Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:24:05.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

V. The Medieval Sculpture of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Roger Stalley
Get access

Abstract

The invasion of Ireland by the Anglo-Norman armies in 1169–70 is not normally regarded as an event of any importance in the history of English art. Such an attitude is understandable, for Irish works in the Middle Ages rarely made any substantial contribution to artistic developments elsewhere. But the military activities of 1169–70 did have important results from an English point of view, since they greatly extended the ‘geography’ of English art and architecture. Following the Anglo-Norman conquest, Irish churches increasingly looked to England for ideas, and native styles were gradually supplanted by imported techniques. Very few of the standard histories of English architecture or sculpture devote much attention to this process, and a page or two describing the occasional Irish cathedral is normally deemed sufficient. Yet this does little justice to the Anglo-Norman achievement in Ireland, where, in just over a century, an immense amount of building was carried out. Most of this was English in style and ought to be considered within the context of English developments. Indeed, in some cases Irish evidence can considerably extend an understanding of specifically English problems: no study of West Country architecture, for example, would be complete without a parallel study of contemporary Irish work.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 106 , 1979 , pp. 107 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1979

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

Notes

1 The figures are based on information contained in Gwynn, A. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses in Ireland (London, 1970), pp. 59–101.Google Scholar There is also a useful table showing the ‘Anglicization’ of the Irish sees in Watt, J. A., The Church in Medieval Ireland (Dublin, 1972), p. 88.Google Scholar A clear-cut picture covering all thirty-three Irish dioceses cannot be obtained, since the identity of some bishops is unknown and several sees were neither consistently Irish nor consistently Anglo-Norman.

Of the twelve cathedrals which retained Anglo-Norman bishops throughout the thirteenth century, insufficient remains at two of them—Connor and Down—to judge the character and extent of the buildings. Limerick was rebuilt in the late twelfth century before Anglo-Norman bishops took over (Clapham, A. W., ‘Some Minor Irish Cathedrals’, Archaeological Journal, CVI (1949), Supplement, p. 29)Google Scholar, and Leighlin belongs to the later thirteenth century (Clapham, ibid., pp. 26–7).

For the impact of the Anglo-Norman invasion on the Irish church see Watt, J. A., The Church and the Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970), chapters 2 and 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 A detailed account of the conquest is provided by Ruthven, A. J. Otway, A History of Medieval Ireland (London, 1968), particularly chapters 2 and 6.Google Scholar

3 Watt, Church and Two Nations, pp. 52–4.

4 Annals of Loch Cé, i, 166–7 (ed. W. M. Hennessey, Rolls Series).

5 A detailed analysis of the arch is given by Leask, H. G., Irish Churches and Monastic Buildings (Dundalk, 1955–1960), I, 153–4.Google Scholar

6 Leask, Irish Churches, ii, 25–6. Leask also acknowledged a considerable period of overlap by dating a number of important Romanesque works after 1170. These include the elaborate doorway at Killaloe which he ascribes to c. 1180, Leask, Irish Churches, i, 151–2. An alternative date of c. 1168 proposed by Henry, F., Irish Art in the Romanesque Period (London, 1970), p. 167, seems too early, particularly as dragons similar to those on the jambs of the Killaloe doorway can also be found at Ballintober dated to 1216–25 (see note 8).Google Scholar

7 Leask, Irish Churches, i, 154, suggests c. 1170 and Henry, Irish Art, p. 168, proposes c. 1152. The transitional form of abacus certainly rules out a date as early as 1152 and in fact confirms the documentary evidence for 1184.

8 Ann. Loch Cé, i, p. 291.

9 Illustrated in Stalley, R. A., Architecture and Sculpture in Ireland, 1150–1350 (Dublin, 1971), p. 115.Google Scholar

10 R. A. Stalley, ‘A Twelfth Century Patron of Architecture; a study of the buildings erected by Roger, bishop of Salisbury’, 1102–39, J.B.A.A., 3rd ser. XXXIV (1971), 79.Google Scholar

11 Henry, Irish Art, pp. 171–4.

12 The list is published in Historical and Municipal Documents of Ireland A.D. 1170–1320 (ed. J. T. Gilbert, 1870), pp. 3–48. John Harvey has suggested to me that the dearth of masons may be explained by the use of the words taillur, talliur, tailiator, and variants in the sense of carver not tailor. Fourteen ‘tailors’ are mentioned in the late twelfth-century list, and some of these could, therefore, have been stone carvers. Taillo was used in the middle ages meaning to hew stone and variants of talliator, taylator, etc., were employed in the sense of stonecutter and carver (Latham, R. E., Revised Medieval Latin Word-List (Oxford, 1965), p. 475Google Scholar, and Salzman, L. F., Building in England down to 1540 (Oxford, 1967, 2nd edn.), p. 117).Google Scholar When the context does not indicate the exact meaning, as in the Dublin City roll, it is probably safer to translate the word merely as ‘cutter’. In the case of Dublin there is, unfortunately, no way of determining what sort of cutters were involved. The word is notoriously ambiguous in the Middle Ages. The Norman kings of England included in their household an official described as tallator or taleator and there has been considerable difference of opinion in this case as to whether he was a tailor or merely a tally cutter (White, G. H., ‘The Household of the Norman Kings’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser. XXX (1948), 146–7).Google Scholar

13 Historical and Municipal Documents, p. 120.

14 It is possible that the Anglo-Normans built other cathedrals in the period 1170–1200, but these works do not survive. Connor is one possibility, for Bishop Reginald (1178–1225) was the first Anglo-Norman bishop in Ireland (Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 66). Another is Down which was turned into a Benedictine priory dependent on Chester Abbey in 1183 by John de Courcy (Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 105). The Anglo-Normans did, of course, begin other types of religious building in the period. The Cistercian abbeys of Inch (founded 1180), Dunbrody (1182), and Grey (1193) are obvious examples (Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, pp. 131, 134, 135).

15 The restoration is described at length by Street himself in G. E. Street and Seymour, E., The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity commonly called Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (London, 1882).Google Scholar See also McVittie, R. B., Details of the Restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, with a brief history of its preceding condition from the date of its supposed foundation (A.D. 1038) to the present time (Dublin, 1878)Google Scholar; Drew, T., ‘Street as a Restorer’, Dublin University Review, June 1886, pp. 518–31Google Scholar; Butler, W., The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity Dublin (London, 1901).Google Scholar There are also numerous references to the restoration in the Dublin Builder. See especially vol. XIII, nos. 275 and 286 (1871); vol. xiv, no. 296 (1872); vol. xxiii, no. 513 (1881).Google Scholar

16 Waterman, D. M., ‘Somersetshire and Other Foreign Building Stone in Medieval Ireland c. 1175–1400’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, XXXIII (1970), 63, 71.Google Scholar

17 Street, G. E. and Seymour, E., The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity commonly called Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (London, 1882), p. 108.Google Scholar

18 Illustrated in A. Gardner, Wells Capitals, pl. VIII a (Friends of Wells Cathedral).

19 Zarnecki, G., English Romanesque Sculpture, 1066–1140 (London, 1951), p. 32, and pl. 39.Google Scholar

20 Idem, Later English Romanesque Sculpture, 1140–1210 (London, 1953), p. 14.Google Scholar

21 The coloured drawing is kept in a chest in the chapter room.

22 Zarnecki, English Romanesque Sculpture, pp. 22–3, 34–5.

23 Ibid., pl. 55. An animal playing a viol also appears in the Elder Lady Chapel of St. Augustine's, Bristol, c. 1220 (see note 29).

24 Trinity College Dublin, MS. A.I.I, fol. 151.

25 Robinson, J. Armitage, ‘On the Rebuilding of Glastonbury after the Fire of 1184’, Arch. J. LXXXV (1928), 18–20.Google Scholar

26 Saxl, F., English Sculptures of the Twelfth Century (ed. H., Swarzenski, London, 1954), pp. 67–8 and pls. 96–8.Google Scholar

27 An indirect reference to the moving of the doorway is contained in Butler, W., Christ Church Cathedral, Measured Drawings of the Building prior to Restoration (Dublin, 1878), p. 8.Google Scholar Plans of the cathedral made before the restoration of 1871–8 show the doorway in the south transept, as at present. It was certainly there by 1835 (Dublin Penny Journal, 3rd October 1835)Google Scholar, but not before 1821 (Wright, G. N., An Historical Guide to Ancient and Modern Dublin (London, 1821) engraving opposite p. 107).Google Scholar

Its reconstruction during the restoration of 1831 is not therefore really in doubt. I am grateful to Mr. J. O'Callaghan for bringing the illustration in the Dublin Penny Journal to my attention.

28 The only discussion of these capitals of which I am aware is by McVittie, R. B., Details of the Restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Dublin, 1878), pp. 76–7. The author states that there were once two further heads, now missing, ‘over the outer arch’, and he also records that the doorway once had a bead moulding around the hood mould. The interpretation he provides for the capitals is intriguing: ‘The capitals exhibit Fitzstephen's crest, a Sagittarius, and the eagles of the arms of Montmorency-Marisco.’ The identification of a Sagittarius is dubious to say the least, and there is no substantive evidence that the capitals refer to the arms of any Norman lords. Street makes only a passing reference to the capitals, saying ‘it seems impossible to make out what subjects the figures represent’, Street and Seymour, Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, p. 100.Google Scholar

29 Hill, R., ‘A Letter-Book of St. Augustine's, Bristol’, Trans. B. and G. Arch. Soc. LXV (1944), 152.Google Scholar

30 2 Samuel, 18, vv. 9–17.

31 Beckwith, J., Ivory Carving in Early Medieval England (London, 1972), catalogue number 97, pl. 170.Google Scholar

32 Zarnecki, Later English Romanesque Sculpture, pp. 12–13, pl. 32. Samson also appears with long hair in twelfth-century manuscripts (see, for example, the initial in Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS. 16, fol. 30r), and on many a twelfthcentury aquamanile, a fact pointed out to me by the late Mr. John Hunt.

33 It is just possible that this scene illustrates the anointing of David, which would have some relevance if placed next to the death of Absolom. The two scenes are placed together on at least one Romanesque manuscript, the famous Morgan leaf, painted at Winchester in the late twelfth century (Rickert, M., Painting in England, The Middle Ages, pp. 82–3, pl. 86 (Harmondsworth, 1965)). But the arrangement of the scenes in the manuscript bears little similarity with the Christ Church sculpture, and at this stage it is more judicious to regard the subject of the Dublin capital as remaining unsolved.Google Scholar

34 Mr. J. O'Callaghan in the summer of 1970 was the first person to draw my attention to these.

A huge quantity of stonework was stored in the crypt after the restoration. This includes almost complete chevron arches (from the north transept windows) parts of piers, numerous moulded stones, and several capitals. Amongst the latter is a fine water-leaf capital no doubt from the choir or transepts. Originally, there were at least three elaborate scallop capitals (illustrated in Street and Seymour, Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, p. 91) but the whereabouts of these is now unknown.

There are also two carved heads cemented into the fabric of the crypt, which makes a thorough examination of them almost impossible. They appear to be medieval, and one at least could date from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century.

35 The original location of this capital is unfortunately not known.

36 A discussion of this type of capital is given by Galbraith, K. J., The Sculptural Decoration of Malmesbury Abbey, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of London, 1962, pp. 177–81.Google Scholar Its popularity in the west of England may partly be explained by its use in the buildings of Bishop Roger of Salisbury (Stalley, , ‘A Twelfth Century Patron’, J.B.A.A. XXXIV (1971), 78).Google Scholar

37 See, for example, the canon tables of the Winchcombe Psalter, T.C.D. MS. A.I.I.

38 Henry, Irish Art, p. 170.

39 The Elkstone sculpture is dated c. 1160 by Galbraith, Malmesbury Abbey, p. 181, which would mean that it is nearly thirty years later than Cormac's Chapel. But several elements of the Elkstone sculpture are related to Bishop Roger's work at Sarum Cathedral (c. 1125–39), and this may be the ultimate source for both Cashel and Elkstone.

40 Sculpture related to that of Kilteel is found nearby at Timahoe and Killeshin (Leix). The whole group of heads placed on the angle of the capitals is discussed by Henry, Irish Art, pp. 177–81.

41 The original position of the keystone is not clear. Since both this and the monster-head capital had relatively little dirt on them, it is likely they were walled up during the reconstruction of the choir after 1349. The moulding of the keystone ought perhaps to provide a clue to its location, but none of the arches in the existing building appears to have an equivalent profile. If Street had found it in situ, in a part of the cathedral that he wanted to preserve or restore, he would no doubt have left it in place.

42 Illustrated in Zarnecki, Later English Romanesque Sculpture, pl. 46. A much-weathered mask, placed at the apex of an arch, can also be found at Cormac's Chapel, Cashel, and some derivative buildings (L. de Paor, ‘Cormac's Chapel: The Beginnings of Irish Romanesque’, Munster Studies, Essays in commemoration of Monsignor Michael Moloney (Limerick, 1967), pp. 135, 137). The example at Cashel (1127–34), must pre-date most of those in England, but one possible English source is Sarum Cathedral (c. 1125–39) which had at least one such mask, now preserved in the museum at Salisbury. It is illustrated in Zarnecki, Later English Romanesque Sculpture, pl. 45. Indeed Sarum may have been an important source for Cashel, for it also had elaborate gables with rosettes, which cannot have been too dissimilar from the north porch at Cashel. For a brief discussion of the sculpture at Sarum, see Stalley, , ‘A Twelfth Century Patron’, J.B.A.A. XXXIV (1971), 75–6.Google Scholar

43 It is illustrated in situ (in the arch leading from the north transept to the nave aisle) by Street and Seymour, Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, p. 105.

44 The idea continued in early Gothic work, where such flowering shafts are often used in conjunction with more orthodox shafts and capitals, as in the nave of Christ Church, Dublin.

45 Greek key is another ornament popularized by Sarum Cathedral. In the west of England it appears at Malmesbury Abbey, on a twelfth-century font at Hereford, and at Christon (Somerset); in Wales it can be found at Llandaff Cathedral and at St. David's Cathedral; in Ireland the only example, apart from Christ Church, Dublin, is at St. Mary's, Glendalough, where it was no doubt copied from Dublin.

46 Abaci profiles closely related to Christ Church appear at Droitwich, Deerhurst, Wells (north porch), Bristol, St. Mary Redcliffe (north porch), Llanidloes (from Cwmhir Abbey), Llanthony Abbey, Queen Charlton (Somerset), Kelmscott (Oxfordshire), and Bishop Cannings (Wiltshire). It is in fact a simplified form of a type used generally in the choir of Glastonbury Abbey.

47 Brakspear, H., ‘A West Country School of Masons’, Archaeologia, LXXXI (1931), 1–18, provides a guide (though incomplete) to the stylistic features of the west country school.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 North, F. J., The Stones of Llandaff Cathedral (Cardiff, 1957). pp. 73 ff.Google Scholar

49 Waterman, , ‘Foreign Building Stone’, Ulst. Journ. Arch. XXXIII (1970), 71.Google Scholar From a Dublin point of view the lack of surviving buildings in Bristol is a major problem, since the city of Dublin was granted to ‘his men of Bristol’ by Henry II in 1171–2. (Historic and Municipal Documents of Ireland, p. 1 (ed. J. T. Gilbert, Rolls Series).) However, the various lists of the citizens of Dublin show that its English population was drawn from a wide area and not restricted to Bristol itself (ibid., pp. 3–48, 112–23, 136–40) so that it is perhaps unwise to exaggerate the importance of Bristol in the artistic affairs of Dublin.

50 Victoria County History, Gloucestershire, ii, 67. A dedication also took place in 1239, Annales Monastici, i, 112 (Rolls Series).

51 V.C.H., Worcestershire, ii, 387.

52 These are taken from the famous Black Book of Christ Church, which contains two rather dubious late medieval accounts of the cathedral's history. The passages are discussed by Gwynn, A., ‘The Origins of the See of Dublin’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, LVII (1941), 46–9.Google Scholar

53 Leask, Irish Churches, ii, 45.

54 Street and Seymour, Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, p. 109.

55 Robinson, Armitage, ‘Rebuilding of Glastonbury’, Arch. Journ. LXXXV (1928), 18–20.Google Scholar

56 Colchester, L. S. and Harvey, J. H., ‘Wells Cathedral’, Arch. Journ. CXXXI (1974), 200–3.Google Scholar

57 Gwynn, A., ‘Archbishop John Cumin’, Reportorium Novum, I, no. 2 (1956), 289.Google Scholar

58 Pipe Roll Society, xxx, 27 Henry II, pp. 15–16.

59 Gwynn and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, p. 171.

60 Geraldus Cambrensis, Opera, v, 359 (Rolls Series).

61 Calendar of Christ Church Deeds, 20th Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland, no. 5.

62 I have argued the case for Comyn in more detail in Stalley, R. A., Christ Church Dublin, The Late Romanesque Building Campaign (Dublin, 1973), pp. 4–6 (Gatherum Series of Architectural Monographs).Google Scholar

63 The sculpture also helps in plotting the sequence of building. The earliest carving is found in the choir and the lower parts of the south transept, whereas the carving in the equivalent area of the north transept is somewhat more advanced. It thus appears that the south transept was built up to about string-course level, before work began on the north transept. No such division, however, is apparent at triforium and clerestory level, where construction seems to have been simultaneous.

64 Illustrated in Stalley, Architecture and Sculpture in Ireland, pls. 53. 55. 56.

65 Ibid., p. 68.

66 These corbels include an ape head on a hood mould (third pier from east). Similar heads appear at Hawkchurch (Devon), Queen Charlton (Somerset), Wells (transept) and the Elder Lady Chapel, Bristol (Reeves, P. Wyn, English Stiff Leaf Foliage, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1952, pp. 362–4).Google Scholar

67 Leask, Irish Churches, ii, 77, Stalley, ibid., pp. 65–6.

68 Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland, 1171–1251, no. 2178 (ed. Sweetman, H. S., London, 1875).Google Scholar

69 The stylistic variations continue all the way up to clerestory level, giving a vertical break. This suggests that for a short time there was a temporary west wall on a line between the fifth piers, resting on the west wall of the crypt below.

I intend to discuss this question in more detail in a future study of the architecture of the cathedral.

70 Hand, G. J., ‘The Rivalry of the Cathedral Chapters in Medieval Dublin’, J.R.S.A.I. XCII (1962), 198. Building was probably under way at St. Patrick's soon after 1220. In 1225 a protection ‘was issued for four years for the preachers of the fabric of the church of St. Patrick's Dublin going through Ireland to beg alms for that fabric’, Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Henry III, 1216–25, p. 518.Google Scholar

71 Calendar of Christ Church Deeds, no. 22 (Twentieth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland, p. 40).

72 Archdall, M., Monasticon Hibernicum (Dublin, 1786), p. 155.Google Scholar

73 Champneys, A. C., Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture (London, 1910), p. 142.Google Scholar

74 The date 1223 is provided by Annales Cambriae (Rolls Series, p. 76): ‘Et inceptum fuit novum opus majoris ecclesiae Sancti Thomae Haverfordiae.’ This reference appears to have gone unnoticed in the past, perhaps because too many have trusted the index of Annales Cambriae which is faulty! The derivation of the Haverfordwest sculpture from Wells is obvious. It even includes a toothache capital copied from the famous example in the south transept at Wells.

75 There are occasional similarities between the stiff leaf of Wells and that of the Christ Church nave. See, for example, a capital at the entrance to the undercroft of the Wells Chapter house.

Stiff leaf is a notoriously difficult subject to classify and discuss. The only major attempt to tackle the problem so far is Wyn Reeves, English Stiff Leaf Foliage, but it is far from complete and many of the conclusions are questionable (see note 78). In the case of Haverfordwest, however, her date of c. 1220 (p. 366) has proved to be roughly accurate (see note 74).

76 For a description of the church see V.C.H., Worcestershire, iii, 82–4.

77 See, for example, N. Pevsner's discussion of the ambulatory at Abbey Dore, Herefordshire, p. 57 (Buildings of England Series).

78 In 1971 I suggested a date of 1190–1200 which may be a few years too early (Stalley, Architecture and Sculpture in Ireland, pp. 20–1). In a rather perplexing passage Wyn Reeves gives a date of 1225–30. ‘The head sculpture presupposes Wells c. 1210, the foliage brings the likely period forward to c. 1225–40, and since the octagonal abacus is more like Wells than Pershore, and the point more like Hereford than the latter, we are narrowed down to c. 1235–30’, English Stiff Leaf Foliage, p. 199. On the basis of the Christ Church evidence 1225–30 seems too late.

V.C.H., Worcestershire, iii, 82, is content to ascribe the work to the early thirteenth century.

79 A description of the church is contained in V.C.H., Worcestershire, iii, 472–5.

80 Apart from general comments assigning the chancel to the early thirteenth century, the only specific suggestion is 1220 given by Glynn, C., ‘Overbury Church’, Trans. B. and G. Arch. Soc. XIX (1894–1895), 43. This date is probably close to the truth. I now think the date of c. 1200, which I gave in 1971 (Architecture and Sculpture in Ireland, p. 21) rather too early.Google Scholar

81 Register of the Priory of St. Mary's, Worcester, ii (ed. W., Hale, Camden Society, XCI, 1865), pp. 4, 5, 8.Google Scholar

82 The Book of Obits and Martyrology of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity (ed. Crosthwaite, J. C., Irish Archaeological Society, 1844), p. 3.Google Scholar

83 Viking and Medieval Dublin, Catalogue of Exhibition (National Museum of Ireland, 1973), p. 20.Google Scholar

84 Orpen, G. H., Ireland under the Normans, 1169–1333 (Oxford, 1911–1920), I, 271.Google Scholar

85 The origins of the Christ Church elevation, involving a linked clerestory and triforium must be related in some way to the early thirteenth-century work at Pershore Abbey and Worcester Cathedral.

86 Stalley, Architecture and Sculpture in Ireland, pp. 75–80.

87 An interesting detail on one of the Athassel heads is a circular brooch below the neck, presumably as a clasp for drapery, though no clothes are depicted on the capital. Another circular brooch appears on a head capital in the south porch of Kilkenny Cathedral, and one of the Christ Church heads has a diamond-shaped one. In England a head capital in the north transept at Lichfield Cathedral has a conspicuous circular brooch, pulling tightly on the surrounding drapery, and a similar ornament appears on many of the west front statues at Wells Cathedral.

88 Gardner, Wells Capitals, p. 1.

89 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iii (ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series), p. 391.