Learning outcomes:
This course has been designed to enable you to:
- Understand the chronological, contextual and iconographic range of wall paintings to survive from medieval England and some of the factors which have impacted on their current appearance.
- Identify the range of sources which can be used to decipher and interpret medieval murals in England and how these can be deployed in a contextual and holistic way.
Course sessions:
1: Deciphering Layers of History
1.1 Vertical archaeology, century by century
When the walls of a medieval building survive intact it presents us with an example of vertical archaeology. This lecture peels back those layers, surveying the range of murals to survive and thinking about how they were created. It will also explain why mural schemes were covered over and the how that history and subsequent conservation has an impact on what we see today.
1.2 Case Study: Willingham
This case study will examine the medieval and post-Reformation wall paintings at Willingham in Cambridgeshire. With a focus on chronology, interpretation and how subject matter and artistic rendition changed over the centuries, this session will allow us to examine church imagery from the 13th to the 17th century. We will also look at the impact of the Reformation on wall paintings and their subject matter.
2: Location, context, function
2.1 Thinking holistically about medieval painted interiors
Mural paintings are ‘bound by fate’ to the buildings they were created to adorn. Whether we are thinking about a domestic interior or the sacred space of a parish church, wall paintings can reveal how that space functioned. Thinking about what is painted, where it is positioned and who might have been able to look at it encourages us to think about the complex range of fixtures and fittings, meanings and purposes which filled these spaces in the medieval period.
2.2 Case Study: South Newington
South Newington church in Oxfordshire boasts one of the most widely acclaimed surviving wall painting schemes in the country. This session will examine how the context and location of murals within the church building are key to understanding their function. The north aisle murals, which date from the 14th century, were almost certainly commissioned by the Giffard family, whose ‘portraits’ appears in the paintings. This sacred space would have functioned as their chantry – or private – chapel.
3: Decoding symbols and meaning
3.1 Visual codes, sources and story telling
Wall paintings are often understood as functioning as teaching aides for the illiterate. This lecture unpacks that dictum, thinking about its origins and limitations and then explores a range of common visual codes and story-telling techniques found in common narrative and didactic subjects. Knowledge of these enables us to identify and reconstruct medieval ‘readings’ of fragmentary paintings.
3.2 Case Study: St Christopher, tales and attributes
This session will focus on the medieval cult of St Christopher, who was one of the most frequently represented saints in the late-medieval English church. We will examine the origins of the cult – probably in the Byzantine Empire – and the subsequent textual traditions that developed. We will also explore the 13th-century promulgation of the cult in England by Henry III at Westminster and Winchester, and how St Christopher wall paintings became ubiquitous in provincial churches from the mid-14th century onwards.
4: Who chose these subjects?
4.1 Painters, patrons and evidence for selection
The evidence for medieval wall painters and their patrons is frustratingly sparse and scattered. This session looks at the sorts of documents which contain reference to mural painters and also some of the contexts, such as houses and chantries where we can see the personal role of a patron most clearly. In self-presentation and selection the concerns of patrons for their legacy and for the welfare and engagement of viewers become clear.
4.2 Case Study: Raunds
This session will examine the late-14th century wall paintings at Raunds church in Northamptonshire. These high-status nave paintings include a unique survival among the medieval mural corpus – a painted west wall clock with donor figures depicting John and Sarah Catlyn. We will examine why the Catlyns commissioned the nave wall paintings, why they selected the subject matter depicted, and the overall function and meaning of the scheme.
5: Documentation for decoding
5.1 Finding, using and combining evidence
This concluding session considers the ways in different types of evidence can be combined to give an understanding of context and meaning and to help us to decipher paintings in holistic way. It shows a variety of types of sources which survive and different forms of contextual reading. Although many paintings are fragmentary, compromised and hard to decipher, interpreting murals isn’t like looking at clouds where we make up personal, subject meanings, there are other pieces of evidence we can deploy in an intellectually valid and creative way.
5.2 Case Study: Corby Glen
This case study will examine the 14th-century north aisle paintings at Corby Glen in Lincolnshire. Almost certainly commissioned by Margery de Crioll, this sacred space would have functioned as her chantry chapel. Furthermore, the subject matter within reflects her status as a learned woman. Medieval wall paintings rarely appear in medieval records, but Corby Glen has one key surviving testamentary document that relates to the church building – the will of Margery. The record confirms Margery’s role in constructing the north aisle.
Non-credit bearing
Please note that our Virtual Summer Festival of Learning courses are non-credit bearing.
Certificate of Participation
A certificate of participation will be sent to you electronically within a week of your Summer Festival course(s) finishing.
