Plates 3.31-3.32: Holy Sepulchres at Northwold and Heckington
Objects:
Plate 3.31: Northwold
The plate shows a relief wall monument taking an arcaded, pinnacled and vaulted architectural form, in broadly four registers. The less damaged right (East) edge shows it was originally flanked by a vertical pillar of niched arcading which projected slightly further than the main relief structure both to the front and on top, where there are suggestions that they may have terminated in pinnacles. Fragments remain of a matching left (West) feature. Little deep niche openings are shown on each side of these in the second story. At the base of the main central structure is a plinth decorated with horizontal moldings and a quatrefoil relief frieze. Above, are four recumbent soldiers flanked by indistinct renderings of trees and bounded at the top by a ledge supporting the next level. Above the ledge are three pairs of arcading in two registers, in effect forming a bank of six decorative arches. Above them are projecting niche heads revealing complex lierne vaults and above these are half-hexagonal open-work arcaded turrets. Another small dark niche-opening with a trefoil head is shown just above the soldiers and to the East. The drawing is without scale.
Plate 3.32: Heckington
A relief wall-monument in broadly three registers. At the base is a four bay shallow arcade beneath which are four crouching soldiers, two bearing shields. The register above has three gabled niches decorated with fleurons and finials At the center is a gable-headed blank niche-opening, a slight shadow indicating its depth. It is flanked by two smaller niches, each one sheltering one of the Marys and an angel. A further angel is just visible crouching at the Eastern edge of the central niche. Rising above its finial to occupy the majority of the remaining height of the third register is the risen Christ, adored by two more angels beneath him and the whole framed by a fourth gable at the base of which are small figure-heads. The central gable is faux-buttressed on each side and the top register above the gables is filled with swaying cloud-like relief foliage. Four tiny grotesque figures are shown carved on the top moulding. The drawing is without scale.
Transcription:
Plate 3.31
Schnebbelie del.
Basire Sc.
The Holy Sepulchre at Northwold in the County of Norfolk
Sumptibus Soc Antiquar Londini.
Published according to Act of Parliament 23.d 1795.
Plate 3.32
Schnebbelie del.
Basire Sc.
The Holy Sepulchre at Heckington in the County of Lincoln
Sumptibus Soc Antiquar Londini.
Published according to Act of Parliament 23.d 1795.
Translation:
Original Explanatory Account: Click here to read the original explanatory account for Plates 3.31-3.32.
Commentary by Veronica Sekules: These two plates, engraved by James Basire from drawings by one of the Society’s regular artists, Jacob Schnebbelie in 1789 (Reeve 2007), are cited as representative examples of the Holy Sepulchre in English churches and cathedrals. The explanatory account published with the engravings states that these are monuments placed on the north side of the chancel and intended for the Deposition on Good Friday and Resurrection on Easter Sunday, of Christ, the Savior’s body in the form of the crucifix and pyx. The author is not named, but is almost certainly (as has been cited elsewhere, (McGill 1849, 12) the SAL’s director of publications from 1771-1797, Richard Gough well known for his interest and expertise in medieval monuments. It was also Gough who presented monuments at Northwold church to the SAL in 1790 (SAL Council Minutes XXXIII.484).
In the explanatory account, short descriptions follow for each plate. The account of Northwold is quoted directly from Francis Blomefield’s History of Norfolk (1805-10), complete with his mistaken reference to only three soldiers at the base of the monument instead of the four which are clearly visible in the engraving. The description of Heckington however, while said to be based on actual observation and measurement was clearly modeled on Blomefield’s description of Northwold. Unlike the very brief description of Northwold, which emphasizes its large and lofty scale and “curious tabernacle work” in very general terms, Gough takes a closer interest in a more archaeological interpretation of Heckington, albeit slightly confusingly describing its central features as being in six compartments in two stories, which seems more characteristic of Northwold. He describes the central niche, or “hollow”. Above it is Christ rising from the tomb, and either side of it are two Maries each accompanied by an angel. Below, beneath four more arcades, are four reclining soldiers.
It is immediately striking, looking back at these engravings and the way they are initially introduced in the explanatory account, that one of the primary interests for Gough and his audience, was phenomenological. They are here as representative examples of a type of religious commemorative monument, and as Sweet characterized it: “antiquarian activity…directed by the imperative of establishing a national past” (Sweet 2004, xxi). Gough’s article goes on to list examples of all kinds of Sepulchres, temporary and permanent. How they were used was of great interest and much of the article is devoted to detailed accounts of the religious ritual associated with the Sepulchre. Also, proximity to the Sepulchre was noted as being of continuing importance as was the long duration of the practice of honoring the Sepulchre. For example, Gough cites three sixteenth-century tombs, each to be sited where the Sepulchre is set up at Easter and known as such from wills: Sir Henry Colet at St Dunstan, Stepney; Sir Nicholas Latimer, 1505, at Buckland Abbas Dorset and in 1531 at Hurstmonceaux, Sussex, the tomb of Thomas Lord Dacre.
There are surprising inconsistencies and omissions however, considering that Gough has been characterized as a rigorous historical scholar (Sweet 2004, 13-14, 43-4). The fact that Northwold and Heckington are separated in date by some hundred years and geographically by some fifty miles seems of little or no relevance to him. Details of style and design, even in terms of precisely how the monuments might have been used practically, are given peremptory treatment, if at all. The fact that Gough describes the central “hollow” of the Heckington monument, but is uncertain whether its inner cavity is there by accident or design, is puzzling, given that the fact that Christ is presented rising above it, must mean that this represents the tomb with a cavity for reception of the Host, which he had already mentioned as being central to its purpose. Northwold’s cavities, one of which, shown clearly in the engraving, is within the eastern-most panel of arcading, might well have been designed for placement of the Host, but is not described.
The lack of specific detail or of stylistic distinction between medieval monuments of different dates is perhaps not surprising in that Gough was observing and writing some 15-20 years before scholars like Thomas Rickman and Matthew Bloxham began to offer more comprehensive systems for the classification of Gothic architecture. However, what is more surprising is the lack of any historical context for the churches in which the monuments are situated. Perhaps this says more about Vetusta Monumenta as a type of publication, more interested in representing a breadth of historic episodes than exploring a deep grounding in historical detail for each one. It may also have been the lack of accessible information at the date Gough was writing. Hence the reliance on Blomefield as a pioneering compiler of data on Norfolk churches and their contents. Heckington’s heraldry and inscriptions had been surveyed by the antiquarian Gervase Holles c. 1675, over a century earlier, but not otherwise published (Holles 1911).
The lack of historical or descriptive detail for both monuments extends also to the style in which the images are presented. Both are isolated from any architectural context, with only the merest shadows suggestive of depth and perspective. In both cases both architectural detailing and figures are softened and imprecise. Each monument is represented almost as a cut-out, and set within a border frame. While this spare ‘cut-out’ style is characteristic of many of the monuments illustrated for Vetusta Monumenta, whether or not they had any architectural context seems to have depended on the interests of the original illustrator. For example, Basire’s engravings after architect and draughtsman John Carter’s originals show sharp architectural detail and at least a suggestion of solidity and architectural context. For example, both the monument to Rahere at St Bartholomews (Plate 2.36) and the font at Winchester (Plate 2.39) are represented with part of the floor beneath them, giving them both depth and context. Schnebbelie, while much admired as an atmospheric topographical illustrator by his contemporaries, was clearly less interested than Carter in conveying precise detail.
At the time when Volume III of Vetusta Monumenta was published in 1796, consideration of the details of use of the Holy Sepulchre would have been a slightly more complex matter than treatment of the history of the monuments themselves. It was a time of conscious Protestantism in England, and the height of religious non-conformity. Catholicism was still viewed as a superstitious and tyrannical religion (Haynes 2010, 206). Richard Gough was said to be a “rigid Presbyterian” and the Catholic Doctrine of Transubstantiation which underpinned the reverence for the Sepulchre would have been alien to his practice and at best troublesome. Indeed, his tutor at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge was apparently told not to let him take the Sacrament (Sweet 2008).
Nevertheless, how the Sepulchres were used at Easter is a major question that Gough clearly wanted to address. His references to the liturgy of Holy Week take up the rest of the article, in fact the majority of its length, and reveal a somewhat anthropological interest in the church ritual. They are prefaced by a statement which is very revealing of Gough’s real attitudes to Catholic liturgy however: “Among the corruptions in the office of the holy communion, and the many ridiculous pieces of pageantry used in it, Bishop Burnet reckons ‘the laying the host in the Sepulchre they made for Christ on Good Friday’” (258). There follows a long transcription from Du Fresne’s edition of the Ordinary of the Church of Rouen, describing the Quem Quaeritis passage of the Easter ritual undertaken by priests dressed as the Maries at the tomb encountering the Angel, who tells them Christ is no longer there and announces his resurrection. It is clear, as Gough concludes, that this ceremony implied the need for a temporary structure that the priests could enter. He then goes on to transcribe the passage from the Rites of Durham of the Creeping to the Cross on Good Friday and the Resurrection on Easter Sunday as enacted by priests there.
Finally, he quotes from fellow antiquarian Rev Joseph Townshend’s “Travels through Spain in the years 1786-7,” an account of the Easter rituals in Barcelona and Malaga, which had they not been unfortunately rained off, would have afforded “much amusement to the vulgar.” This mildly dismissive comment accords with the general tone of anti-Catholicism above, and which was evident among travelers on the Grand Tour (which included Townshend whose Spanish tours were conducted in the company of the Duke of Atholl while he acted as his chaplain). Claire Haines, writing about British Grand Tourists post 1745 and their attitudes to religious ritual, concludes that anti-Catholicism was one of the constants in Grand Tour literature well into the nineteenth century, and that the witnessing and criticism of religious excess became a way of affirming Protestantism: “As they visited churches, Protestant spectators were always managing two main kinds of visual experience: one of looking at art (a significant part of the tour was spent in this way) and the other of observing what they considered to be the idolatrous practices of Catholicism. Each seems to have been as important as the other.” (Haynes 2010, 204)
The Heckington Sepulchre is sited as Gough says, in the north wall of the chancel, but he does not record anything about its physical or historical context, as part of a contemporary suite of liturgical furnishings which includes an arcaded sedilia and a double piscina, opposite in the south wall. To the west of the Sepulchre is the tomb of Richard Potesgrave, the rector who commissioned the chancel building and its furnishings. (Holles 1911) He was rector from 1308-1345, and there are several indications of a closer date of c 1330 or shortly after, for its completion, and therefore for the Sepulchre. Francis Thynne’s antiquarian notes record a date of 1333 in the East window (Thynne 1603-5) and by 1336 there was an operational chantry with a chaplain at the altar of St Nicholas. (Sekules 1986, 129, n. 46) Behind the Sepulchre and accessed by a doorway next to the tomb is a sacristy. It is clear that the whole chancel was envisaged as the setting for ritual observance which was unusually grand and elaborate for a parish church.
Indeed, the rector, Potesgrave was one of the chaplains to King Edward II and the Heckington Sepulchre is one among a small group of permanently sited sepulchres in the Eastern region, all dating from the early fourteenth century (Sekules 1986, 123-25). The earliest of these, and an exception in that it takes the form of a tomb, is the one mentioned by Gough, at Lincoln Cathedral, and associated with the adjacent tomb of Bishop Remigius. All that remains are the three figures of the sleeping soldiers on the tomb chest, but its scale implies the presence of a recumbent effigy, either permanently, or as a temporary appearance as part of the Easter ritual. Others which take a vertical tabernacle form and are more closely related to Heckington in style and date, include Hawton, Navenby, and Sibthorpe, but there are several others from this date. There appears to be a common thread of association between them with the royal court, as Navenby, Sibthorpe, like Heckington, were also built by royal chaplains (Sekules 1986, 130, n. 46). The association of the Sepulchre with ecclesiastical and secular tombs was recognised by various scholars who investigated the phenomena of Easter Sepulchres post Gough (Heales 1869; Sheingorn, 1978 and 1987).
Heckington and its related early fourteenth-century permanently sited Sepulchre monuments, were a rarity in England which need specific investigation. It is highly possible that the erection of these monuments was connected with the increasing veneration of the Sacrament and the establishment of the feast of Corpus Christi during the period from 1264-1317, and the establishment in Eastern England of Corpus Christi guilds and celebrations in the second quarter of the fourteenth century (Sekules 1986). They may therefore have taken the form of proto-Sacrament Shrines to reserve the Host, and thus been dedicated to celebrating the body of Christ and the Doctrine of Transubstantiation at this significant time. It is not clear to what extent this specific connection persisted, as the sacrament shrine never developed in England as it did in the Netherlands and Germany.
Gough also recognized that Heckington and Northwold were visible the year round, which implied that they had a wider purpose symbolically and liturgically than one narrowly related to Easter itself. He noted that according to Weever’s account, records of Templar copies of Christ’s tomb at Jerusalem were brought into Europe. These references caused him to reflect that Northwold and Heckington, as permanent monuments, might relate to that tradition. This was also the conclusion made by the Rev GH McGill writing about Northwold for Norfolk Archaeology a century after Gough (McGill 1847). All the liturgical ritual rubrics printed by Gough implied a set of temporary Easter furnishings which the priests could enter. In addition, he considered the general Easter liturgy which may have applied for Heckington and Northwold. Quoting Blomefield, Gough related how the solemn office of the Tenebrae would have occurred around the Sepulchres on Thursday to Sunday of Easter week, and how the church was darkened by veils which were ripped apart on Easter Sunday to reveal the lights and figures associated with the risen Christ. There is other documentary evidence of the use of temporary screens or cloths around permanent Sepulchres at Easter, as there was for secular tombs: Lincoln Cathedral clearly had a set of temporary Easter furnishings which were used in association with its Sepulchre. The Ordinal of Bayeux gives an account both of the ritual associating temporary furnishings with a permanent Sepulchre at Easter, and of other occasions in the church year when the permanent Sepulchre was visited in processions (Sekules 1986, 128, n. 36 & 37).
The Sepulchre at Northwold is at least a century later than Heckington and an extreme rarity in continuing to take the form of a Sepulchre of Christ rather than a secular tomb around which a Sepulchre was set up over Easter. The manor of Northwold was owned by Ely Cathedral and the first church built probably at the behest of Hugh of Northwold between 1290-1350, the likely date of the extant nave (Norris 2003, 7-9). The rest of the church appears to be of uniform date, and between 1467 and 1482, there were seven bequests for repairs to the church and the building of the tower. An inscription on the clerestory exterior records a gift by a “John Stalyng,” who might be either a John Sterling of Hockwold whose will favoured the church in 1462, or another John Starlynge of Northwold whose will dates to 1510 (Norris 2003, 10-12; McGill, 1847, 120-132).
Authorities vary as to the date of the Sepulchre. Pevsner and Sheingorn, probably following him, both say it is late fifteenth century (Pevsner 2002, 576; Sheingorn 1987, 248). Other sources say that it is even late fourteenth century on account of the style of the armor. Blomefield, as quoted by Gough, gives somewhat short-shrift to its “curious wright spire work with arched canopies adorned with many niches, and in them little pedestals for images” (Gough 1795, 1). Most accounts, Sheingorn’s included, remark on its extensive damage. Whereas Heckington is carved from Nottinghamshire limestone, Northwold is carved from clunch, a much softer chalk stone from the adjacent area of South-West Norfolk and North Suffolk. In spite of the damage however, much superb detail remains. At the base, four recumbent soldiers are clothed in armor, two with elaborately chased breast and shoulder plates, and helmets. The style of the armor is consistent with that found on brasses not later than the 1440s. However, the soldiers at the base of Christs’s tomb are often shown as historic figures with old-fashioned armor, so this may not be indicative of the date of the whole monument. Between them are trees, one of which is inhabited by many tiny birds. The canopied relief structure above rests on a shallow ledge, which does not appear to have any remains of bases or fixings for figures, but does have a small deep niche at the far right—in the Easternmost arcade, which was probably intended for the Host. The whole relief structure is an extremely sophisticated design, two-tiered, with each tier divided into twin arcades with intricately carved lierne-vaulted niche-heads. The lower tier is damaged at the top, but might originally have been surmounted by small ogee gablets to echo those of the story above. Out of their heads rise the arcades for the upper story, which link at their heads into a further register of double arches leading into three different elaborate lierne vaults. These are surmounted by projecting ogee-arch headed gablets above which are half-hexagon projecting arcaded two-storied towers.
The wall around the Sepulchre has been hacked to rubble, damaging what would have been its outer boundary features. We still have the remains of the outermost relief turrets to the north and south edges, decorated with small niches which do seem to have remains of pedestals for little statues. There are also what appear to be remains of deep holes and slots on each side, as if a grille was intended to be fixed over the front, to safe guard the Host. Overall there is a very subtle emphasis of the center, which has the most elaborate of the three lierne vaults and projects very slightly further forward than the others. It is conceivable that above it, or below it, there was originally a figure of the risen Christ, as at Heckington. Stylistically it is hard to find contemporary equivalents for the design of the monument, but the closest comparisons for the sophistication of its arcading and tracery can be found at Ely Cathedral, the tombs of John Baron Tiptoft (d. 1443) and Louis of Luxembourg (d. 1443) (Maddison 2000, 94). There are also enough parallels with decorative niche designs of the first phase of building at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge to suggest that the mason who carved Northwold was in the same milieu, or at least working in a similar repertoire. The earliest work there dates between 1448 and 1461, and has been attributed to Reginald Ely (Woodman 1986, 47-52).
While Gough differentiated himself from the Catholic rituals he was describing, or at least, hinted that he did, in fact the engravings of Heckington and Northwold Easter Sepulchres gave him an opportunity to range widely in considering some historic curiosities of religious practice.
Works Cited:
Gough, Richard. 1795. “Vol III Plate XXXI. XXXII.” In Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. 3.
Haynes, Clare. 2010. “A ‘Trial for the Patience of Reason’ Grand Tourists and Anti-Catholicism after 1745.” Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 33.2: 195-208.
Heales, Alfred. 1869. “Easter Sepulchres, their Object, Nature and History”. Archaeologia 41: 263-308.
Holles, Gervase. 1911. Lincolnshire Church Notes Made by Gervase Holles AD 1634 to AD 1642. In Lincoln Record Society, Vol. 11, edited by R.E.G. Coles.
Maddison, John. 2000. Ely Cathedral: Design and Meaning. Ely: Ely Cathedral Publications.
McGill, Reverend G.H. 1847. “The Easter Sepulchre at Northwold” Norfolk Archaeology 4: 120-134.
Norris, J.A. 2003. St. Andrews Northwold, Church History and Guide, 2nd ed.
Pevsner, Nicholaus and Bill Wilson. 2002. The Buildings of England, Norfolk 2: North-West and South. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Reeve, Matthew. 2007. “Jacob Schnebbelie, draughtsman to the Society of Antiquaries (1760-92), and the politics of preservation in late eighteenth century England.” Trans Ancient Monuments Society 51: 69-86.
Sekules, Veronica. 1986. “The Tomb of Christ at Lincoln and the Development of the Sacrament Shrine: Easter Sepulchres Reconsidered.” Medieval Art and Architecture at Lincoln Cathedral, Journal of the British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions for the year 1982, VIII: 118-131.
Sheingorn, Pamela Sheingorn. 1978. “The Sepulchrum Domini: A Study in Art and Liturgy.” Studies in Iconography 4: 46-8.
------. 1987. The Easter Sepulchre in England. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications.
Sweet, Rosemary. 2004a. Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain. London: Hambledon.
------. 2004b. "Gough, Richard (1735–1809), antiquary." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thynne, Francis. 1603-5. Lincs Church Notes. Add. MS 36295, The British Library, London.
Woodman, Francis. 1986. The Architectural History of King’s College Chapel and its Place in the Development of Late Gothic Architecture in England and France. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.