This article explores the form, significance and purpose of a series of wax votive offering discovered in Exeter Cathedral during the Second World War.
Wax votive offerings
“go to the eternal fire, you accursed” – a painted rood beam
Woodeaton in Oxfordshire has a super little medieval church with lots to delight and catch the interest. The walls have the remains of layer upon layer of medieval wallpaintings, including lots of red ochre lining out on the walls of the nave and a delightful St Christopher facing the main south door, just where you... Continue Reading →
Chantries, poor livings and the gift of a lectern
Late medieval gospel lecterns are wonderful things and I have blogged about them and their purpose before. There are quite a number of 15th-century latten lecterns in Norfolk and Suffolk, but the example from Oxborough in Norfolk, dating from the 1480s, is particularly impressive. Not only is it a delightful object visually, with its eagle... Continue Reading →
Burial ground or rubbish dump?
Buckinghamshire is a wealthy and pleasant county in the south east of England, rather too pleasant for churches to be kept open. The day I visited Chearsley, only half of the churches I visited were open - which is not a very good record. Anyway it was a delight to get into this charming little... Continue Reading →
The Somerton reredos
Set into the east wall of Somerton church in Oxfordshire is what appears to be at first glance a complete medieval reredos. It portrays the Last Supper with Christ and the disciples ranged behind a long table covered in a pleated cloth. They are all tucking in to food and drink, eating from wooden trenchers... Continue Reading →
Founders of this Chantry, the interaction of ritual and memorial.
I had a trip into Berkshire a few months ago and to Childrey, where the church is a complex building of extraordinary interest, with lots of medieval glass and numerous late medieval monumental brasses. In the south transept, there is a fine early sixteenth-century monument of Purbeck marble which is built up against the north... Continue Reading →
Benedictine Patronage and Devotion
Horsham St Faith is a small village about four or five miles north of Norwich. In the Middle Ages, it was dominated by a Benedictine Priory of which there are now very scant remains, except for some domestic quarters with important medieval wall paintings. The priory was founded in 1105 by Robert FitzWalter. After... Continue Reading →
A typical medieval Missal?
Not all medieval missals were luxury items, this article looks at the fragmentary remains of a more ordinary medieval missal.
‘callyd the bachellers lyte’
Goodness, what a building. The Church of Our Lady in Worstead in Norfolk is an enormous box of delights, built on the wealth of the cloth trade. Worstead was a major centre of yarn manufacture and weaving from the twelfth century to such an extent that the general term for high-quality woollen cloth took its... Continue Reading →
All that glisters is gold – the Wymondham Abbey altar screen
The parish church of St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury in Wymondham in Norfolk, is all that is remains of a Benedictine Priory founded in 1107 by Wiliam d'Aubigny, which was raised to abbey status in 1448. When Wymondham Abbey was dissolved in 1538 at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the people of Wymondham... Continue Reading →
