times at Winchester, which states that all the Winchester monks were slaughtered by the Danes two years after the death of Swithun, and that secular canons were installed at that time (London, BL, Cotton Galba A. xv, 80v–79r; this earliest surviving manuscript of the Liber historialis was incorrectly rebound following the Cottonian fire of 1731, which explains the anomalous foliation).

79 Michael Lapidge, who has prepared new editions of both the Lantfred and Wulfstan Lives of Swithun, dates the Lantfred text to 972–4 on internal evidence: The Cult of St Swithun, Winchester Stud. 4.2 (Oxford, forthcoming).

80 London, BL, Royal 15. C. VII (Old Minster, Winchester, s. x/xi), 13v:‘… indeed this blessed man of the Lord, so they say, was of such great humility that he would not even allow his most holy body to be buried in any church after his death, nor even in the splendid cemetery of the monks — which was most worthy and holy — situated in the eastern part and the southern area of that remarkable church; but he ordered that he be placed in the more lowly cemetery of common people, which is located in front of the entrance to the Lord's church (which has been sufficiently discussed above), arguing with many tears that his corpse was not worthy to be buried within the church nor among the distinguished interments of ancient fathers.’ I am grateful to Michael Lapidge for making available this newly edited text and translation.

81 Narratio metrica de sancto Switbuno I. 959–64 and 969–79: ‘the first to excavate the earth was the venerable Æthelwold; then the other attendants (whom he had ordered) did the digging [960], and they reached the place by digging at the bottom of the tomb; and when the mass of the lid had been removed with three poles, the enclosure of the holy tomb was immediately laid open, and there they found at once that treasure… [that is to say] the most holy body of the excellent Swithun at whose advent Raphael, the medication of God [970], came by divine gift to the English nation, restoring thousands of the sick to their former health. As soon as the holy body was brought forth into the light, a wonderful odour, surpassing cinnamon and balsam in its sweetness, filled the entire town. With apprehension they touched the precious body, washed it limb by limb and wrapped it in a clean shroud, and enclosed the most holy limbs in a new shrine; and when this was finished they placed them on a feretory.’ This transcription and translation have also been made available by Michael Lapidge and will be published in his The Cult of St Swithun.Google Scholar

82 Edgar's generosity in endowing churches with relics and reliquaries is emphasized in the Liber Eliensis, ed. Blake, , p. 117: ‘Dedit etiam de sua capella capsides et philateria cum nonnullorum reliquiis sanctorum in sanctificationem loci et ad decorem domus Dei indumentorum queque insignia.’Google Scholar

83 The scenes shown on the shrine have been discussed by Dodwell, C.R., Anglo-Saxon Art (Manchester, 1982), 198–200Google Scholar, who emphasizes that the decoration stressed the idea of eternal life. Elsewhere Professor Dodwell discusses the fabrication of the shrine at the ‘great royal estate [villa]’, which has been identified as King's Somborne, near Winchester (ibid. p. 67).

84 Narratio Metrica II. 1 and 5–18: ‘the renowned King Eadgar … bestowed three hundred pounds of silver, ruby gems and gold, all measured out on a level balance; and at the same time he commands certain skilled goldsmiths to be present so that they might make a suitable reliquary-shrine in honour of the holy father. The goldsmiths hastily convene at that royal estate which people are accustomed to call the ‘great’, and they strive eagerly to fashion the excellent work, and quickly they bring it to completion with God's assistance. The blessed Passion of Christ glistens there, engraved on the shrine, and likewise the Resurrection, and also his awe-inspiring Ascension to the starry heavens: many other scenes glisten there too, which it is a long undertaking to describe at this time. Accordingly, when this reliquary had been completed in a sufficiently pleasing fashion, the renowned bishop and reverend father Æthelwold enclosed a part of the saint's body within it.’Google Scholar

85 ibid. 11.67–8: ‘the reverend Bishop Æthelwold places the holy reliquary—as was appropriate—upon the sacrosanct altar.’

86 Quirk, R.N., ‘Winchester Cathedral in the Tenth Century’, Arch J 114 (1959), 28–68, at 41–3 and 56–9.Google Scholar

87 Biddle, M., ‘Excavations at Winchester 1967, Sixth Interim Report’, Ant J 48 (1968), 250–84, at 278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

88 Annales Monastici, ed. Luard, , p. 37: ‘1093. In this year, on 8 April, in the presence of nearly all the bishops and abbots of England, the monks came from the Old Minster of Winchester into the new monastery with great rejoicing and glory. And on the actual feast of St Swithun, having processed from the new church back to the Old Minster, they bore away the feretrum of St Swithun and installed it with due honour in the new minster church.’Google Scholar

89 Crook, J., ‘The Architectural Background of the Cult of St Swithun in Winchester Cathedral, 1093–1538’, in Biddle, M. and Kjølbye-Biddle, B., The Anglo-Saxon Minsters of Winchester, Winchester Stud. 4.1 (Oxford, forthcoming).Google Scholar

90 Ibid.

91 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 110 (St Swithun's, Winchester, s. xvmed), p. 336: ‘Indeed he [Edgar] caused the relics of St Swithun, patron of this church, to be translated, and had them placed within a great reliquary, marvellously and skilfully made of silver, gold and precious stones, which shrine is situated at and joined to the high altar; and indeed in honour of the same saint he had another, portable reliquary made of gold and silver, decorated with precious stones, which is now kept in the sacristy.’Google Scholar

92 Yoshio Kusaba has investigated the possibility that the walled-off area in the south transept of Winchester Cathedral known as the ‘Treasury of Henry of Blois’ may have served as a sacristy: Kusaba, Y., ‘The Function, Date and Stylistic Sources of the Treasury of Henry of Blois in the South Transept of Winchester Cathedral’, Winchester Cathedral Record 57 (1988), 38–49, at 42.Google Scholar

93 Winchester Cathedral Library, Ledger Book I, 77r: ‘47 lb. 7¼ oz. from the old reliquary, whose relics are preserved in the reliquary formerly called ‘the reliquary of St Swithun’, whose relics are to be placed in the new reliquary of St Swithun which has been made at the expense of Henry Beaufort, Cardinal of England.'

94 Published in Wilkins, J., Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ et Hiberniæ, 4 vols. (London, 1737) III, 610–11Google Scholar, and more recently in English translation in The Register of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury 1486–1500, ed. Harper-Bill, C., 2 vols., Canterbury and York Society (1987–1991) I, 52–3.I translate the relevant passage as follows: ‘In 1476, on 14 July, which is the eve of the Translation of St Swithun, bishop and confessor, before the first vespers of that feast, some of the brethren of the cathedral church of Winchester carried off a certain ivory casket, decently covered with a cloth, in which the relics of blessed Swithun were kept by the sacristan, and in which the said precious relics had rested for about twenty years, and they placed them with great reverence on the high altar.’Google Scholar

95 I am grateful to the Dean and Chapter of Winchester for facilitating this research, and in particular to Mr John Hardacre, Archivist and Deputy Librarian. I would also like to thank Mr David Park and Ms Sharon Cather of the Conservation of Wall Painting Department, Courtauld Institute of Art, and Professor Martin Biddle, for helpful discussion.