FOOTNOTES


1 JISC is currently funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Further Education Funding Council, the Scottish Funding Councils for Further and Higher Education, the Welsh Funding Councils, and the Department for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment.

2   The two most useful histories of the fabric of the Cathedral are H. E. Bishop and E. K. Prideaux, The Building of the Cathedral Church of St Peter in Exeter (Exeter: Commin, 1922) and V. Hope and J. Lloyd, Exeter Cathedral: A Short History and Description, rev. Audrey Erskine (Exeter: for the Dean and Chapter, 1988). Chris Brooks, “Exeter Cathedral,” The Exeter Area, ed. N. H. Cooper [Supplement to The Archaeological Journal 147 (1990)] 24-34], offers a useful summary of masons' movements.

3   See J. Bony, The English Decorated Style: Gothic Architecture Transformed 1250-1350 (Oxford: Phaedon, 1979) for a fully illustrated account of the Decorated style.

4   The standard study of the Gothic vault is J. Fitchen, The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals: A Study of Medieval Vault Erection (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961; corr. rpt. 1967).

5   Mrs Erskine, formerly the Cathedral archivist, has edited and translated these for 1279-1353 (A. M. Erskine, ed., The Accounts of the Fabric of Exeter Cathedral, 1279-353: Part 1: 1279-1326, Devon & Cornwall Record Society ns 24 (Torquay: Devon & Cornwall Record Society, 1981) and The Accounts of the Fabric of Exeter Cathedral, 1279-1353: Part 2: 1328-1353, Devon & Cornwall Record Society ns 26 (Torquay: Devon & Cornwall Record Society, 1983); the remainder are as yet (1994) unedited.

6   Both tomb and sedilia have been much altered: see P. Morris, “Exeter Cathedral: A Conjectural Restoration of the Fourteenth-Century Altar Screen, Part I,” Antiquaries Journal 23 (1943): 122-47, and “Exeter Cathedral: A Conjectural Restoration of the Fourteenth-Century Altar Screen, Part II,” Antiquaries Journal 24 (1944): 10-19. Morris presents a highly conjectural reconstruction of the reredos. The nearest comparable screen is the Neville Screen in Durham.

7   ”Metal foils for the lily” (not to be confused with expensive foils of gold leaf) are mentioned in the Fabric Rolls for Easter 1322, Erskine 1: 145. The silver-gilt crowns are mentioned in the 1506 Inventory, cited by Morris 1943, 142 and quoted by G. Oliver, Lives of the Bishops of Exeter, and a History of the Cathedral; with an Illustrative Appendix (Exeter: 1861) 322.

8   P. Freeman, The Architectural History of Exeter Cathedral, 2nd ed. with additional notes by E. V. Freeman (Exeter and London, 1888) 99 says of the throne: “Buried in brown paint and varnish ... this magnificent structure had long concealed the fulness of its beauty. Only the natural surface can ever rightly exhibit the peculiar merits of artistic work in carved oak, and consequently...the Throne could not fail to gain vastly from a plunge into the necessary bath. And it came forth thence in so fine a condition that all idea of reviving the colouring of which traces were found was well rejected.” He makes an undisguised claim that the Victorian restorers knew more about the proper treatment of a work of art than the artists who made it. Similar claims made today still lead to the destruction of fine medieval surfaces. At that date, caustic soda was normally used for cleaning paint and varnish off woodwork. White and gold are said to have survived; in the Cathedral Library copy of Freeman (1888), which formerly belonged to H. E. Bishop and L. E. Tanner are pencilled notes by St John Hope which on p. 95 say: “Luscombe said marbling black and white and original paintings of Saints or Bishops below beneath thin plaster (removed) which Sir G[ilbert] S[cott] ordered to be repainted!” Luscombe was Clerk of the Works at the time. One may compare the newspaper article quoted by Percy Morris (1943) 133, saying there was profuse colour underneath the black; see also Bishop and Prideaux 53. Probably the medieval polychrome and gilding had been redecorated with marbling, perhaps in the 1660s. V. Hope (1969) 22 quotes the account of the Duke of Tuscany in 1669 who refers to the throne as marble. Possibly there were once many colours on the throne, but white would be the least soluble, and together with bright gold would have caught the eye before it finally disappeared. It is also likely that it had a glue and chalk priming, as suggested by a minute sample from one of the inside top pinnacles.+

9   No British medieval Rood survives in its original position, let alone its original state: see A. Vallance, English Church Screens, Being Great Roods, Screenwork & Rood-Lofts of Parish Churches in England & Wales (London: Batsford, 1936) 7-12. Some idea of their scale and quality may be gained from Scandinavian examples. The Exeter Fabric Rolls (Erskine 1: 172, Midsummer 1326) record the purchase of “Colours for the great Cross”: 1lb of azurite, 6lbs of verdigris, 1000 foils each of gold and silver, varnish (perhaps for making verdigris into copper resinate), etc. An account of Exeter's Rood and Pulpitum is given in A. Vallance, Greater English Church Screens. Being Great Roods Screenwork & Roodlofts in Cathedral, Monastic & Collegiate Churches in England & Wales (London: Batsford, 1947) 65-67.

10   N. J. G. Pounds, “Buildings, Building Stones and Building Accounts in South-West England,” Quarrying and Building in England A.D. 43-1525, ed. David Parsons (Chichester: Phillimore in association with the Royal Archaeological Institute, 1990) 233-36; fig. 99 offers a splendid map.

11   Purbeck stone is a hard limestone containing fossils, not a true metamorphic marble, although commonly referred to as such. Evidence that the Purbeck in the Cathedral was originally polished to a shade darker than its present matt grey is found in two places. A small area of polished Purbeck was exposed when fifteenth-century mortar was removed from the north end of the screen of St Gabriel's Chapel; black paint on the Minstrels' Gallery together with fragments on the side-aisle half-columns and bases of some large Purbeck columns seem to have been intended to match polished Purbeck. It is Mr Dare's opinion, however, that the polishing was never carried out. He also observes that the evidence for plaster in the infilling of the vault is not found in the Nave, which might suggest that this part of the Cathedral was for some reason left slightly unfinished. However T. B. Worth, Exeter Cathedral and Its Restoration (Exeter, 1878) 24 records that colourwash, plaster of pitch and other materials were removed from the columns during Scott's restoration of the Choir, so it is not be surprising that they do not retain their polish.

12   Compare the thirteenth-century painting on the infill plaster of the transept vaults at Lincoln and Salisbury (Horlbeck, “The Vault Paintings of Salisbury Cathedral,” Archaeological Journal 117 (1960): 116-30; P. B. G. Binnall, “Thirteenth-Century Vault Paintings in Lincoln Cathedral,” Antiquaries' Journal 45 (1965): 265-66). At Exeter, however, the bosses are a more predominant part of the design than in these earlier vaults. In Exeter's twelfth-century Towers, extensive remains of red masonry pattern on a limewash background survive, but this would have been old-fashioned by the fourteenth century. Indeed, other fragments suggesting the richness of the Romanesque colour have been found, notably a curved stone with a pair of birds (presumably from a Nave column) re-used, inside-out, for the north tower staircase, where it was discovered by Mr Dare, in about 1975—see A. C. Hulbert, “Recent Discoveries in the Transepts,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifty-second Annual Report (to 31 March 1982) (1982): 10-13—and a fragment bearing minium-type red and black.

13   The process of construction is often revealed during decay. At the ruined end of Thomas of Witney's clerestory at Malmesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire, a half-boss remains firmly built into the clerestory window-head, although the vault has fallen. Similar phenomena in numerous European churches occurred as a result of bomb damage, but this is obviously more arbitrary.

14   During the construction of an arch or the ribs of a vault the stones are laid on wooden centreing which is removed when the key-stone is in place (see Fitchen chap. 5).

15   An example is in Fabric Roll 2611 for 1312-1313, where corbels are mentioned but their number is obliterated; since the Rolls for 1311-1312 and 1313-1316 are missing, it is impossible to be certain to which group these belong. Unfortunately, there are many references to groups of carved items which it is not possible to identify in this way as they are on fragmentary rolls.

16   Erskine 2: xxvi; Bishop and Prideaux 45; C. A. R. Radford, “The Romanesque Cathedral at Exeter,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Thirtieth Annual Report (to 31st March 1960) (1960): 28-36; M. Thurlby, “The Romanesque Cathedral of St Mary and St Peter at Exeter,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 19-34.

17   J. Allan and B. Jupp, “Recent Observations in the South Tower of Exeter Cathedral,” Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings 39 (1981): 141-54. The reference to breaking into the Towers is in Erskine 1: 7.

18   Fabric Roll 2603 (1301-2) Christmas Term Week 13, and Easter Term Week 4 (Erskine 1: 20, 22).

19   The Fabric Rolls help us to recall not only the structural history of the cathedral, but also something of the ceremonial of the Cathedral's calendar. The iron brackets purchased for the Lenten Veil in 1316-1317 (Erskine 1: 79) are still in situ in the triforium, their brass pulley wheels (? ibid., 82) in working order, high above the marks in the arcade left by the pinnacles and finials of Bishop Stapledon's High Altar reredos.

20   C. J. P. Cave repeatedly states that the bosses were carved in situ (Roof Bosses in Medieval Churches: An Aspect of Gothic Sculpture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1948) 2, and Medieval Carvings in Exeter Cathedral, King Penguin, 41 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1953) 7, and “The Roof Bosses in the Transepts of Norwich Cathedral Church,” Archaeologia 83 (1933): 48). At Exeter this was clearly not the case (Bishop and Prideaux 47). Conservators engaged in back-breaking work on delicate polychrome found that undercutting in some bosses could only be reached with the help of a dental mirror. It is in any case inconceivable that any sculptor would choose to work with his normal use of the weight of the mallet precluded by gravity, and stone-dust falling in his eyes, as observed by E. K., Prideaux and G. R. Holt Shafto, Bosses & Corbels of Exeter Cathedral: An Illustrated Study in Decorative & Symbolic Design (Exeter: Commin; London: Chatto & Windus, 1910) 8. Freeman 1888, 26 states that the bosses were carved on the ground but normally coloured in situ. He therefore confuses entries for priming with those for gilding. Bishop and Prideaux 48 state that the corbels were carved in situ but this is also unlikely in view of the fact that payments for bosses and corbels occur together (Erskine 1: 35).

21   Erskine 1: 79, 80, 82 (seventeen of them on 79, one on 80, twenty-four on 82).

22   Erskine 1: 24.

23   This term is used in the strict sense of any lead-working operation. Molten lead metal must not be confused with the pigment minium or red-lead (PbO4).

24   N. Pevsner, South Devon, The Buildings of England, 5 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1952) 135; in the revised edition of this book, this detail is left open (Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, Devon, 2nd ed., Buildings of England (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989)).

25   2: xxx-xxxi.

26   Erskine 1: 48-50.

27   There is a Fabric Roll entry for 20 May 1353 (Erskine 2: 290) referring to “the beginning of the new Work...before the great cross” (fuit incept' novi operis ecclesie beati Petri coram magna cruce) which was commonly taken to refer to the continuation of the Nave vaulting. We are not certain of the position of the Rood at that time. Bishop and Prideaux 74 point out that a reference in the 1407-8 Fabric Roll (Roll 2664) to a lock for a door beside the rood must mean Bishop Brewer's door to the south of the eastern bay of the Nave, indicating that the rood was alongside this. Erskine 2: xxxiii doubts this interpretation of the 1353 entry, and argues that the Nave was more probably finished under Thomas of Witney, before his retirement in 1342. Bishop and Prideaux 99 and Hope and Lloyd 1988, 49 refer to the painting of South Aisle bosses.

28   Mr Peter Dare has observed that although there are innumerable traces of medieval plaster in the Crossing and Transepts, none were found during the 1970s work in the Nave. Although we may assume that it was intended to plaster it, evidently this work was never carried out (a shortage of funds is indicated in the later Fabric Rolls). Plaster was stripped in the 1870s, except from the Chancel. The late Mr Huxtable, who replastered parts of the Chancel after the 1942 bombing, pointed out that the infilling is this area is too rough to be left exposed.

29   Eddie Sinclair, formerly assistant conservator on the West Front, has published a major recording and analysis of many microscopic colour samples taken before the statues were covered with obliterating lime “shelter-coat” (“The West Front Polychromy,” Medieval Art and Architecture 116-33; “Exeter Cathedral: Exterior Polychromy,” The Conservator as Art Historian, ed. Anna Hulbert, Julie Marsden and Victoria Todd (London: United Kingdom Institute for Conservation, 1992), 7-14).

30   L. Stone, Sculpture in Britain in the Middle Ages, Pelican History of Art, 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972) 223 dates the C register of the West Front (excepting C28) as late 15th- or early 16th-century; it is now clear from the costume of the prophets and the sculptural style that the greater part of it is c.1460.

31   Carter's drawing (considerably earlier than his engraving) in BM MS Add. 29931, f. 72r, shows that c.1770 this figure held either stones (St Stephen, though without his usual dalmatic) or loaves (St Philip). C28 is clearly not a prophet like the figures flanking him: he is bare-headed and barefoot, his clasped hand and general mien perhaps suggesting Melchisedech holding “chalice” and “host”; the figure is also larger than the others in the register, and in an earlier style.

32   Hope and Lloyd 1988, 61.

33   Fragments of the 1660s altarpiece are preserved on the library staircase.

34   In 1976 Dr Mary Remnant examined the musical instruments from the scaffolding, and observed features in the paint layer more characteristic of the 17th century than the 14th. This present paint layer is cruder than any 14th-century colour in the Cathedral, and the one sample taken suggests a repainting. Most of Tristram's retouching was removed by ACH in 1976; his “The Minstrel Gallery and the Corbels of Nave and Choir,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Third Annual Report, 1932 (1933): 15, refers to gold on the niches: no trace of it is to be found.

35   Freeman 1888, 95.

36   Vallance 1936, 36.

37   Prideaux and Shafto 126. Evidence of Gilbert Scott's work on the bosses is found both in his written records and in the bosses themselves. Whilst no comparison between the superb quality of the medieval polychrome and Scott's (or anyone else's) subsequent recolouring, it is necessary to see his work in the perspective which reveals it as historically important. He must have been confronted by acres of discoloured, dingy yellow-wash, applied over the bosses in the eighteenth century. The ecclesiological movement had already started a quest for the recovery of medieval adornment. The stone walls and wooden tower roofs were stripped under his direction. Much yellow-wash and dirt were removed (G. G. Scott, Personal and Professional Recollections, ed. G. G. Scott Jnr (London, 1879) 345-49.

38   The bosses bearing Scott's colour are discussed under headings for bosses 1-23A, 46A-85A, 86-115, 116-121, 253A-261A, 276A-284A. One is illustrated in colour. Instead of brilliant, pure colour layers enriched by glazes, and the enhancement of sculptural form by modelling in varied shades, the bosses received uniform coats of khaki, dull green and brownish red, with an inevitably flattening effect. Even the size under the gold lacks the refined optical qualities of the original.

39   ACH's retouching is removable: see her “An Acrylic Resin Consolidant for Polychromed Stone,” Conservation News 11 (March, 1980): 7 (there are editorial errors in this issue, corrected in her “Formstar Resin: Exeter Cathedral Polychrom[y] Conservation,” Conservation News 12 (July, 1980): 11.

40   Tewkesbury Nave vault is early 14th-century; Norwich Nave vault has 15th-century Old and New Testament bosses, Creation to Last Judgement, plus the episcopal donor. The Transepts, repaired after 1509, have bosses mostly of the early life of Christ: see C. J. P. Cave, “The Roof Bosses in the Nave of Tewkesbury Abbey,” Archaeologia 79 (1929): 73; and Cave 1948, 11-12, 212; for Norwich see E. M. Goulburn, The Ancient Sculptures in the Roof of Norwich Cathedral Which Exhibit the Course of Scripture History, from the Creation to Solomon, and from the Birth of Christ to the Final Judgement. To Which is Added a History of the See of Norwich (London: 1876).

41   Prideaux and Shafto 195 observed that the symbolism of the scene derives from the apocryphal Epistle of Barnabas, where the event is said to signify the power of the Cross. The Epistle is translated in The Apocryphal New Testament: Being all the Gospels, Epistles, and Other Pieces Now Extant, Attributed in the First Four Centuries to Jesus Christ, His Apostles, and Their Companions, and Not Included in the New Testament by Its Compilers, 2nd ed., ed. William Hone (London: 1820) 122-42. This subject is also depicted in the wooden medallions (thought to be Jacobean) adorning the top of the Bluett Pew in All Saints Church, Holcombe Rogus, Devon. For the typology of Samson and the Lion, the Harrowing of Hell and the Resurrection see A. Henry, ed., Biblia Pauperum: A Facsimile and Edition (Aldershot: Scolar, 1987; Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1987) sigs. .h. and .i. for the meanings inherent in the Battle of Raphidim see A. Henry, “`Eliseus Raises the Sunamite' in Context: Observations on Some Late Medieval Glass Now in Exeter Cathedral Lady Chapel, Part I.” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifty-third Annual Report (to 31 March 1983) (1983): 14 (note that the pictures in figs. 1 and 2 were transposed in printing).

42   Cave 1953, 41.

43   N. Pevsner, The Leaves of Southwell, King Penguin (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1945) 63-67, relates the naturalism of foliage in the 14th century to theological developments.

44   See note 37 above.

45   For a general account of medieval painting technique see D. V. Thompson, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting (London: Allen and Unwin, 1936; rpt. New York: Dover, 1956). Further historical information can be found in R. J. Gettens and G. L. Stout, Painting Materials: A Short Encyclopaedia New York: Van Nostrand, 1942; corr. rpt. New York: Dover, 1966), and a number of articles on individual pigments appeared in various issues of Studies in Conservation (1966-1974). An important bibliography was compiled by A. Ballestrem, “Sculpture Polychrome: Bibliographie,” Studies in Conservation 15.4 (1970): 253-71. Specialised items listed by her have not been repeated in our bibliography.

46   In the retouching of paint-losses following the cleaning and consolidation of 1977-1981, a green between new copper resinate and the adjacent discoloured original was used. The normal practice of making precisely matched retouching would have shown no greenness from floor level.

47   Erskine 1: 146 discusses “arnam[ent]a” which at nearly 5s a pound is too expensive to be soot or charcoal. See Sinclair, Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 132 n.40.

48   There are also other misconceptions: for example, Prideaux and Shafto 125-26, record as “worn stone” those bosses which retain near-perfect polychrome, excepting boss 176, referred to as of “whitish stone in fairly good preservation” when it is in fact the most damaged of this whole bay.

49   Artists who painted both sculpture and panel paintings include Melchior Broederlam and Roger van der Weyden. The latter polychromed a stone relief: see Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character, 2 vols, The Charles Eliot Norton lectures, 1947-1948 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953; repr. New York: Harper and Row, 1971) 1: 248; Melchior Broederlam also painted furniture (ibid. 86).

50   ACH showed the late Dr Johannes Taubert of Munich (affectionately known as “the pope of polychromed sculpture”) a photograph of the Westminster Abbey tomb of Edmund Crouchback (d.1296) with its painted masonry pattern and green moss. Of the painted moss he remarked, pointing the painter's meaning: “not only does man decay, but also his monuments”.

51   E. K. Prideaux, The Figure Sculpture of the West Front of Exeter Cathedral Church: A Complete Photographic Record with Notes (Exeter: Commin, 1912) fold-out plan.

52   Erskine 2: xxvi.

53   Erskine 2: xxvii and 317-18.

54   Scott 1879, 345-49.

55   M. Knight, “The Dean's Letter,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Thirty-Ninth Annual Report (to 31st March, 1969) 3.

56   H. M. R. Drury, “Your Gifts at Work,” Grandisson Festival Year, April 1969, Exeter Cathedral Campaign pamphlet (Exeter: n.p. for the Dean and Chapter [1969]) 10-11, figs. on back cover.

57   See Arnold Darlington, The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Plant Galls in Colour (London: Blandford Press, 1968).

58   Worth 20.

59   C. E. Keyser, A List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland Having Mural and Other Painted Decorations, of Dates Prior to the Latter Part of the Sixteenth Century, with Historical Introduction and Alphabetical Index of Subjects, 3rd ed. (London: 1883) 101.

60   N. Orme, “The Cathedral Cat,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifty-First Annual Report (to 31st March 1981) (1981): 11-13 discusses the cat's role in the medieval Cathedral.

61   Erskine 2: xxvii, 317-18.

62   Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London, I: Westminster Abbey (London: HMSO, 1924) 38, Pl. 67.

63   See A. Henry, ed., The Eton Roundels: Eton MS 177 (“Figurae Bibliorum”): A Colour Facsimile with Transcription, Translation and Commentary (Aldershot: Scolar-Gower, 1990) 24, for a brief summary of this co-existence, which is present also in the Roundels.

64   Worth 41.

65   Erskine 2: xxvii, 317.

66   See also Worth 41.

67   Worth 40.

68   The dates of Southwell are not documented: Pevsner 1945, 42-43.

69   J. Givens, “The Garden Outside the Walls: Botanical Naturalism in English Gothic Sculpture,” Diss, Berkeley, 1985, and her “The Garden Outside the Walls: Plant Forms in Thirteenth-Century English Sculpture,” Medieval Gardens: Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, 9, ed. Elizabeth B. MacDougall (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections, 1986) 189-98.

70   Peter Draper, “The Sequence and Dating of the Decorated Work at Wells,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Wells and Glastonbury, ed. Nicola Coldstream and Peter Draper, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 4 (for the Year 1978) (London: British Archaeological Association, 1981) 19, suggest as date in the 1280s for the Palace Chapel.

71   Erskine 1: 24.

72   Cave 1953, 35.

73   See A. C. Hulbert, “Rediscovering the Angels: Current Conservation Work on the Wall Painting of the Assumption of the Virgin.” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Sixty-fourth Annual Report (to 31 March 1994) (1994): 23-28.

74   Erskine 1: 24.

75   Worth 1878, 24-25.

76   Freeman 1888, 95-96.

77   For a record of Tristram’s activities see four reports by S. C. Carpenter: “Corbels,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifth Annual Report, 1934 (1935): 8-10; “Work Executed During the Year,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Sixth Annual Report, 1935 (1936): 13; “Future Work,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Sixth Annual Report, 1935 (1936): 14-15; “Work Done During the Year,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Seventh Annual Report, 1936 (1937): 10-11.

78   Erskine 1: 20, 22.

79   Erskine 1: 19.

80   Cave 1953, Pl. 24.

81   G. L. Remnant, A Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain with an Essay on Their Iconography by M. D. Anderson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1969) 170.

82   D. S. MacColl, “Grania in Church: Or The Clever Daughter,” The Burlington Magazine 8.23 (1905): 80-86.

83   J. Givens, “Internal and Decorative Sculpture,” Exeter Cathedral 85, attempts no firm explanation for the displacement of this boss.

84   Erskine 1: 66. Bishop and Prideaux 145 and Oliver 385 mention other possibly related fittings.

85   A. C. Hulbert, “An Examination of the Polychromy of Exeter Cathedral Roof Bosses and Its Documentation,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 194.

86   Hulbert in Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 194, fig. 5, pl. XXXb,c.

87   M. Remnant, English Bowed Instruments from Anglo-Saxon to Tudor Times (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) pl. 53.

88   II Kings xvi 5-10.

89   See Avril Henry, ed. The Mirour of Mans Saluacioune: A Middle English Translation of Speculum Humanae Salvationis; A Critical Edition of the Fifteenth-century Manuscript Illustrated from Der Spiegel der menschen Behältnis, Speyer: Drach, c. 1475 (Aldershot: Scolar, 1986; Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP, 1987) chap. xxi. The scene is also mentioned in Speculum Vitae (for example in the Vernon Manuscript, Oxford: Bodleian Library, MS poet.a.1, f. 240r), where the seven steps to achieve Meekness are described, the sixth step, the suffering of humiliation, being illustrated by David’s stoning.

90   J. H. Porter, “The Decline of the Devonshire Wrestling Style,” The Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 121 (1989): 195-208.

91   V. Hope, “The Mugwort Corbel,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Forty-first Annual Report (to 31 March, 1971) (1971): 18.

92   J. C. Cox, The Royal Forests of England, The Antiquary’s Books (London: Methuen, 1905) 70-71, notes medieval differentiation between “quercus” and “robur”, suggesting that these terms may distinguish our two native oaks sessiflora and pedunculata.

93   Georgina Russell, “Some Aspects of the Decorated Tracery of Exeter Cathedral,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter Cathedral. Ed. Francis Kelly. British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 11 (for the Year 1985). Oxford: Oxbow Books for the British Archaeological Association, 1991. 85-93.

94   Erskine 1: 98.

95   Erskine 1: 101, 103-4.

96   Erskine 1: 88.

97   Erskine 1: 112.

98   Erskine 2: 254.

99   N. Orme, Exeter Cathedral as It Was 1050-1550 (Exeter: Devon Books—Wheaton, 1986) 17.

100   H. Bock, “Exeter Rood Screen,” Architectural Review 130 (1961): 313.

101   Erskine 1: 35, 38.

102   Erskine 1: 47.

103   Erskine 1: 49. The entry is discussed by C. Tracy, “The Early Fourteenth-century Choir Stalls at Exeter Cathedral,” The Burlington Magazine 128.995 (1986): 92, 99-103.

104   A. W., Everett and V. Hope, “The Rebuilding of Exeter Cathedral c.1270-1360,” The Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 100 (1968): 181, discuss the Canons’ movements. Allan and Blaylock 95 suggest that the move from Nave to Choir took place as late as 1328 when the High Altar was dedicated.

105   Bishop and Prideaux 46.

106   Bishop and Prideaux 48, and Cave (1953) 9.

107   Erskine 1: 63.

108   H. E. Bishop, “Montacute Corbel; The Western Corbels of the Choir,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifth Annual Report, 1934 (1935): 19; Cave 1953, 34, tentatively agrees.

109   Cave 1953, 9.

110   Exod. xvii 8-17.

111   W. Cotton, Bosses and Corbels in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter, Exeter (Exeter: 1900) pl. IX.

112   Cave 1953, 34.

113   Erskine 1: 35.

114   See also Erskine 1: 35.

115   Cave 1953, 8 referring to the entry now in Erskine 1: 56.

116   Erskine 1: 59.

117   Prideaux and Shafto 114.

118   Cave 1953, 37.

119   Prideaux and Shafto 114.

120   G. Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 4 vols. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1971-1980, 4: 191, and E. Kirschbaum, et al., Lexicon der christlichen Ikonographie, 8 vols. (Rome: Herder, 1968-1976). Vol. 8, 54.

121   It is possible that virgo lactans is more common in English art of this period than had been thought: it may occur in the thirteenth-century (see for example Henry 1990, 116), and in the south-western spandrel of Lincoln’s Angel Choir.

122   Erskine 1: 79, 80, 82.

123   Erskine 2: xxi.

124   J. H. Harvey, “The Building of Wells Cathedral, II: 1307-1508,” Wells Cathedral: A History, ed. L. S. Colchester (Shepton Mallet: Open Books, 1982) 100, and J. H. Harvey and A. Oswald, English Mediaeval Architects: A Biographical Dictionary Down to 1550 Including Master Masons, Carpenters, Carvers, Building Contractors and Others Responsible for Design, 2nd ed. (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1984) 339-341.

125   Erskine 1: 73.

126   Bishop and Prideaux 48.

127   Cave 1953, 11.

128   Erskine 1: 67.

129   Erskine 1: 192-93.

130   Erskine 1: 63.

131   Harvey 1982, 83-84.

132   Erskine 1: 127.

133   Hulbert, Friends of Exeter Cathedral Report (1980) 20-21.

134   Prideaux and Shafto 125.

135   The soul’s attack by the Three Foes is described, for example, in a 13th-century French poem (British Library, MS Arundel 292, ff. 31r-38 r) Nus awuns enemis forz / treis, ki nos cors / asalient jur é nuit (H. Suchier, Reimpredigt Bibliotheca Normannica, 1 [Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1879] 82); British Library, MS Egerton 842, f.250v (Homily on Induite vos armatura Dei, Ep. ad Eph. vi) explains the spiritual significance of the attack.

136   Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole, an English Father of the Church, and His Followers, ed. C. Horstmann, 2 vols, Library of Early English Writers, 1/2 (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1895-1896) 421.

137   The Holy Bible: Douay Version Translated from the Latin Vulgate (Douay, A. D. 1609 Rheims, A.D. 1582) (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1956) Eph. vi. 11-17.

138   The horse is the Body disciplined in the battle against evil in the pseudo-Anselmian Similitudo militis, where every element of knight and horse’s equipment is allegorized (Memorials of St Anselm, ed. R. W. Southern and F. S. Schmidt, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi, 1 [Oxford: Oxford UP for the British Academy, 1969] 97-103). This is echoed in the Middle English Milicia Christi (summarised in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, ed. Albert E. Hartung, Vol. 7 [Hamden: Archon Books for the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1986] 2332-333). See also A Tretyse of Gostly Batayle in Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole, an English Father of the Church, and His Followers, 2 vols, ed. C. Horstman, Library of Early English Writers, 1 and 2 (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1895-1896), Vol. 2, pp. 421-36, summarized in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500 7, 2331-2332. The Weye of Paradys, at the second stage of the first Journey, immediately before the attack of the Sins, observes: A man that is in the astate of grace and he haue God, he sit on hors; for the soule oweth to ryde the body [in] as myche as sche oweth to be meystresse of the body and here willes arn meystresses of the willes of the body (The Middle English Weye of Paradys, and the Middle French Voie de Paradis, pp. 124, 125).

139   See M. de L. LeMay, The Allegory of the Christ-Knight in English Literature (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America, 1932); also R. Woolf, “The Theme of Christ the Lover-Knight in English Literature,” Review of English Studies 13 (1962): 1-16.

140   The soul/Church as knight is found in the well-known story of the “Bloodstained Shirt” (e.g. Homily 28 in the Augmented Midland Expanded Northern Homily Cycle in The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Eng. poet.a.1, introduction by A. I. Doyle [Cambridge: Brewer, 1987] f. 185v): a husband fights to the death to defend his wife; he wears the armour borne by Christ in his victory over the devil: the steel shoes of the foot-nails on the Cross, the leg harness, habergeon and braces of blood, the girdle of rope by which Jesus was led, the plated gloves of the hand-nails, the bascinet of the crown of thorns, the shield of the Cross, the spear in his side.

141   William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman, ed. A. V. C. Schmidt (London: Dent, 1978) Passus XVIII, 10-36, Passus XIX, 5-14.

142   The so-called “Sayings of St Bernard”, The Vernon Manuscript ff. 304r-v; see also The Minor Poems of the Vernon Manuscript, ed. F. J. Furnivall, 2 vols, Early English Text Society os 98 and 117 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner for E.E.T.S., 1892) 511-22. We have wondered if the elusive blazon on this boss might simply signify Christ: gold (light, the sun/Son) against celestial blue.

143   In a contemporary (1330) French text (the Middle English prose version of which is in A. Henry, ed., The Pilgrimage of the Lyfe of the Manhode: A Critical Edition of the Middle English Prose Translation of Guillaume de Deguileville’s Pèlerinage de la vie humaine, Vol. 1, Early English Text Society, Original Series 288 (London: Oxford UP, 1985) lines 4655-4688) the pilgrim representing mankind on his life-journey is similarly attacked; for the patristic sources see Vol. 2, n.4675. Compare and the horse Good Will’s four hooves signifying virtues in Peraldus’s Summa de Vitiis (e.g. in the 13th-century manuscript British Library, Harley 3244, f. 27r-28r) where the Knight fights the seven sins (see The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400, ed. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London: Royal Academy of Arts with Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987) 255.

144   Hulbert, Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 196 and pl. XXXd.

145   Prideaux and Shafto 134.

146   Tristram 1933.

147   Hulbert, Friends of Exeter Cathedral Report (1980): 20-22.

148   P. H., Wicksteed, Our Lady’s Tumbler: A XIIth-Century Legend (London: Dent, 1900) and three articles by R. Roberts: “Musical Instruments on Cathedral Carvings,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fiftieth Annual Report (to 31st March 1980) (1980): 36-39; “Musical Instruments on Cathedral Carvings,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifty-First Annual Report (to 31st March 1981) (1981): 22; “A Reconstruction of the Tumbler’s Fiddle on Corbel K0 Exeter Cathedral,” The Conservator as Art Historian, eds. Anna Hulbert, Julie Marsden and Victoria Todd (London: United Kingdom Institute for Conservation, 1992) 35.

149   In his editorial “Notes of the Month” in the news sheet “The Cathedral Church of St Peter in Exeter: Monthly Bulletin Dec., 1934” (Exeter Cathedral Library) 2, the then Dean, W. R. Matthews, observes: “information about the statues formerly in these niches is derived from the wills of two Canons, John Geomyn 1459 and Richard Martin 1461”). See Worth 32.

150   Erskine 1: 63.

151   Cave 1953, 27-28.

152   Erskine 1: 98, 107.

153   Erskine 1: 153, and V. Sekules, “The Liturgical Furnishings of the Choir of Exeter Cathedral,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 177. Further images were paid for at Michaelmas 1324 (Erskine 1: 157).

154   Erskine 1: 153, 157.

155   For marble steps in Midsummer 1319 see Erskine 1: 107; for tiles at Michaelmas 1324 see Erskine 1: 156.

156   Bock 1961. For other accounts of the Pulpitum see Bishop and Prideaux 62, and Vallance 1947, 65.

157   Cherry and Pevsner 376.

158   Erskine 1: 172. For a general account of the Pulpitum, see Vallance 1947, 65-67.

159   Draper, 18-29; Harvey 1982, 76-101.

160   This accords well with the starting date for Wells Cathedral’s eastern extension, 1324-1324, suggested by Draper 22.

161   H. E. Bishop, “The Master Craftsman [Obituary of Mr Luscombe],” “Cathedral Church of St Peter in Exeter: Monthly Bulletin Sept. 1936,” News Sheet, Exeter Cathedral Library, 13.

162   Exeter Cathedral: A Celebration, ed. M. Swanton (Exeter: n.p: printed for the Dean and Chapter, 1991) 112, fig. 165.

163   Cave 1953, 10.

164   Erskine 2: 248-49.

165   Fitchen 139, fig. 51.

166   For the entry see Erskine 2: xxxv and 290; see also Bishop and Prideaux 80-81.

167   Erskine 2: xxxiii.

168   See also Cave 1953, 32, Prideaux and Shafto 145.

169   Erskine 2: 291.

170   C. Tracy, English Gothic Choir-stalls 1200-1400 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1987) passim.

171   Erskine 2: 255.

172   Harvey 1982, 100.

173   Symposium on Monumental Effigies at the Tower of London, 22-23 September 1978.

174   Prideaux and Shafto 149.

175   Exeter Cathedral: A Celebration 82, fig. 115.

176   Cave 1953, 40.

177   Cave 1953, 41.

178   Oliver 218.

179   Cave 1953, 16.

180   Bishop and Prideaux 157.

181   For dating of work at Ottery, see Cherry and Pevsner 616-8, and J. N. Dalton, The Collegiate Church of Ottery St Mary Being the Ordinacio et statuta ecclesie Sancte Marie de Otery Exon. Diocesis AD 1338-1339 Edited from Exeter Chapter MS 3521 and the Winchester Cartulary Vol. 1 part ii ff. 98-114 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1917) 12; also Chris Brooks, “Ottery St Mary Church,” The Exeter Area, ed. N. H. Cooper [Supplement to The Archaeological Journal 147 (1990)] 79-87. Pevsner (cited by Cave 1953, 30-32) attributes bosses at Ottery to this Exeter master.

182   Frances Rose-Troup, “Bishop Grandisson: Student and Art Lover,” Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 60 (1928): 254.

183   B. Little, “Becket in a Boss,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifty-third Annual Report (to 31 March 1983) (1983): 9-10.

184   For a colour illustration see Exeter Cathedral: A Celebration 87, fig. 128.

185   T. Borenius, St Thomas Becket in Art (London: Methuen, 1932) 110.

186   Prideaux and Shafto 176.

187   Bishop and Prideaux 158, also Prideaux and Shafto 177.

188   Prideaux and Shafto 177.

189   Bishop and Prideaux 157.

190   Cave 1953, 41.

191   Rose-Troup 254.

192   E. K. Prideaux, The Carvings of Musical Instruments in Exeter Cathedral Church (Exeter: Commin, 1915) 8.

193   Oliver 73.

194   Prideaux and Shafto 177.

195   Oliver 271.

196   Prideaux and Shafto 178.

197   Exeter Cathedral Dean & Chapter, MS 3548E, p. 44.

198   Oliver 36.

199   M. Knight, “The Dean’s Letter,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Forty-Second Annual Report (to 31st March, 1972), 1972, 3; there is also a relevant note on p. 27.

200   Erskine 2: xxxiv and 287.

201   Erskine 2: 292; discussed in Bishop and Prideaux 80-81.

202   Bishop and Prideaux 65.

203   Erskine 2: 250.

204   Erskine 2: 257.

205   Erskine 2: 267. The price works out at 2½d a head; compare the Choir Triforium for which a “corball” may have cost 4d. Many Nave heads appear to have been hastily carved. Perhaps there was an underpaid apprentice.

206   Erskine 2: 269.

207   The dating given by Worth 20, following P. Freeman, The Architectural History of Exeter Cathedral (Exeter and London: 1873) 55-57, is unreliable.

208   Frances Bond 134.

209   Vallance 1936, 68 discusses the musical uses of rood lofts. As is shown by his plates, many surviving rood lofts are pierced for singing.

210   Tristram 1933, 14-15.

211   Hulbert 1976.

212   M. Remnant, “The Instruments of the Minstrels’ Gallery,” Exeter Cathedral: A Celebration 168-75.

213   Prideaux 1915, 19.

214   Remnant 1986, 26 discusses the strings.

215   Erskine 1: 7.

216   Tracy 1986, 92, 99-103, uneasily assumed that clergy were still using undisturbed Crossing stalls in 1309.

217   Erskine 1: 59.

218   Allan and Jupp 141-54.

219   ”Archaeological Intelligence,” Editorial, Archaeological Journal 5 (1848): 225, citing Charles Tucker’s record of the bosses’ provenance.

220   C. Tracy, English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1988) 31-34.

221   Erskine 1: 97.

222   Erskine 1: 117.

223   J. F. Chanter, The Bishop’s Palace Exeter and Its Story (London: SPCK, 1932) 29-32.

224   Tracy 1988, 31-34.

225   J. G. M. Scott, “Casting a Bell for Exeter Cathedral 1372,” The Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 100 (1968): 194.

226   A. C. Hulbert, “More Paintings and Polychromy in The Cathedral.” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifty-sixth Annual Report (to 31 March 1986): 18-21.

227   Draper 19.

228   Prideaux and Shafto 211.

229   Erskine 1: 7.

230   Allan and Jupp 152.

231   Erskine 1: 19.

232   P. Tudor-Craig, “Bishop Grandisson’s Provision for Music and Ceremony,” Exeter Cathedral 137, puts them early in his episcopate.

233   Hope and Lloyd 1988, 49.

234   Cave 1953, 40.

235   Henry 1987, ch. xx.

236   Cave 1953, 40.

237   Hulbert 1982, 11.

238   Hope and Lloyd 1988, 49, Bishop and Prideaux 99, referring to an unpublished Fabric Roll.

239   Francis Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the End to the End of the Middle Ages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971) 412-13, gives examples of comparable fourteenth-century depictions of owls.

240   G. C. Druce, “The Mediaeval Bestiaries, and Their Influence on Ecclesiastical Decorative Art,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association ns 25 (1919): 81, discusses the medieval hoopoe. Both owl and hoopoe are discussed by M. D. Anderson, Animal Carvings in British Churches (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1938) 56 and 53-5, respectively.

241   Erskine 2, xxxii-xxxiii.

242   M. Thurlby, “The Romanesque Cathedral of St Mary and St Peter at Exeter,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter figs. 4 and 2.

243   C. J. P. Cave, “The Roof-Bosses in Canterbury Cathedral,” Archaeologia 84 (l934): fig. 2.

244   J. Philip McAleer, “The Problem(s) of the St Edmund’s Chapel at Exeter Cathedral,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter Cathedral, ed. Francis Kelly, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 11 (for the Year 1985) (Oxford: Oxbow Books for the British Archaeological Association, 1991) 147-61.

245   J. Allan and S. Blaylock, “The West Front: I The Structural History of the West Front,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 94-115.

246   The recutting and resurfacing was already done when Cave photographed the boss (Cave 1953, pl. 64). The presence of the all but demolished altar-piece in this chapel suggests that the iconoclasts focussed their fury in this area.

247   The fourteenth-century date of this figure was recognised by Allan and Blaylock 102; for the suggestion that this figure is Melchisedech, see A. Henry, “The Iconography of the West Front,” Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter 136.

248   For an early photograph of the monument see A. C. Hulbert, “Decoding a Few of the Cathedral’s Sermons,” Friends of Exeter Cathedral Fifty-ninth Annual Report (to 31 March 1989) (1989): 17-18; for a drawing see J. Carter, Some Account of the Cathedral Church of Exeter. Illustrative of the Plans, Elevations, and Sections, of That Building, ed. H. C. Englefield and J. Windham (London: The Society of Antiquaries, [1797]) pl. 1.

249   See Allan and Blaylock 100-2 for the place of spandrels and our figures in the building sequence.

250   See the comments on C28 in the West Front figure screen, above, under boss 369.

251   The animals derive from Is. i 3: “the ox knows its owner and the ass its master’s crib, but Israel has not known me, and my people have not understood” was interpreted as a prophecy of Christ’s coming (See Henry 1987, 51, note 11 for patristic sources).

252   Inspection from a ladder suggests to us that this is the cathedral cat about her duties—pace Orme 1986, 42, who discusses the cat whose salary appears in the obit accounts of 1305-1467, and suggests that the Cathedral’s carvers omitted to include her portrait. See also Orme 1981, 11-13.

253   Hope and Lloyd 1988, 44-47. Twenty-nine Purbeck marble columns were paid for at Midsummer 1332 (Erskine 2: 250). Roofers are recorded between 1311 and 1331 (Erskine 1: 60; Erskine 2: 246); and in 1324 seven heads were carved for the vault (Erskine 1: 151-52).

254   B. M. Cowie, “The Cloisters of Exeter Cathedral,” Notes and Gleanings: A Monthly Magazine Devoted Chiefly to the Counties of Devon & Cornwall 1.11 (1888): 161-64, and “The Cloisters of Exeter Cathedral,” Notes and Gleanings: A Monthly Magazine Devoted Chiefly to the Counties of Devon & Cornwall 1.12 (1888): 185-87.

255   The bosses are shown in a photograph by Luscombe of 10.3.1887 shortly after their discovery (J. F. Chanter, “History of the Cloisters of Exeter Cathedral,” Exeter Diocesan Architectural & Archaeological Society Transactions 3rd ser. 4.3 (15) (1937): pl. 36.

256   Middle row centre in Luscombe’s photograph (see previous note).

257   Middle row right in Luscombe’s photograph.

258   Top row right in Luscombe’s photograph.

259   Middle row left in Luscombe’s photograph.

260   Lower row left in Luscombe’s photograph.

261   Top row left in Luscombe’s photograph.

262   Lower row second from right in Luscombe’s photograph.

263   Centre of lower row in Luscombe’s photograph.