The Body in the Box: The Iconography of the Cuthbert Coffin. In Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Art, Material Culture, Language and Literature of the Early Medieval World, ed. E. Cambridge and J. Hawkes. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 78-89, 2017 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Contextualising English Late-Medieval Carved Cadavers (Mar 2016)
In this paper I will contextualise a subset of Northern European cadaver monuments (transi) of the Late-Medieval era, and explore the extant 40 English carved cadaver memorials (herein ECCMs) dating from between c1420/25 to 1558; all bar two are carved from a single piece of stone, all bar one memorialise high ranking clerics or male members of the wealthy land-owning and mercantile classes, and all image an emaciated and naked (apart from a strategically placed hand or piece of shroud cloth) recently dead individual, often largely anatomically correct despite pre-dating Vesalius, the father of anatomy. By examining late-medieval vernacular theology, and perceptions of purgatory, and speculating on understandings of the body post-mortem, my paper will support current scholarly writing that these sculptures were pedagogical in nature, prompting prayers from the living to comfort the deceased in purgatory. However, I will also suggest that they providing a visual reminder to the living that purgatorial suffering was not just spiritual, but also physical during the stage that anthropologist Robert Hertz has described as the 'wet stage of death'; the stage before the corpse became fully skeletal. Thus, I will argue then that these are sculptures commissioned to project the spiritual humility of those with material excess; a necessary quality when 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God' (Matt 19:24). I will also note their potential importance to the study of pre-Vesalian anatomy, a currently marginalized topic. By examining the viscerality of these often realistic depictions of a cadaver, through Paul Messaris' concept of iconicity (the emotion elicited from gazing at an image), alongside the medieval Northern European notion of post-mortem sentience (the concept that the dead can in some sense perceive), I hope to present the what, why and how of these unusual forms of late-medieval English mortuary art. Without going into too much detail, I wish to give a general overview of the 40 extant ECCMs before exploring their theological and anatomical aspects. I should note there are a further 3 of these cadaver sculptures in Wales (all are single, all are anonymous, 1 is clerical and 2 of the laity) but there are none in Scotland. Thus in total, there are 43 extant carved cadaver sculptures in Britain, with only 1 known to have been destroyed; all that remains is the upper effigy of an archbishop.
Between c1240/5 and 1588 there was a fashion amongst members of the religious elite, wealthy landowners, and prosperous merchants to have themselves depicted as a naked, emaciated cadaver, lying in a burial shroud with their modesty protected by a strategically positioned hand or piece of cloth. Although a fashion imported from the continent, and part of the wider European late-medieval depiction of the dead, these English and Welsh carved cavaders are an often overlooked part of British visual mortuary culture. Firmly connected with purgatory and thus Roman Catholic after-life beliefs, the 41 extant carved cadavers are wonderful examples of how death was central to life and the pre-and post-mortem self during this period of British history. Acting as memento mori and warnings against vanitas and voluptas these unusual sculptures typically depicted the specific individual in the liminal period between life and death, although a small number do show the individual as dead. Perhaps most interestingly though, given the earliest pre-date Vesalius by almost a century, these sculptures are largely anatomically accurate; although again with a few exceptions. This paper briefly explores these English and Welsh carved cadavers in terms of their anatomical depictions and their connections with late-medieval religious rituals and beliefs. It also discusses them in relation to the modern interpretation of the British late-medieval carved cadaver that is currently being hand-sculpted in wood by anatomical sculptor Eleanor Crook; probably the first to be carved in almost 500 years.
Stone and Bone: The Corpse, the Effigy and the Viewer in Late-Medieval Tomb Sculpture
2016
Courtauld Books Online is a series of scholarly books published by The Courtauld Institute of Art. The series includes research publications that emerge from Courtauld Research Forum events and Courtauld projects involving an array of outstanding scholars from art history and conservation across the world. It is an open-access series, freely available to readers to read online and to download without charge. The series has been developed in the context of research priorities of The Courtauld which emphasise the extension of knowledge in the fields of art history and conservation, and the development of new patterns of explanation.
There is one in York Minster. He is very worn but once would have been quite a sight. His provenance is contentious; either the sculpture commemorates Dean Thomas Haxey, and thus it is the first example of an isolated transi here, or it could be of Treasurer John Newton, and the very first transi in the country. All we know for sure is it commemorated a very wealthy individual, and that it has been moved. Sitting inside a heavy metal cage, this example really does not do justice to the genre of British sculpture.
This short paper contextualizes a sub-set of Northern European cadaver monuments of the late-Medieval era, known as transi imagery. It explores 36 English carved cadaver monuments (ECCMs) dating from between c1425 to 1553. By examining vernacular theology, perceptions of purgatory, and understandings of the body post-mortem, it argues that these ECCMs were pedagogical in nature, prompting prayers from the living to comfort the deceased in purgatory. It controversially argues that purgatorial suffering was not just understood as spiritual in late-Medieval England, but also physical during the wet stage of death; the period before the corpse became skeletal. Further, by drawing on fieldwork, it gives a brief guide to the carved cadaver monuments that can be found in England.
Mortality: Promoting the interdisciplinary study of death and dying (Taylor & Francis), 2014
Objects in graves have been a traditional focus of burial archaeology. Conventional interpretations of their meanings revolved around religion (equipment for the hereafter, Charon’s Penny), legal concepts (inalienable possessions) and social structure (status display, ostentatious destruction of wealth). An interdisciplinary perspective drawing on archaeological literature, anthropological evidence and sociological theory widens the range of possible interpretations. Textual sources of the Roman and early medieval periods highlight the importance of gift-giving to the deceased, but also to deities. Anthropology shows the importance of the disposal of polluted items in the grave, and of protecting the living. Ethnographic cases also underpin theoretical considerations concerning the role of biographical representations (metaphors) during the funeral, as well as emphasizing the desire and the need to forget the dead. Textual and archaeological evidence from the Early Middle Ages suggest that these motives were not sharply separated, but that many of them played a role during any one funeral. In addition, motives changed over time, and the associations of particular grave-goods (such as coins or weapons) varied across time and geographical regions. Above all, multiplicity of messages and variability of meanings characterized the deposition of objects in early medieval graves.
A Double-edged Sword: Swords, Bodies, and Personhood in Early Medieval Archaeology and Literature
European Journal of Archaeology, 2019
In Anglo-Saxon and Viking literature swords form part of a hero's identity. In addition to being weapons, they represent a material agent for the individual's actions, a physical expression of identity. In this article we bring together the evidence from literature and archaeology concerning Anglo-Saxon and Viking-age swords and argue that these strands of evidence converge on the construction of mortuary identities and particular personhoods. The placement of the sword in funerary contexts is important. Swords were not just objects; they were worn close to the body, intermingling with the physical person. This is reflected in the mortuary context where they were displayed within an emotive aesthetic. Typically, swords were embraced, placed next to the head and shoulders, more like a companion than an object. However, there are exceptions: graves like Birka 581 and Prittlewell show sword locations that contrast with the normal placement, locations which would have jarred wit...
MA Dissertation, 2020
This paper looks at the spandrel narrative relief carved onto the tomb of Bishop Giles de Bridport at Salisbury Cathedral c.1262 to consider what its possible meaning and function may be. Specifically, it questions the long held academic assumption that the relief, although without English precedent at the time, is simply an illustrated summary of Bishop Bridport’s life. By investigating a number of the episodes depicted in the relief, and considering them against the wider context of the cathedral and its audiences, it concludes that the sculpture incorporates iconography that projects a multitude of messages each a reflection of Bridport’s own belief system and designed to aid the salvational, spiritual and commemorative function of the tomb as a whole.