Norman Tombstone at Coningsborough

The Vicars' Hall at Windsor Castle has had a varied history. Recent excavation in the undercroft and recording of the standing fabric has now enabled its story to be firmly established. The curtain wall in this area of the lower ward, and an adjacent building discovered in the excavations, were probably built in the reign of Henry III between 1227 and 1230. The Vicars' Hall with its undercroft was built c. 1415–16 in the reign of Henry V and survives to this day, but was shortened when the Horseshoe Cloister was built between 1478–82. Around 1693 the hall was converted into a library and the undercroft divided up for housing.     

On Salisbury Cathedral

Abstract

In his last will and testament, dated January 1514, Sir Henry Vernon detailed his intent that a chapel should be founded at the collegiate church of St Bartholomew at Tong, as a final resting place for himself and his wife, and as a chantry for the souls of his family. Completed, it seems, by early 1519, the form of the chapel and its decoration indicates that Sir Henry was commemorated in the artistic language of the very finest contemporary chantry projects. Indeed, a number of the chapel's features are directly copied from the most illustrious of all late medieval chantries: Henry VII's chapel at Westminster Abbey. The chapel, physically and institutionally, also offers insight into the nature of late medieval piety. Unusually, the foundation makes no explicit charitable provision, long established as a central element of the contemporary doctrine of salvation. Yet the chantry-chapel was a physical and institutional appendage to a 'family' mausoleum, whose collegiate function had a strong charitable element. As such, the chapel suggests that, although chantries and tombs were themselves intensely personal, spiritual legacies were viewed in the same way as territorial interests: as inherited familial institutions, which could and should be augmented, rather than enterprises by, and limited to, individuals. In short, through its location, form and decorative scheme, the chapel demonstrates that, whilst numbering in their hundreds by the Reformation, such chapels were far from simply formulaic expressions of piety. Rather, they could serve as the vehicle for the creation of a very specific identity for the chapel's founder.     

On the Horn-shaped Head-Dresses of the 13th, 14th,and 15th Centuries

Abstract

The excavation of the only Cistercian abbey firmly established on the Isle of Man produced clear evidence of its church plan, its various modifications and its modest architectural pretensions. The burials contained some grave goods and displayed early methods of burial. An unexpected feature was a chapel attached to the east end of the north transept north chapel.     

The British Archaeological Association Honorary Secretary’s Report For 1939

Abstract

In the Lady chapel at the east end of the north aisle of the church at Pucklechurch (Gloucestershire) are two effigial monuments, which have received little scholarly attention. The monuments are attributed to William de Cheltenham (d. between 1371 and 1374) and his wife Eleanor, and were set up in his lifetime within the chantry chapel dedicated to St Mary which William received licence to establish at Pucklechurch in 1337. Little remains of the chapel except an exquisite altar frontal. During the 19th century the two effigies were transposed. Various aspects of the conception and design of the Pucklechurch monuments reflect developments in monumental sculpture in Herefordshire.     

Account of a Roman Sepulchre at Geldestone,Norfolk

Rescue excavation between 1988 and 1990 in advance of river erosion examined a substantial part of the small medieval rural hospital of St Giles by Brompton Bridge and later post-medieval farm. Established in the latter half of the twelfth century for the infirm, including lepers, the hospital layout consisted of a detached stone chapel adjacent to the river crossing, with a timber hall to the west. This hall was destroyed by fire, and a sequence of timber buildings were then constructed in adjacent areas. By the fifteenth century these structures also included a stone building, possibly a refectory. The first small chapel was replaced in the thirteenth century by a larger structure, which went through a period of expansion and then subsequent contraction by the fifteenth century. Only in the fourteenth century were a hall, probably a guesthouse or the master's lodgings, and dovecote built adjacent to the chapel. The cemetery to the south of the chapel was partially examined. The site appears to have been a largely economically self-sufficient unit with an attached farm. The hospital was abandoned during the latter half of the fifteenth century, but the site and some of the buildings were subsequently reoccupied as a farm from the mid-seventeenth century. The farmhouse underwent conversion from a longhouse to a house of hearth-passage plan in the early eighteenth century. The former chapel was reused as a byre and additional stables constructed. The farm was moved to its present location to the south in the mid-eighteenth century and the former hospital site finally abandoned.     

‘Reckless youth’. Cardinal Maffi and Fascism (1919–31)

The article focuses on Cardinal Pietro Maffi's attitude towards Fascism. As one of the mightiest princes of the Church and a well-known patriot, the Archbishop of Pisa enthusiastically supported the war effort in 1915–18. Concerned by the spread of strikes and social disorders after the victory, he saw Fascism as a bulwark against socialism and tried to make an alliance through celebrations of the ‘heroic’ memory of the Great War together with the Black Shirts. Maffi's strategy seemed to work: with a few exceptions the alliance remained effective and became official with signing of the Lateran Pacts of 1929. Consequently, Cardinal Maffi made a significant contribution to the success of the secular religion of the Fatherland preached by Fascism which shortly after his death in March 1931 would become a major source of tension between the regime and the Church.     

A Unique Project of Mission: Forty Years on,a Personal Memoire

Fifty years ago, Call to the North was conceived against the background of sectarian terrorism. This was a unique occasion when all the traditional Christian churches of the North of England were engaged in unitedly presenting the Christian faith to the general population. The exercise was led by the Anglican Archbishop of York together with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool and Dr John Marsh representing the Free Churches.

The objectives of the exercise, the methods employed, the problems encountered and its eventual outcome in 1973 are outlined, together with an account of the Roman Catholic Archbishop’s strategy of seeking Pope Paul VI’s support to help his traditional dioceses come to terms with the new Vatican thinking of Pope John XXIII and Vatican II.

The account concludes with a reflection on the historic outcome of this unique exercise.     

The Elizabethan House of Commons and St Stephen's Chapel Westminster

This essay explores the significance of the Elizabethan house of commons meeting in a converted royal chapel within the Palace of Westminster. In 1548 the dissolved collegiate chapel of St Stephen at Westminster was given over to the exclusive use of the Commons, providing MPs with a dedicated meeting space for the first time. Although a great deal has been written about Elizabethan parliaments, little attention has been paid to the physical spaces within which MPs gathered, debated and legislated. Drawing on parliamentary diaries and exchequer records and informed by digital reconstructions of the Commons chamber modelled by the St Stephen's Chapel project at the University of York, this essay argues for the enduring influence of the architecture and decoration of the medieval chapel on the procedure, culture, ritual, and self‐awareness of the Elizabethan house of commons. Famously likened to a theatre by the MP and writer on parliamentary procedure, John Hooker, the Commons chamber is analysed as a space in which parliamentary speeches were performed and disrupted. The sound of debate is contrasted with other kinds of noise including scoffing and laughter, disruptive coughing, and prayers led by the clerk and the Speaker of the Commons. The iconography of the chamber, including the royal arms above the Speaker's chair and the mace carried by the serjeant‐at‐arms, is interpreted as enabling a culture of counsel and debate as much as an assertion of monarchical power. Evidence is also presented for the Commons chamber as a site of political memory.     

Communication of Discoveries of Medieval Paintings,Etc

Abstract

Until 1965 Holy Trinity parish church, Much Wenlock (Shropshire), was believed to be wholly Norman and later. In that year it was proposed that the south chancel chapel and south nave aisle were Anglo-Saxon. Two vertical strips of squared stones, built into the upper part (a later heightening) of the aisle's south wall, were interpreted as Anglo-Saxon pilaster strips of the type later classified by Dr H. M. Taylor as ‘long-and-short’. If the upper part of that wall was Anglo-Saxon, the lower part must have been earlier Anglo-Saxon, and so must the chapel south wall, which is integral with the lower part of the aisle wall. The Norman nave and chancel must have been added to an-existing Anglo-Saxon structure.

We believe, however, that the aisle and chapel must have been added to an existing Norman structure, for the Norman nave had originally a south-east external clasping buttress. Structural and documentary evidence shows that the strips are probably of the later thirteenth or earlier fourteenth century. Moreover similar strips occur in another part of the church that is probably of that date or later. ‘Pilaster strips’ of ‘long-and-short’ appearance may evidently be looked for elsewhere in twelfth-century or later contexts, especially in the heightened parts of unsupported rubble walls.     

Heroic History and Chiefly Chapels in 19th Century Tahiti

ABSTRACT This article seeks to understand mass conversion to Christianity in early 19th century Tahiti as the re‐materialisation of a heroic social field. Beginning with a re‐consideration of Sahlins' notion of ‘heroic history’, I argue that heroic Tahitian history was a distinctive combination of chiefly and collective action. The cultural structure of this history was reflected in three architectural moments: the building of a chapel for the high chief, Pomare, at Mo'orea, the generalised replication of this act through the construction, within a very short period, of some 70 chapels at Tahiti, and the building of a monumental chapel for Pomare at Tahiti. This article is a ‘prequel’ to an earlier publication on mass conversion to Christianity and church construction in Rarotonga.     

Notices of Books

Abstract

The three greatest German buildings of the first half of the eleventh century were of an ambition not to be found elsewhere in contemporary Europe and were modelled directly on Roman Imperial prototypes. They demonstrate a new grandeur of spirit that is typical of German architecture of the time, but in their precise forms, remarkably enough, they remained unique in that country. Archbishop Heribert's huge rotunda at Deutz was partly inspired by the Pantheon, and since Heribert had been Otto III's chief politician and Italian Chancellor for the previous six years the building was an important monument of Otto III's political policy of ‘Renovatio Imperii Romanorum’. The re-creation of Roman Imperial grandeur that these and other German buildings represent is essentially Romanesque and to call them anything else is not to do them justice. The idea of an Ottonian style of architecture has not been helpful.     

Proceedings at Meetings of the Royal Archæological Institute,June 4th, 1885

This is the report of three small research excavations at Waltham Abbey. Each was designed to answer specific questions about the destroyed east end of the Collegiate Church and the relation to it of the Augustinian extensions. Excavation in 1984 was across the chancel of the Collegiate Church which became the Augustinian central nave. In 1986 an area around the Collegiate ambulatory was dug and, in 1987, this was extended to establish the geometry of the apse.

In the area excavated there were no remains of a church which might pre-date the apse-and- ambulatory form. The eastern walls were taken down when the building was extended as part of the Augustinian re-foundation of 1177. Continuous but irregular Collegiate pier foundations were seen and four buttress projections, to the wall foundations, suggest that the aisles and ambulatory had been vaulted. The Collegiate chancel pier foundations seem to have been re-used and even the piers themselves appear to have been incorporated into the Augustinian design. Two new pier foundations for the Augustinian central nave were seen. This nave was wider than the adjacent chancel which caused problems of alignment. Part of the Augustinian north-aisle tiled pavement survived. A previously discovered curved foundation is now known to be that of a small ‘bubble’ chapel which was added between two adjacent buttresses of the Collegiate Church.

As a result of the excavations it is possible to predict the form of the second Collegiate church, of Romanesque style, and to suggest it was begun in the late eleventh century. To the west of the present excavations a much more modest apsidal end is still possible for Harold's original Collegiate Church dedicated c. 1060; no physical evidence of this church has been established with certainty but some possibilities are mentioned.

There is a full documentary survey and a discussion of parallels for the apse-and-ambulatory east end with Waltham having features in common with churches of other secular houses. Details are given of mortar analysis and of stonework which shows some clear parallels with the church begun at Durham c. 1095. There is a record of all previous work on the monastic site.     

The Sound of Debate in Georgian England: Auralising the House of Commons

St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster became the first permanent home of the house of commons in 1548. The building had to be adapted to conform to its new use. Visual and architectural adaptations to the space have been discussed in detail, but the building's new role also required improvements to the working use of the space as a forum for public debate. In this essay, acoustic techniques are used to explore how speeches and debate would have sounded during the Georgian period and consider how St Stephen's was adapted for this new use. The results demonstrate that, despite these alterations, the 18th‐century house of commons was not ideally suited to speaking or listening to debate. The listening experience was not uniform across the chamber, and its former use as a medieval chapel may have influenced how well certain positions in the chamber would have experienced speech.     

“The Evil State of Tepidity”: Mass‐Going and Absenteeism in Nineteenth‐Century Australian Ecclesiastical Discourse*

This paper sets out to explore how the Australian Catholic Church's perceptions of Mass‐going and absenteeism evolved in the mid‐to‐late nineteenth century. By examining the Lenten pastorals of Archbishop John Polding of Sydney, along with various mission sermons, the paper argues that a decisive shift is discernible after the 1860s. Where previous emphasis had fallen on absenteeism as a breakdown in the individual's relationship with God, later understandings introduced a dominant ecclesial imperative: Catholics who failed to attend Mass were also weakening the Church and effectively aiding hostile secular and Protestant forces arrayed against her. This shift was itself the product of a critical transformation in the field of ecclesiastical discourse as it gravitated inexorably towards more agonistic expressions.     

Recording and curating relics at Westminster Abbey in the late Middle Ages

ABSTRACT

Westminster Abbey’s relics, and objects functionally related to them, were kept in the shrine chapel of St Edward the Confessor, where the kings and queens of England were customarily buried. They constituted a discrete collection, curated by a dedicated monastic officer titled ‘the keeper of St Edward’s shrine and the relics of St Peter’s church’. Inventories of the chapel, made when the office changed hands, survive from 1467, 1479 and 1520. These documents are analysed here for what they reveal of the contents of the collection, monastic interest in it, and the way the relics and related objects were cared for. As an important aspect of the chapel’s spatial configuration, the problem of where precisely the relics were located is also investigated. By examining the routine management of a single, important collection, the article aims to contribute to a more holistic understanding of the cult of relics in the late Middle Ages.     

“Sailing in Stormy Waters”: Archbishop Matthew Beovich and the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide in the 1960s

In comparison with the modest religious revival of the 1950s, the 1960s was a time of change and turbulence. This article focuses on Archbishop Matthew Beovich (1896–1981) and the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Adelaide in South Australia. It briefly considers Beovich's involvement in the Second Vatican Council before turning to the implementation of conciliar reforms in his diocese. Other areas examined include the reaction in Adelaide to the papal encyclical on birth control, Humanae Vitae; discontent among some clergy in the late 1960s; and the controversial Vietnam War. The challenges of the decade brought out the best and worst of Beovich's leadership qualities: his wisdom and compassion were sometimes obscured by a brusque manner and an inability to cope effectively with dissent. As the problems that faced Beovich were not unique to the archdiocese of Adelaide, this article sheds lights on the strengths and weaknesses of institutional Catholicism in this period.     

Employment on the Priory of Durham Estates, 1494–1519: The Priory as an Employer

Abstract

This article argues that during the years in which he was Archbishop of York, 1514 to 1530, Thomas Wolsey monopolised the patronage of the city of York's governing institution. Unlike previous patrons, Wolsey's status as both the prelate of the archdiocese and the most prominent Crown minister and favourite of Henry VIII, gave him an unprecedented position in the city's quest for securing royal favour. The mayor and commonalty of York were not only aware of Wolsey's pre-eminent standing, but sought to exploit their perceived special connection with him for the city's economic benefit. It was York's governors who initiated and strived to maintain a continual patron-client relationship with Wolsey. In doing so, they deviated from the typical pattern of clientage among sixteenth-century urban governments by forsaking multiple ties with other local and regional notables. Brokers formed the channel through which patronage and clientage were transmitted. These were both men associated with Wolsey through archidiocesan administration and resident locally, and men situated in Wolsey's London household at York Place. By examining patronage and clientage in the context of the city's most pressing issues, this article sheds light on urban-Crown relations in the early Henrician period under Wolsey's supremacy.     

Complex Space or Broken Middle? Milbank,Rose, and the Sharia Controversy

Abstract

Remarks by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, suggesting that British law recognize Islamic law in some cases provoked a public outcry. I reflect on what may have caused the strong reaction to Williams's remarks by situating them between the work of John Milbank and the work of Gillian Rose. What Williams, Milbank, and Rose are struggling to articulate is a "politics of the middle," a political theory that does not privilege the sovereignty of individual or state, and which puts intermediary associations at center stage. A politics of the middle offers the only alternative to political theology, I argue. However, attempts to articulate a politics of the middle have remained cloaked in residual political theology. Critics of secular liberalism, who often content themselves with offering genealogies instead of presenting a constructive alternative, should explore the possibilities held by a politics of the middle, possibilities (and challenges) exposed by the sharia controversy.