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Buddhist scriptures underneath the white stupas of Sandamuni Pagoda in Mandalay, Myanmar March 2, 2015. Photo by Tim Chong
What are these Uprisings across the sky; These Silent Scriptures waiting to be read or sung to; These Inhuman Formations.
_AS_
© Anshul Soni, All Rights Reserved.
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Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily traps us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us;looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Monday Morning Revival
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves." - Mary Oliver
schweizercomics: Advent Calendar Day 10: Balthazar Over the next month, I’ll be offering thoughts on the Nativity set model, a large papercraft crèche that you can find and download here: gumroad.com/l/ThkR In yesterday’s write-ups I discussed why we default to three as the number for the magi; today I’ll touch on why we give them kingly status. Early Christian writers (including some of those who penned the New Testament) made a concerted effort to tie Christ with scripture of the past, and the magi-as-kings interpretation is a post-Biblical example of this continued theological tradition. Though Psalm 72 (including the verse pertinent to this write-up, “May all kings bow down to him, may all nations serve him”) is clearly a literal blessing/prayer from David to his son Solomon, it becomes viewed around the 600s as a prophecy about Christ, a complete departure from its original intent, but one that quickly cements itself in the Church. The problem is that, as prophecy, it leaves some holes, especially a notable lack of kings bowing before Christ. For some, EVENTUAL bowing hundreds of years later by kings and emperors was enough, but some thought it ought to reflect events during his lifetime. Thus, we see the magi transformed into kings in order to account for this theological addition. So this creates some obstacles: the kings are probably not from the same country, or else they would not be true kings. So the all-Persian/all-Babylonian grouping disappears, and we begin to see the varied ethnicity that has become such a staple of nativity depictions. In the 700s, global sociology, at least for Christians, was viewed through a Noahic lens, with the assumption that all of the world’s population descended from the three sons of Noah: Japeth populating Europe, Shem populating Asia, and Ham populating Africa (this latter notion would be used to justify slavery in the United States, citing that Noah’s curse on Ham’s son extended to all his offspring, and that this curse is slavery). With the world thus divided, the kings best serve prophetic purpose by operating as a stand-in for their continents as a whole. So we see each given a fixed position and clear ethnicity, elements which exist to some degree or another to this day. And while two of the kings, Melchior and Caspar, are all over the place, race-wise, Balthazar has been consistently depicted as Sub-Saharan African for the last six hundred years (a likely result of the increased presence of black people in Europe), though his blackness finds its way into writing and art as far back as the 1100s. Balthazar, whose name, along with those of the other two kings, comes from an early 4th century Greek source, serves a symbolic function beyond the geographic. Like the other kings, he takes on the responsibility of being a stand-in for a third of mankind, and as such represents the first stage of life. Balthazar is young, about twenty, the avatar of youth. And though I’ve never read commentary saying so, I’d like to think that this gives added bravado to the gift of myrrh (each of the named gifts is associated with a specific king, traditionally, and myrrh is linked with with Balthazar). Myrrh is an embalming fluid, and I’d like to think that it’s a statement on the cavalarity with which the young regard mortality. Balthazar is sometimes depicted riding an elephant, but I don’t like that approach. It doesn’t make much sense for someone from Nubia/the Sudan (my take) to be riding an Indian elephant, and there’s little precedent for domesticated African elephants. The latter also gives a kind of Africa-as-fantasy vibe that I think has bad social repercussions. I gave him a dromedary, which would have been abundant in Nubia. And the color palette? Yanked from Franco Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth miniseries, in which Balthazar is played by James Earl Jones. I’ve always been a big fan of Zefferelli’s color choices (both in film and his art direction for opera) and thought this would be a good place to give a nod to his influence. Adoration of the Magi on MPoC The Adoration is the second most-painted scene in European art history, behind only the Crucifixion. One of the Magi, Balthazar, is almost always depicted as a Black king. For those who are curious, here’s James Earl Jones as Balthazar in the Jesus of Nazareth Miniseries:
St Mary, Grundisburgh, Suffolk
Grundisburgh, pronounced gruns--br'r, is the largest of the pretty villages along and around the Fynn Valley to the north-east of Ipswich, with a lovely village green, a couple of shops and a decent pub. It's always a pleasure to visit, especially as the church is both interesting and open every day.
Back in 2004, I'd written: I arrived in Grundisburgh after a frustrating week. I had spent one whole morning, with the permission of the Ministry of Defence, documenting the four churches marooned inside the Norfolk battle training area; these are not accessible to the public, so I was careful to photograph everything I could for posterity, including many of the gravestones in the churchyards. I'd spent further hours formatting the photos, setting the pages up with thumbnails and text, and now the Ministry of Defence had decided that it couldn't easily give me permission to publish them, because it would create too much interest in a sensitive area.
So it was with some relief that I came to Grundisburgh, knowing that this welcoming church is open every day, is full of fascination, and is in an interesting village. And they won't stop me writing about it.
I was here on May Day 2004, and at 10am the village green was already the scene of frantic activity. Grundisburgh has one of the prettiest village greens in east Suffolk; a small triangle with the church on one side, the former school and an old-fashioned shop on another, and pretty cottages along the main road on the third. Two sides of the green are bordered by the infant River Finn, and there is even a ford. The imposing art deco war memorial stands in front of the church, and people were setting up stalls for the May Day fair. Soon, the sound of English country dancing music was blaring out, and there was the smell of coal smoke from a small traction engine. It was very atmospheric.
The tower of St Mary overlooked all this. It is a curious tower, to say the least. Suffolk has several other 18th century brick towers, but the pretty red-brick ones at Cowlinge and Layham, for example, do not seem quite so startling, and the white brick tower at Redgrave is elegant and stately. Perhaps it is simply that they are not so severe and bulky; St Mary's looks like nothing quite so much as a municipal water tower. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; Victorian restorer Edward Hakewill wished it in hell, but I was pleased that it existed somewhere, if only here.
Like many church towers in the Ipswich area, St Mary's is offset in the south-west corner; built in 1732, it replaced a medieval one in the same position. Robert Thinge paid for the work, and the tower was specifically designed for bell-ringing, as at Drinkstone 40 years earlier. Grundisburgh's ring of twelve bells is very highly thought of.
Thinge's memorial plaque has been restored, and sits above the south doorway. About halfway up this side is a wide window which gives light to the bellringing chamber. Beneath it is a 19th century clock to remind us that Tempus Fugit, but I love the intricately marked sundial below it, particularly because it tells us, in Suffolk dialect, that Life pass like a shadow - in Suffolk speech, the third person of a verb is often not conjugated separately.
Beyond the tower, a typically lovely late medieval church stretches away. The short 14th century south aisle is neat, crenellated and begargoyled. At its eastern end is the chantry chapel of Thomas Wale, built on the eve of the Reformation in 1527, and already demonstrating how an emphasis on secular power was in the ascendant. The dedicatory inscription below the battlements asks us to pray for his soul and that of his wife, but the reliefs show Wale's merchant mark, and the shield of the Salt Merchants' Company, of which he was a member.
The high, beautiful clerestory is from half a century earlier, and flushwork monograms punctuate the windows; they include the badge of St Edmund, what are believed to be the monograms of Thomas and Anne Tudenham who paid for the work, and letters spelling out AVE MARIA.
As usual with a south-western tower, you enter beneath the bells. At the time the tower was rebuilt, the church was decorated with the heavy-handed quotes from scripture that you still find nearby at Hemingstone. They've all gone here, except the one beside the 14th century south doorway which demands that we should keep the Sabbath and reverence the sanctuary.
You step through into light. This is one of the benefits of a tower on the south side of the church; the large west window can flood the nave with light. Directly opposite is one of the most striking St Christopher paintings in East Anglia; it was not uncovered until the 1950s, and so has not undergone the dubious benefits of a Victorian restoration. The Saint's red coat is rich and splendid, and the water he steps through abounds with life; three fish leap over two courting eels, while five more fish kiss beyond. There is even a mermaid. Buildings stand on either bank, and the fecundity is so infectious that leaved branches are sprouting from the top of the Saint's pilgrim staff. As at Creeting St Peter, there are scroll inscriptions.
Interestingly, the 15th century clerestory cuts through the head of Christ, adding more fuel to my theory that many wall paintings were actually whitewashed during a kind of proto-Reformation in the 1400s. At this time, orthodox Catholic doctrine was being asserted by influential families on behalf of the Church in the face of the superstitions and private devotions of the common people. Hence, the erection of bigger and bolder roodscreens, the installation of seven sacrament fonts, and bench ends that depict the sacraments, virtues and vices. Ironically, it was these same influential families who would be championing protestantism a century later, as the secular power within the strong nation state that they had secured eclipsed the cultural reach of the Catholic Church. Perhaps without the magic it no longer gripped their imaginations.
The St Christopher is spectacular, but there are two other wall paintings here that are of even greater interest and significance. One appears to be the eastern end of a frieze, and is located above the entrance of the roodloft stair doorway in the north wall. It appears to show a man with a nimbus halo being presented by a man with a sword to what seems to be a seated figure. It may show Christ being taken before the Jewish high priest, and thus be part of a passion sequence; it could also conceivably be part of a Saint's martyrdom. Its position is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, it is unlikely to be the final frame in a story, so being at the east end of the north wall it would be at the midpoint of a sequence stretching either clockwise or anti-clockwise around the building.
Secondly, it is in a 13th century style, but has been punched through by a late 14th century roodloft stairway entrance. What does this suggest? The painting dates from the great artistic flowering which would be cruelly dashed by the Black Death of 1348, when about half the population of East Anglia died. The doorway is cooller, more rational than it would have been half a century earlier. Was this the start of the proto-Reformation I suggested earlier? And why was it built here? Perhaps it happened at the time the south aisle was built.
The final wall painting is the most significant of all. It is on the southern side of the chancel sanctuary, which you may think is a very unusual place to find a wall painting, and you'd be right. It was actually found under the St Christopher, part of which was carefully lifted off and the painting beneath removed. It was then reset here.
It is a tiny fragment of a larger painting which the guidebooks suggest shows St Margaret, the wing of a dragon behind her, a legend on a scroll. But it is actually much more interesting than that. At Melbourne in Derbyshire there is a larger painting which shows a group of women, one of them wimpled like the woman here, sitting and chatting. Above them, a devil is sitting and listening, and writing down what they are saying, presumably so that it can later be used in evidence against them. It is known as the warning against gossip, and this is almost certainly what we have a fragment of here. Why did anyone ever think it was St Margaret? Perhaps they mistook the wimple for a helmet.
St Mary was one of many Suffolk churches restored by Edward Hakewill, who actually lived nearby. He let it off remarkably lightly, although it should be said in the church's defence that he did die during the restoration here. Otherwise, the planned north aisle would have been built, and we would have lost all the wall paintings for ever. Before he moved on to better things, he replaced all the seats - those in the nave and aisle are typically workaday, but the big choir stalls in the chancels are good, and retain medieval bench ends (although not the figures, which are his replacements). Thank goodness he didn't touch the rest of the woodwork, because this church contains what is generally felt to be the best of the smaller double-hammerbeam nave roofs in the county, as well as a beautiful rood screen and parclose screen, side by side. All three have been restored since Hakewill's time; the green man in the crocketting to the left of the entrance arch of the rood screen seems as fresh as if he emerged from the woods yesterday. There are sacred monograms on the panels of the parclose, and it is worth pointing out that this screen is 150 years older than the chapel beyond it, so there must have been something there before. Look up, and you can see the wooden angel corbel of the aisle and the stone shield-bearer corbel of the chapel, a century and a half apart, squatting side-by-side.
Look up further at the nave roof, and you can tell which are the replacement heads and wings on the roof angels because the 19th century oak has not faded to the colour of its 15th century predecessors. There are more than sixty angels, on the lower and upper hammerbeams, and actually under the spine of the roof itself. How glorious they must have looked in the 15th century when, full of colour, they hovered together above the people of Grundisburgh. What a vision of heaven that must have been. For centuries they sat in silence, headless and wingless, as part of the puritan project to turn the English into a serious people. Now at last they have taken flight again.
Stepping through to the chancel, you'll see that the medieval crossbeams are still in place, and the pretty pipe-organ has been sandwiched into the Wale chantry. After the high drama of the roof and screens, and the sobering effect of Hakewill's choir stalls, the sanctuary seems very middle-brow for such an interesting church; but Isobel Clover's super altar frontals distract from the insipid east window. There are some interesting memorials here.
All the church's brasses have been moved to the end of the south arcade. This is a controversial practice, because although it allows them to be seen and protects them from being walked on, it leaves them defenceless in a fire (floor-mounted brasses don't melt). The figures here have been lost, presumably to collectors, but the inscriptions survive, and are mounted one above the other.
The top two are for families that we have met elsewhere on our travels, and it is fascinating to see them together because they are two of Suffolk's most famous recusant families - that is, those who refused to renounce the old faith at the time of the Reformation.
This failure to conform to Anglicanism cost the Sulyards of Haughley Park at Wetherden their estate, but the Mannocks soldiered on at Gifford Hall at Stoke by Nayland, maintaining a Catholic priest throughout the penal years and providing one of Suffolk's first Catholic chapels at Withermarsh Green when Catholicism was at last decriminalised.
On the two brasses here, we catch up with the families some two generations after the Reformation; the connection between them is that Anne Manocke (1610) was the mother-in-law of Thomas Suleyard (1612). The Sulyards were particularly loathed by the puritans, and William Dowsing seems to have taken a peculiar pleasure in mindlessly defacing the Sulyard memorial at Wetherden. The third brass dates from a century earlier, and is for Thomas and Marjorie Awall.
The big name of the parish in the 18th and 19th century was Blois, and their ledger stones pave the chancel, their monuments line the wall. One of the ledger stones gives the date as January 1692/3, a reminder of the time when the new year began on the first quarter day, March 25th. In pre-Reformation times this had been the Feast of the Annunciation, but until well into the 18th century it remained the day that financial transactions were marked from, and even now the financial year begins at the start of April, twelve days being lost when England adopted the Julian calendar.
On the wall, there are three large Blois monuments to Martha (1645), William (1658) and Charles (1738). Martha's is the best, the kneelers at the bottom full of puritan piety, all with their own characters as if drawn from the life. William's is more sober, but Charles's is positively baroque. William is an interesting character. He was a staunch puritan, and a member of the Suffolk committee for the prosecution of scandalous ministers under the Earl of Manchester. These were the puritan thought police who persecuted theological liberals, sometimes hounding them to their deaths. This might suggest that Grundisburgh was a puritan parish, and perhaps it was by the time he'd finished; but in fact at the start of the Commonwealth period he was responsible for the ejection of Edward Barton, the Rector here. Barton was charged with being an absentee minister, only visiting his parish once or twice a year, which doesn't seem unreasonable, although he was also charged with having 'an infirme body & noe audible voice'. Liberal priests were usually charged with drunkenness and consorting with prostitutes, of which there seem to have been a good number in 17th century Suffolk, but perhaps Blois felt he had all the evidence he needed here, or Barton was simply genuinely lazy.
Elsewhere in the church are a wooden plaque to Robert Gurdon, killed in the desert in WWII, and a fascinating memorial at the west end of the south aisle to Henry Freeland, who died aged 20 on HMS Royal George near Sweden in 1854. We are told that He died suddenly, but not unprepared, and that it was in the morning of April 25th, off the island of Muskon Where, in the parish churchyard, his remains now lie interred.
Interestingly, I visited here the week of the 150th anniversary of Henry Freeland's death, and apparently the Swedes had made a big thing out of it; there had been a commemorative service on Muskon, and the Rector of Grundisburgh had written something for the memorial programme. The massing of the western European fleets off of Sweden during the Crimean War was the single biggest ever assemblage of warships seen in the Baltic, and Freeland's death became a symbol of the interdependence of England and Sweden. He died of an asthma attack, by the way, just like his father, the Rector of neighbouring Hasketon.
Looking back towards the west, a vast flag with three stylised lions hangs above the font. This is a Garter banner, and formerly hung at Windsor above the seat of Knight of the Garter Baron Cranworth. It now hangs here as his memorial. As part of the restoration, Hakewill reset the scattering of medieval glass in the chancel windows in the 19th century fashion. Virtually all of it is purely decorative, but there are two roundels of flowers, one of which appears to be a Yorkist rose. It may be that the other is also heraldic - could it be an iris? There are also several panels of blue folds, which were probably clothing.
One detail that intrigues me, and I don't know the answer to; in the Wale chantry, there are two corbels, one above the other; about a metre and a half separates them. Any ideas?
Grundisburgh is so close to Ipswich that many of the people who live here must be commuters, but it has retained a self-sufficient air, and this is not merely the result of County Council planning policies. The setting of St Mary gives the place a heart - this is a proper village, not just a parish, and as such is a community, with a fine if idiosyncratic building as its touchstone. As I stood watching the villagers wandering around the busy May Day fair, I thought of the ghostly abandoned villages of the Norfolk battle zone, once equally full of life, and thought that the people of Grundisburgh were more fortunate than they knew.
Caption: Reading the scriptures. India.
Citation: Mennonite Board of Missions Photograph Collection. India MP, 1939-1963. IV-10-7.2. Box 4, Folder 23, Photo #44. Mennonite Church Archives. Elkhart, Indiana.
St Ethelbert, Hessett, Suffolk
Hessett is a fairly ordinary kind of village to the east of Bury St Edmunds, but its church is one of the most important in East Anglia for a number of reasons, which will become obvious. Consider for one moment, if you will, the extent to which the beliefs and practices of a religious community affect the architecture of its buildings. Think of a mosque, for instance. Often square, expressing the democracy of Islam, but without any imagery of the human figure, for such things are proscribed. Think of a synagogue, focused towards the Holy Scriptures in the Ark, but designed to enable the proclaiming of the Word, and the way that early non-conformist chapels echo this architecture of Judaism - indeed, those who built the first free churches, like Ipswich's Unitarian Chapel, actually called them synagogues.
The shape of a church, then, is no accident. A typical Suffolk perpendicular church of the 15th century has wide aisles, to enable liturgical processions, a chancel for the celebration of Mass, places for other altars, niches for devotional statues, a focus towards the Blessed Sacrament in the east, a roof of angels to proclaim a hymn of praise, a large nave for devotional and social activities, and wall paintings of the Gospels and hagiographies of Saints, of the catechism and teachings of the Catholic Church. As Le Corbusier might have said if he'd been around at the time, a medieval church is a machine for making Catholicism happen.
No longer, of course. The radical and violent fracture in popular religion in the middle years of the 16th century gave birth to the Church of England, and the new church inherited buildings that were quite unsuitable for the new congregational protestant theology, a problem that the Church of England has never entirely solved.
Over the centuries, the problem has been addressed in different ways. The early reformers celebrated communion at a table in the nave, for example, and blocked off the chancel for other uses. Although this was challenged by the Laudian party in the early part of the 17th century, it was the way that many parishes reinvented their buildings, and most were to stay like that until the middle years of the 19th century. Some went further. A pulpit placed halfway down the nave, or even at the back of the church, meant that the seating could be arranged so that it no longer focused towards the east, thus breaking the link with Catholic (and Laudian) sacramentalism. For several centuries, Anglican churches focused on the pulpit rather than the altar.
With the coming to influence of the 19th century Oxford Movement, all this underwent another dramatic change, with the great majority of our medieval parish churches having their interiors restored to their medieval integrity, reinventing themselves as sacramental spaces. This is the condition in which we find most of them today, and some Anglican theologians are asking the question that the Catholic Church asked itself at Vatican II in the 1960s - is a 19th century liturgical space really appropriate for the Church of the 21st century?
So, let us hasten at once to Hessett. The church sits like a glowing jewel in its wide churchyard, right on the main road through the village. It is pretty well perfect if you are looking for a fine Suffolk exterior. An extensive 15th century rebuilding enwraps the earlier tower, which was crowned by the donor of the rebuilding, John Bacon.The nave and aisles are deliciously decorated, reminding one rather of the church at neighbouring Rougham, although this is a smaller church, and the aisles make it almost square. A dedicatory inscription on the two storey vestry in the north east corner bids us pray for the souls of John and Katherine Hoo, who donated the chancel and paid for the trimmings to the aisles. Their inscription has been damaged by protestant reformers, who obviously did not believe in the efficacy of prayers for the dead.
Although not comparable with that at Woolpit, the dressed stone porch is a grand affair, and a bold statement. You may find the south door locked, but if this is the case then the priest's door into the chancel is usually open. And in a way it is a good church to enter via the chancel, because in this way St Ethelbert unfolds its treasures slowly.You step into relative darkness - or, at least, it seems so in comparison with the nave beyond the rood screen. This is partly a result of the abundance of dark wood, and in truth the chancel seems rather overcrowded. The most striking objects in view are the return stalls, which fill the two westerly corners of the chancel. These are in the style of a college or school of priests, with their backs to the rood screen, but then 'returning' around the walls to the east. They are fine, and are certainly 15th or 16th century. But one of the stalls, that to the north, is different to the others, and seems slightly out of place. It is elaborately carved with faces, birds and foliage.
Mortlock thought that it might have been intended for a private house. The stall in front of it has heads on it that appear to be wearing 18th century wigs. The sanctuary is largely Victorianised, with a great east window depicting Saints. The south windows of the chancel depict a lovely Adoration scene by the O'Connors. The chancel is separated from the nave by the 15th century rood screen, which is elegantly painted and gilt on the west side, the beautifully tracery intricately carved above. The rood screen has been fitted with attractive iron gates, presumably evidence of Anglo-catholic enthusiasm here in the early 20th century, and you step down through them into the light. A first impression is that you are entering a much older space than the one you have left. There is an 18th century mustiness, enhanced by the box pews that line the aisles. And, beyond, on walls and in windows, are wonderful things.
The number of surviving wall paintings in England is a tiny fraction of those which existed before the 15th and 16th centuries. All churches had them, and in profusion. It isn't enough to say that they were a 'teaching aid' of a church of illiterate peasants. In the main, they were devotional, and that is why they were destroyed. However, it is more complicated than that. Research in recent years has indicated that many wall paintings were destroyed before the Reformation, perhaps a century before. In some churches, they have been punched through with Perpendicular windows, which are clearly pre-Reformation. In the decades after the Black Death, there seems to have been a sea change in the liturgical use of these buildings, a move away from an individualistic, devotional usage to a corporate liturgical one. There is a change of emphasis towards more education and exegesis. This is the time that pulpits and benches appear, long before protestantism was on the agenda. What seems to happen is that many buildings were intended now to be full of light, and devotional wall paintings were either whitewashed, or replaced with catechetical ones.
The decoration of the nave was the responsibility of the people of the parish, not of the Priest. The wall paintings of England can be divided into roughly three groups. Roughly speaking, the development of wall paintings over the later medieval period is in terms of these three overlapping emphases.
Firstly, the hagiographies - stories of the Saints. These might have had a local devotion, although some saints were popular over a wide area, and most churches seem to have supported a devotion to St Christopher right up until the Reformation.
Secondly came those which illustrate incidents in the life of Christ and his mother, the Blessed Virgin. Although partly pedagogical, they were also enabling tools, since private devotions often involved a contemplation upon them, and at Mass the larger part of those present would have been involved in private devotions. These scriptural stories were as likely to have been derived from apocryphal texts like the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew as from the actual Gospels themselves.
Lastly, there are catechetical wall paintings, illustrating the teachings of the Catholic church. It should not be assumed that these are dogmatic. Many are simply artistic representations of stories, and others are simplifications of theological ideas, as with the seven deadly sins and the seven cardinal virtues. Some warn against occasions of sin (gossiping, for example) and generally wall paintings provided a local site for discussion and exemplification.
To an extent, all the above is largely true of stained glass, as well, with the caveat that stained glass was more expensive, relied on local patronage, and often has this patronage as a subtext, hence the large number of heraldic devices and images of local worthies. But it was also devotional, and so it was also destroyed.
So - what survives at Hessett? The wall paintings first.
Starting in the south east corner of the nave, we have Suffolk's finest representation of St Barbara, presenting a tower. St Barbara was very popular in medieval times, because she was invoked against strikes by lightning and sudden fires. This resulted from her legend, for her father, on finding her to be a Christian, walled her up in a tower until she repented. As a result, he was struck by lightning, and reduced to ashes. She was also the patron saint of the powerful building trade, and as such her image graced their guild altars - perhaps that was the case here.
Above the south door is another figure, often identified as St Christopher, but I do not think that this can be the case. St Christopher is found nowhere else in Suffolk above a south door. The traditional iconography of this mythical saint is not in place here, and it is hard to see how this figure could ever have been interpreted as such. I suspect it is a result of an early account confusing the two images over the north and south doors, and the mistake being repeated in later accounts.
In fact, digital enhancement seems to suggest that there are two figures above the south door, overlapping each other slightly. The figure on the right is barefoot, that on the left is wearing a white gown. There appears to be water under their feet, and so I think this is an image of the Baptism of Christ. Perhaps it was once part of a sequence.
The wall painting opposite, above the north door, is St Christopher. Although it isn't as clear as himself at, say, nearby Bradfield Combust, he bestrides the river in the customary manner, staff in hand. The Christ child is difficult to discern, but you can see the fish in the water. Also in the water, and rather unusual, are two figures. They are rendered rather crudely, almost like gingerbread men. Could they be the donors of the north aisle, John and Katherine Hoo in person?
Moving along the north aisle, we come to the set of paintings for which Hessett is justifiably famous. They are set one above the other between two windows, at the point where might expect the now-vanished screen to a chapel to have been. The upper section was here first. It shows the seven deadly sins (described wrongly in some text books as a tree of Jesse, or ancestry of Christ). Two devils look on as, from the mouth of hell, a great tree sprouts, ending in seven images. Pride is at the top, and in pairs beneath are Gluttony and Anger, Vanity and Envy, Avarice and Lust. Mortlock suggests that some attempt has been made to erase the image for Lust, which may simply be mid-16th century puritan prurience on the part of some reformer here. This would suggest that this catechetical tool was here right up until the Reformation.
The idea of 'Seven Deadly Sins' was anathema to the reformers, because it is entirely unscriptural. Rather, as a catechetical tool, it is a way of drawing together a multitude of sins into a simplistic aide memoire. This could then be used in confession, taking each of them one at a time and examining ones conscience accordingly. It should not be seen simply as a 'warning' to ignorant peasants, for the evidence is that the ordinary rural people of late medieval England were theologically very articulate. Rather, it was a tool for use, in contemplation and preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation, which may well have ordinarily taken place in the chapel here.
The wall painting beneath the Sins is even more interesting. This is a very rare 'Christ of the Trades', and dates from the early 15th century, about a hundred years after the painting above. It is rather faded, and takes a while to discern, and not all of it is decodable. However, enough is there to be fascinating. The image of the 'Christ of the Trades' is known throughout Christendom, and contemporary versions with this can be found in other parts of Europe. It shows the risen Christ in the centre, and around him a vast array of the tools and symbols of various trades. One theory is that it depicts activities that should not take place on a Sunday, a holy day of obligation to refrain from work, and that these activities are wounding Christ anew.
Perhaps the most fascinating symbol, and the one that everyone notices, is the playing card. It shows the six of diamonds. Does it represent the makers of playing cards? If so, it might suggest a Flemish influence. Or could it be intended to represent something else? Whatever, it is one of the earliest representations of a playing card in England. Why is this here? It may very well be that there was a trades gild chantry chapel at the east end of the north aisle, and this painting was at its entrance.
At the east end of the north aisle now is the church's set of royal arms. Cautley saw it in the vestry in the 1930s, and identified it as a Queen Anne set. Now, with additions stripped away, it is revealed as a Charles II set from the 1660s, and a very fine one. It is fascinating to see it at such close range. Usually, they are set above the south door now, although they would originally have been placed above the chancel arch, in full view of the congregation, a gentle reminder of who was in charge.
And so to the glass, which on its own would be worth coming to Hessett to see. Few Suffolk churches have such an expanse, none have such a variety, or glass of such quality and interest. It consists essentially of two ranges, the life and Passion of Christ in the north aisle (although some glass has been reset across the church), and images and hagiographies of Saints in the south aisle.
In the north aisle, the scourging of Christ stands out, the wicked grins of the persecutors contrasting with the pained nobility of the Christ figure. In the next window, Christ rises from the dead, coming out of his tomb like the corpses in the doom paintings at Stanningfield, North Cove and Wenhaston. The Roman centurion sleeps soundly in the foreground.
The most famous image is in the east window of the south aisle. Apparently, it shows a bishop holding the chain to a bag, with four children playing at his feet. I say apparently, because there is rather more going on here than meets the eye. The reason that this image is so famous is that the small child in the foreground is holding what appears to be a golf club or hockey stick, and this would be the earliest representation of such an object in all Europe. The whole image has been said to represent St Nicholas, who was a Bishop, and whose legends include a bag of gold and a group of children.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. St Nicholas is never symbolised by a bag of gold, and there are three children in the St Nicholas legend, not four. In any case, the hand in the picture is not holding the chain to a bag at all, but a rosary, and the hockey stick is actually a fuller's club, used for dyeing clothes, and the symbol of St James the Less.
What has happened here is that the head of a Bishop has been grafted on to the body of a figure which is probably still in its original location. The three lights of this window contained a set of the Holy Kinship. The light to the north of the 'Bishop' contains two children playing with what ae apparently toys, but when you look closely you can see that one is holding a golden shell, and the other a poisoned chalice. They are the infant St James and St John, and the lost figure above them was their mother, Mary Salome.
This means that the figure with the Bishop's head is actually Mary Cleophas, mother of four children including St James the Less. The third light to the south, of course, would have depicted the Blessed Virgin and child, but she is lost to us.
Not only this, but Hessett has some very good 19th Century glass which complements and does not overly intrude. The best is beneath the tower, the west window in a fully 15th Century style of scenes by Clayton & Bell. The east window, depicting saints, is by William Warrington, and the chancel also has the O'Connor glass already mentioned.
If the windows and wall paintings were all there was, then Hessett would be remarkable enough. But there is something else, two things, actually, that elevate it above all other Suffolk churches, and all the churches of England. For St Ethelbert is the proud owner of two unique survivals. At the back of the church is a chest, no different from those you'll find in many a parish church. In common with those, it has three separate locks, the idea being that the Rector and two Churchwardens would have a key each, and it would be necessary for all three of them to be present for the chest to be opened. It was used for storing parish records and valuables.
At some point, one of the keys was lost. There is an old story about the iconoclast William Dowsing turning up here and demanding the chest be opened, but on account of the missing key it couldn't be. Unfortunately, this story isn't true, for Dowsing never recorded a visit Hessett. The chest was eventually opened in the 19th century. Inside were found two extraordinary pre-Reformation survivals. These are a pyx cloth and a burse. The pyx cloth was draped over the wooden canopy that enclosed the blessed sacrament (one of England's four surviving medieval pyxes is also in Suffolk, at Dennington) before it was raised above the high altar. The burse was used to contain the host before consecration at the Mass. They are England's only surviving examples, and they're both here. Or, more precisely they aren't, for both have been purloined by the British Museum, the kind of theft that no locked church can prevent.
But there are life-size photos of both either side of the tower arch. The burse is basically an envelope, and features the Veronica face of Christ on one side with the four evangelistic symbols in each corner. On the other is an Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God. The survival of both is extraordinary. It is one thing to explore the furnishings of lost Catholic England, quite another to come face to face with articles that were actually used in the liturgy.
In front of the pictures stands the font, a relatively good one of the early 15th century, though rather less exciting than everything going on around it. The dedicatory inscription survives, to a pair of Hoos of an earlier generation than the ones on the vestry.Turning east again, the ranks of simple 15th century benches are all of a piece with their church. They have survived the violent transitions of the centuries, and have seated generation after generation of Hessett people. They were new here when this church was alive with coloured light, with the hundreds of candles flickering on the rood beam, the processions, the festivals, and the people's lives totally integrated with the liturgy of the seasons. For the people of Catholic England, their religion was as much a part of them as the air they breathed. They little knew how soon it would all come to an end.
And so, there it is - one of the most fascinating and satisfactory of all East Anglia's churches. And yet, not many people know about it. We are only three miles from the brown-signed honeypot of Woolpit, where a constant stream of visitors come and go. I've visited Hessett many times, and never once encountered another visitor. Still, there you are, I suppose. Perhaps some places are better kept secret. But come here if you can, for here is a medieval worship space with much surviving evidence of what it was actually meant to be, and meant to do.
This Psalter, with an additional Office of the Dead, was created in the late thirteenth century in Northeastern France. A large quantity of Franciscan saints in the calendar and litany, as well as marginal imagery of them, suggests the original owner had a strong affinity for that order. The manuscript was likely begun for one patron, but finished for another, given a change in scribal and artistic hands and the addition of heraldry from Psalm 109 onwards. Arms for the Fieschi family, as well as a birth notice in the calendar, identify the manuscript's first owner as Leonardo dei Fieschi, a Genoese nobleman (d. 1331). Among a multitude of drolleries, the manuscript contains a number of unusual marginal vignettes depicting SS. Francis, Clare, and Elisabeth of Hungary. One image of St. Francis (fol. 139v) is heavily worn, which may be evidence of devotional touching by the manuscript's owner.
To explore fully digitized manuscripts with a virtual page-turning application, please visit Walters Ex Libris.