Ninth Warwick Symposium on Parish Research
'The Fabric of Community - Parish Material
Perspective' (21 May 2011, University of Warwick)
Cultures
in
Matthew Jackson & Agata Gomolka, University of Warwick
Objects and edifices are more than simple constellations of matter,
insignificant pieces of property, or trivial ‘things’ and a careful study of their
cultural, functional, physical and stylistic attributes provides an invaluable
approach to late medieval and early modern parish life. The ‘Ninth Warwick
Symposium on Parish Research’, co-organised by Joanne Anderson and Don
White at the University of Warwick on 21 May 2011, was a one-day interdisciplinary conference devoted to exploring this theme with contributions by
scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds
On behalf of the Warwick Network for Parish Research, Beat Kümin
(History, Warwick) opened the session by welcoming an international
audience composed of academic staff, research students and private art
collectors. Joanne Anderson (Art History, Warwick) then outlined the
symposium’s research agenda, expressing her particular desire to explore and
perhaps better define ‘Material Culture’ as a concept. Is it the examination of
evidence to reassemble the remains of a material past, for example, or a
construct for understanding social relations? Equally, what impact does the
recent shift towards ‘Materialities’ in historical scholarship have upon the
study or survival of ‘Material Culture’ as an analytical tool, and what can be
learned from other disciplines which engage with the physical properties of
artworks and artefacts and their contingent values? The successive
contributions were arranged in four sections, dedicated to the themes of ‘Sites
and Sacred Spaces’, ‘Architecture and Atmosphere’, ‘Artworks and Agency’,
and ‘Memory and Materiality’.
The first paper, ‘Doorways to Another World: Medieval Chapels in the
Landscape, Church Life and Literature’, was presented by Nicholas Orme
(History, Exeter). He explored the diverse functions and types of medieval
chapels in the religious landscape, focusing specifically on those in Cornwall,
home to around 400 chapels within approximately 200 parishes. Orme
distinguished three basic types of chapel based on size, location, function and
accessibility. The first were indoor chapels, typically located within domestic
settings or parish churches, that catered for families and guilds. The second
type, chapels of ease, served the spiritual needs of specific hamlets or villages
within large parishes. Thirdly, cult chapels were small and adaptable facilities
linked to the establishment and promotion of local religious cults. Their
relatively small size and limited costs made them the most numerous variety.
Orme argued that chapels often shared a complex and problematic
relationship with the parish church, especially where their sacramental
provision and involvement in local culture made them attractive places of
worship, sometimes with an ‘unorthodox’ flavour. Their peripheral character,
and unique atmosphere, also inspired medieval writers, who eagerly included
them in their romances. In longer term perspective, they declined in the age
of the Reformation (which removed the rationale for intercessory masses and
the cult of saints), but made an indirect comeback in the nonconformist
chapels of the early modern period.
The paper’s discussion was largely centred on the ‘otherworldliness’ of
chapels. The audience was interested in the chapel as a field for wandering
thoughts (one participant describing them as ‘pockets of frozen time’ able to
capture the human imagination, another likening the relationship between
chapel and parish church to that of a cuckoo and the hosting nest, as chapels
appeared suddenly, quickly evolved and were becoming increasingly
independent and inconvenient for the parish church). Further questions
explored the infinite gradation of chapels, which Orme highlighted in his
paper. The use of chapels differed according to their size and location, and
some provided not only a challenge to the parish church, but also aided it in
handling religious celebrations and sometimes even sacraments. The presence
of graveyards and the legal issues surrounding burials were additional themes
that interested the audience, as was an enquiry about chapel furnishings and
decorations. This line of questioning centred upon the relationships between
chapel and church interiors, and how similarities and differences may have
encouraged chapel users to see themselves as separate from and/or linked to
nearby parish communities. Unfortunately, Orme conceded that much of this
detail is now lost and historians can only speculate on the interior decoration
of chapels, particularly in the case of marginal types. The discussion finished
with the question of gender, and issues were raised about the segregation of
women within the chapel space and the parish more generally.
Kate Giles (Archaeology, York) presented the second paper on
‘Stratford-upon-Avon Guild Chapel, Warwickshire: A Medieval Guild Chapel
and its Antiquarian Study’, in which she discussed findings of a collaborative
research project on a complex of fifteenth-century guild buildings. Giles
began by outlining the social and historical context and offered a revised view
on the chronology of construction and the functions of specific sections.
Erected by the Holy Cross fraternity in Stratford, the buildings did not merely
serve as the guild headquarters. From the fifteenth century, almshouses and a
school were added, providing additional spaces for social interaction,
entertainment, care, learning and prayer. In the 1490s, the merchant Sir
Hugh Clopton provided a sum of money for major renovation and decoration
of the Guild Chapel. The result was an impressive fresco cycle, depicting,
among other subjects, the Dance of Death and The Legend of the True Cross,
subsequently whitewashed in the Reformation and rediscovered, recorded
and affected by restorations in the nineteenth century. Approaching it as a
unique and understudied artefact, Giles explained how a combination of
stratigraphic analysis and dendrochronology with the study of antiquarian
visual records allowed the production of a virtual reality model of the
paintings’ stylistic and physical features. Throughout, Giles emphasised the
centrality of the guild buildings to civic life and the maintenance of
community spirit and well-being.
The audience was fascinated by the project and asked about the
technological methods used to reconstruct decorative and architectural
features. Delegates agreed that computer generation provides a great resource
for scholars to develop their own research, but also provides a format to
connect disciplines and researchers together. The discussion then returned to
the reliability of nineteenth-century antiquarian sources, which depicted
contrasting fresco sequences. An interesting point was raised on the
relationship between the frescos, their audience and their function. The
frescos – and especially those located in the chancel – might have only been
intended for a small, educated elite and perhaps there was no need for the
cycle to follow the correct order of The Golden Legend as a result. Delegates
also pursued the question of the chapel’s dedication, which appears as ‘Holy
Trinity’ in at least one source.
Continuing the focus on interior artworks, the third paper brought a
geographical and chronological shift to late medieval Italy. Federico Botana
(Courtauld Institute of Art) presented a paper on ‘The Case of San Nicola at
San Vittore del Lazio’ which examined two fourteenth-century fresco cycles –
the Seven Works of Mercy, and the Passio of St Margaret of Antioch –
painted within the twelfth-century church at San Vittore, Montecassino. He
began by discussing the considerable methodological challenges encountered
in studying these wall paintings; first, their poor physical condition – large
areas of plaster were destroyed, lost and severely discoloured – and second,
the complete lack of documentation, apart from a scattering of incidental
references across archival depositories. In spite of the impossibility to
excavate precise dates and titles from a historical ‘cul-de-sac full of clutter’, he
argued that anthropological and formal analysis could nonetheless go some
way to unravelling the messages conveyed through the frescos. The depiction
of hand gestures between lord and vassal, for example, indicated the
meaningful ties of patronage within a medieval feudal system, while the
illustration of (additional) buildings within the Seven Works of Mercy may
have been intended to encourage charitable acts by townsfolk for the needy –
the embodiment of intentions. In sum, he argued that a combination of
diverse methodological tools (including the spatial analysis of physical
surroundings) can help us to extract meaning from such a fragmentary
source.
The discussion began by exploring the potential and limits of
anthropological and formal analysis. The shared challenges of researching the
material cultures of parish life across the Continent were immediately
observed. Reconstructing parish life from isolated material fragments and
unidentifiable objects is a complex task, yet the audience agreed that interdisciplinary collaborative research offers the most fruitful way forward. The
discussion concluded with questions on the characters depicted in the
frescoes. It was suggested that the ‘lord’ may have been the abbot of
Montecassino given his dress code, although the absence of a crosier from the
fresco made this assumption very difficult to ascertain. Similarly, delegates
speculated whether the same figure was a priest in relation to the circular
scuffmarks above his head that seemingly formed a halo. The speaker
responded that he had discovered no reference to this figure as a saint, and
that the smudges were typical of fresco brush stroke patterns rather than a
particularly significant design in this instance. Extracting meaning from
parish objects therefore relies both upon the survival of the object itself, as
well as comprehension of the techniques used in constructing it.
Jennifer Alexander and Sofija Matich (Art History, Warwick)
presented the final paper entitled ‘Creating and Recreating the Tombs to the
Dukes of York in Fotheringhay Church’. They examined the complex history
of two tomb monuments at Fotheringhay dedicated to Edward Duke of York
(†1415), Richard Plantagenet Duke of York (†1460) and his wife Cecily
(†1495). Alexander began with an introduction to the history of Fotheringhay
church and the tombs. The bodies of the Yorkist dynasts were originally
interred at Pontefract and moved by Edward IV to Fotheringhay in 1476. The
body of Edmund Duke of Rutland, who died in battle with his Father during
the Wars of the Roses, was strangely never exhumed from Pontefract and may
still lie under the cottage gardens bordering the eastside of the Churchyard.
The Fotheringhay tombs were damaged during the desecration of religious
imagery in the 1540s and 50s, and by 1560 Elizabeth I was forced to issue a
proclamation forbidding the 'breaking or defacing’ of any tomb monuments
or inscriptions. It is apparently this proclamation, and Elizabeth’s alleged
knowledge that her ancestors’ tombs had suffered damage, that has led
scholars to attribute the renovation of the Fotheringhay tombs in 1573 to the
Queen of England. Sofija Matich then provided a highly detailed crossexamination of the tombs’ heraldic decoration, material composition and
sculptural techniques with similarly styled sixteenth-century monuments in
Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire. Based on this broad study of
sculptural work and tomb designs, Matich challenged the assumption that
Queen Elizabeth oversaw the construction of the Fotheringhay tombs. Sir
Edmund Brudenell – son of a Merchant Stapler, a third-generation
landowner, and commissioner of the Queen’s ancestral family burials –
emerged as a more likely candidate, and perhaps completed the work with a
skilled group of sculptors who were working on his house at that time.
The paper’s rich findings drawn from Matich’s BA dissertation inspired
a vivid discussion. Might the fact that the tomb supposedly dedicated to
Richard and his wife displayed Cecily’s impaled coat of arms rather than her
husband’s imply that Richard was not buried there at all? Did the lack of
heraldry reflect Richard’s status as a War of the Roses’ rebel, and perhaps
represent a conscious effort to avoid drawing attention to him? Delegates
then focused on the parishioners of Fotheringhay and the enormous ‘culture
shock’ they must have experienced in witnessing the entire Reformationrelated demolition of the east end of their church, including the choir and
Lady Chapel. Alexander agreed that such a religious displacement could have
upset the congregation, but they were probably pleased to see a new bridge
constructed with the recovered building materials. In relation to the tombs’
evidently rushed and cheap construction, participants also questioned
whether Fotheringhay’s parishioners knew that the tombs were incomplete. It
was suggested that the tombs’ novelty would have made them unfamiliar to
parishioners and difficult to ‘read’. The remark was contended, however, on
the grounds that parishioners would have been familiar with the technical
aspects of tomb sculpture even if they were unable to decipher the tombs’
specific decorative features. Even so, whether parishioners would have openly
expressed disdain of work by the Queen’s commissioner is another issue.
Finally, delegates explored the possibility that the tombs’ inferior
composition was intentional. The 1570s and 80s in England were high times
for Puritanism and the destruction of medieval parish fabrics, and thus the
lack of ornate figurative decorations on the tombs may have ensured their
undisturbed passing through this period.
The symposium concluded with a highly productive round-table
discussion where the audience sat around physical evidence of parish material
culture: a fifteenth-century oak Mary Magdalen sculpture and an early
sixteenth-century oak bust of God the Father. Don White began by inviting
delegates to comment on, and perhaps better delineate, the contours of the
conceptual space they had all occupied in one way or another during the
event: the concepts of ‘Material Culture’ and ‘Materiality’. It was suggested
that ideas of ‘materiality’ range from practical considerations of material and
techniques to anthropological theories of the power, agency and aesthetic
value of material things. ‘Material Culture’ on the other hand was described as
a way of organising social relationships involving people and material things,
and the values that come about through that process. It was further suggested
that ‘Material Culture’ might be understood as the way that ‘materiality’ is
deployed in particular contexts. One proposed contextual formulation was the
inherent physical and sensorial properties of materials, how those materials
perform and are transformed through intervention, and the effects that they
may have upon people as a result. The definitions were by no means clear-cut,
however, and it was particularly fascinating to discover how definitions and
uses of ‘Material Culture’ varied so dramatically between historians, art
historians and archaeologists. For some the term ‘Materiality’ may conjure up
the familiar danger of academic ‘jargon’. Others may view this usage as simply
a new way of identifying considerations that have long been front and centre
in art-historical and archaeological inquiry. Delegates, however, generally
agreed that the concept offers a useful and theoretically broader space for
scholars across disciplines to connect their varied interests in the material
aspects of the past. A second conclusion was that creation of such a shared
space, far from demolishing scholarly boundaries, actually reinforces the need
for these differences. The plurality of material approaches on display
throughout the day emphasised the diverse values of what each discipline and
field has to contribute. This stressed that the way ahead is not a homogenised
multi-disciplinarity, but is instead to be accomplished through the
development of, and sometimes challenging interactions between, specialist
knowledge and perspectives.
The discussion then highlighted some potential areas for further
research and some wider general comments. First, it was suggested that more
research should be conducted into the phenomenology of objects, which
places people’s emotional, sensory and physical experiences of objects at the
centre of attention. Second, delegates emphasised how important contextual
factors were for our appreciation of material objects and their cultural
composites. A useful example was employed by one of the delegates describing
his recent visit to Spain where he saw the alleged last remaining fragments of
the True Cross. The Cross’s materiality was a piece of wood, but set within its
cultural context this piece of wood represents perhaps the most important and
universally recognised religious relic of Latin Christianity. The same piece of
wood seen out of context, lying next to a set of train tracks for example, would
have no such meaning despite being composed of the same ‘stuff’. In his
concluding remarks, Beat Kümin commented upon the striking ‘multiplicity
and hybridity’ of approaches used during the day’s proceedings, suggesting
that spatial theory (and especially the relationship between objects, agents
and atmosphere) might provide a further fruitful conceptual tool. The best
evidence for this, he argued, were the two wooden sculptures placed in front
of the delegates, and how their introduction to the roundtable session had
helped to create a fundamentally different discussion space.
In 2012, the 10th anniversary symposium on ‘Parish Studies Today’ aims to
take stock of the field by highlighting the diversity of work conducted by
academics, local history societies, church conservation groups and other
organisations. For an open call for participation (as well as information on
previous meetings) visit http://go.warwick.ac.uk/parishsymposium.