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IX.—The Imagery and Sculptures on the West Front of Wells Cathedral Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

W. H. St. John Hope  and
W. R. Lethaby
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Extract

In July, 1902, one of the images on the upper part of the north tower at Wells suddenly fell to the ground and was broken into many pieces. There had not been any reason for supposing that this or any other of the many images that adorn the west front was in a dangerous condition, but the Dean and Chapter at once took the wise and prudent course of ordering an inspection of the images, so far as this could be done without scaffolding. The report of the Surveyor to the Chapter, Mr. Edmund Buckle, was far from reassuring, and he recommended the substitution of proper bronze holdfasts for the decaying iron cramps by which most of the images were then secured. As a consequence of this report the Dean and Chapter ordered a section of the work to be taken in hand, beginning with the north tower, and when this was finished the scaffolding was moved to another section, and so eventually across the whole of the front and to the gable of the nave. All the images have thus as far as possible been made safe, and a deep debt of gratitude is due to the Dean and Chapter for thus helping to prolong the lives of these priceless sculptures, many of which were found to be in a very precarious state.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , 1904 , pp. 143 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1904

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References

page 145 note a The openings measure about 3 feet across.

page 145 note b These sets of images are of different dates, and both are considerably later than the series below them.

page 145 note c Cockerell, C. R., Iconography of the West Front of Wells Cathedral (Oxford and London, 1851)Google Scholar.

page 146 note a Cockerell has given numbers to the subjects of his firsb, third, and fourth and fifth tiers, but uses the same form of number for each. A more recent writer, the Rev.Dearmer, Percy, in The Cathedral Church of Wells (Bell's Series, London, 1899)Google Scholar, proposes to number the whole of the existing images and sculptures (excluding the half-angels) only, consecutively from bottom to top, beginning on the south side.

page 146 note b The images of this series on the fronts of the buttresses might be further distinguished by the addition (B) to the number.

page 147 note a Niches N.XL, N.XLI, and N.69—N.72 exist, but apparently never contained images.

page 147 note b There is a quatrefoil N.T, but it is on that face of the buttress of the tower which seems never to have had any figures, and therefore probably did not contain an angel.

page 147 note c A great deal of the damage to the angels and sculpture groups has been caused by boys throwing stones at the birds which have nested behind them.

page 148 note a Nasmith, James, Itineraria Symonis Simeonis et Willelmi de Worcestre (Cambridge, 1778), 285Google Scholar. The above passage occurs on p. 211 of the original MS., and has been most kindly collated for me by my friend Mr. J. W. Clark, F.S.A.

page 149 note a Owing to the upper niches of the upper tier being somewhat taller than the lower niches, nearly all the standing images within them are raised on blocks to bring the heads well under cover of the canopies; this is seldom the case with the images in the lower niches.

page 149 note b It has been suggested that in view of the fact that all the figures were once coloured, the ornamental details may have formed part of the painted decoration.

page 149 note c The sceptre seems in every case to have been held in the right hand.

page 150 note a They are only ½ inch long and inch in diameter, and have holes in them about ¼ inch deep. The plugs are apparently of fir.

page 151 note a N.XXIV and XXV, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, and XXXIII.

page 152 note a There is architectural evidence inside the church that the three tall lancets lighting the west end of the nave were originally intended to be subdivided so as to form a double tier, and there are grounds for believing that until they were altered late in the fourteenth century they so showed internally. But externally this evidence is entirely wanting, which suggests a change in the elevation while the work was in progress.

page 156 note a When viewed from the ground, the figure does not fill the niche like the rest, and is of the same smaller scale as the other standing figures.

page 156 note b N.68 may represent the dean, and N\67 King Henry III. S.33 might represent the bishop, and S.34 the pope. N.41 may be Richard earl of Cornwall, the king's brother.

page 158 note a These are the work of the same carver.

page 159 note a In N.27 the left hand, which doubtless held the book, lias decayed away.

page 159 note b It is clearly sleeveless in S.6.

page 159 note c The image in the lower tier ascribed to St. Mary Magdalene (N.XXVIII.) represents her in ungirt gown and scapular, with head and chin bands, and a long veil thrown about her neck.

page 160 note a This lady may represent St. Ethelburga of Barking, sister of St. Erkenwald, who is probably her episcopal companion figure (N.56).

page 160 note b Viz. N.48 and N.74, and the queens S.2, N.6, N.8, N.26, N.28, N.35, and N.44; also N.XXVI, N.XXVII and N.XXIX of the lower tier.

page 160 note c The figures with the veil thrown round the neck are N.8, N.28, and N.44.

page 161 note a Vol. xxxiv. part i. 62.

page 162 note a Ibid. 62.

page 164 note a Proceedings, xix. part i. 81Google Scholar.

page 165 note a Carter's etching, dated 1786, shows the existing state of things. King's engraving in the first edition of Monasticon Anglicanum, i. 186 (1655)Google Scholar, shows the central figure as complete and two standing figures in the side niches; but it is not to be trusted as accurate.

page 165 note b For the reasons why the work could not have been begun before 1220, see Canon Church's paper on “Jocelin, Bishop of Bath, 1206–1242,” in Archaeologia, li. 281–346Google Scholar. The beginning of the work in that year can also be fixed by the royal grant of sixty great oaks from the forest of Cheddar “for making a certain limekiln for the work of the church of Wells,” a proceeding always indicative of some important undertaking. The text of the writ is as follows:—De Mairemio dato. Rex Petro de Maulay salutem. Mandamus vobis quod sine dilacione faciatis habere venerabili patri in Christo domino J. Batthoñ Episcopo sexaginta grossa robora in boscis nostris de Ceddre ad rogum quendam faciendum ad operacionem ecclesie sue de Wett ubi competencius capi possint ad minus detrimentum oet vastum foreste nostre. Teste Huberto de Burgo Justiciario nostre apud Oxoñ. vij. die Augusti per eundem. [Close Roll, 4 Henry III. m. 6.]

page 166 note a Archacologia, 1. 334Google Scholar.

page 166 note b Ibid. lii. 95. Canon Church tells me that he thinks the amount of the debt must have been much more than 2,600 marks.

page 166 note c Ibid. lii. 101.

page 166 note d Ibid. 1. 326, notec.

page 167 note a Archaeologia, liv. 6Google Scholar.

page 167 note b Ibid. liv. 12.

page 167 note c Ibid. liv. 13, note a.

page 167 note d Ibid. liv. 16.

page 167 note e Lord Dillon tells me he sees no difficulty in the armed figures being placed from their armour as early as 1230–1240.

page 167 note f There are several cogent reasons against the Wells imagery and sculptures having been carved on the spot.

page 168 note a The images in the following groups seem to be the work of one and the same hand:

1. S.8; N.25, 27, 35, 49, 68, 65, 74, 76, 78.

2. S.2; K2, 4, 6, 8, 26, 28.

3. N.5, 7, 11, 12, 13.

4. N.51, 53, 59, 61.

5. S.1; N.3, 29, 31, 36, 38.

6. N.15, 17, 21, 23, 55.

7. N.43, 45, 47, 75, 77.

8. N.18, 37, 39, 60, 62, 64, 66.

9. S.3, 7, 11, 13, and perhaps S.5, 21, 23, 30, 32.

01. S.29, 31.

11. S.15, 16, 18; N.30.

12. S.22, 36, 40; N.32.

13. S.12, 14, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 38.

Mr. E. S. Prior has arrived at much the same result, and he has also pointed out to me what a number of pairs and sets of four are by the same hand.

page 168 note a Flaxman, John, Lectures on Sculpture (London, 1829), 16Google Scholar.

page 170 note a See Mâle, Émile, L'Art Religieux du XIIIe siècle en France (Paris, 1898), 1902Google Scholar.

page 170 note b Amongst the MSS. at the British Museum is a life of Eustace beforetinie called Placidus, who with his wife and sons obtained martyrs' crowns under Hadrian. Since writing the above I have seen the story of St. Eustace in a window at Sens where he appears exactly as at Wells in the subject where he and his children are ejected from the ship in which they were voyaging.

page 172 note a See Florence of Worcester, an. 793.

page 172 note b (London, 1892), Appendix III. p. 757.

page 172 note c The shrine of Edward the Confessor made for Henry III. had a group of images of kings set round it, probably English saints, with one possible exception. They are described as St. Edmund, four other kings, five golden angels, the Blessed Virgin and Child, a king holding a shrine [? Sebert or Henry III.], a king holding a cameo with two heads, St. Peter holding a church and trampling on Nero, and a Majesty. Scott, G. G., Gleanings from Westminster Abbey (2nd edition, Oxford and London, 1863), 134Google Scholar, 135. At Exeter Cathedral Church the lower row of figures is mostly of kings. I had thought that these were the ancestors of the Virgin, but the kings of Wells furnish other evidence, and it becomes more probable that the knight to the right of the door with the cross on his breast is S. George, and the opposite figure, an aged king, the other patron of England, Edward the Confessor. The king with the harp would be Alfred, who was commemorated at Winchester, and occasionally is styled saint.

page 173 note a On the wonderful Ascoli cope lately exhibited at South Kensington there are figured several pope martyrs, all with the plain conical tiara which we find on the Wells popes.

page 173 note b In a Byzantine scheme I find there of the first Deacons, Stephen, Prochorus, and Nicanor; also three companions of St. Paul, Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy. About the great north doors of Westminster Abbey Church, begun 1245, there were fine statues of the twelve Apostles. At Salisbury one of the figures that can certainly be identified is John the Baptist.

page 174 note a Figures of the Church and Synagogue are frequently found abroad; probably the finest pair is at Strasburg. As an instance of the treatment of the Old and New Laws in sculpture, I may point to the noble western portal of St. James of Compostella, dated 1188, of which there is a full-sized cast at South Kensington. Here there is a magnificent Majesty in the tympanum, and on the left the figures clustered about the jambs are prophets led by Moses. Street says that the first four figures are Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, and Jeremiah. On the opposite side, he says, are St. Paul and other New Testament saints whom he could not identify. They are, however, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James with his pilgrim's staff, St. John, etc. On the mid-post of the door below the Majesty is a second noble seated figure which Street mistakenly identified with St. James, and then criticised the arrangement on account of the equality of this figure with the triumphant Christ above it. This statue is evidently Christ on earth, dividing the teachers of the Old Law from those of the New. The Christ-type of face should be enough to show this, but we have St. James certainly as one of the group of Apostles, and the symbolism of the entire mid-post completes a positive proof. Below it is carved into a Jesse Tree ending above with the Virgin, while beneath the feet of Christ is figured the Trinity, pointing to the double origin. And finally the main capital above the “Saint's ” head, as Street himself says, has carvings of the Temptation, and Angels ministering to Christ.

page 175 note a Sometimes said to be a vase of spices, but I have been able to examine it closely, and the cup is heaped up with coins.

page 178 note a The fonts of Southrop, c. 1190, and Stanton Fitzwarren also have sculptures of the Virtues; and Mr. Hope has reminded me of a fine series of seated Virtues trampling on Vices in the roundels of the pavement laid down before St. Thomas's shrine at Canterbury about 1220.

page 178 note b As to this see Mâle.

page 179 note a Harl. MS. 2904.

page 179 note b In the early Life of Edward the Confessor (Rolls Series 3), edited by Mr. Luard, it is said that he built the abbey church with chapels for Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins.

page 180 note a Bishop Joscelin instituted a special service of the Virgin at Wells.

page 181 note a Sooner or later the question of preserving the statues from surface decay must be considered. It would, I believe, be desirable to cover them by degrees with distemper.

page 183 note a From de Lasteyrie's, M.Études sur la Sculpture Franqaise au Moyen Age (Paris, 1902)Google Scholar, forming vol. viii. of “Monuments et mémoires publiés par l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (Fondation Eugene Piot).”

page 186 note a There are no traces of letters on the book.

page 187 note b For illustrations and full descriptions of this and the four other Deacons, see Archaeologia, iv. 84—86 and Plates IX.—XIGoogle Scholar. The figure N.XXXVI. seems to be the only medieval representation of the folded chasuble, which was worn at mass instead of the tunicle during Advent and from Septuagesima to Easter.

page 191 note a The left wing is lost.