Welcome to Exeter Cathedral Keystones & Carvings: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures & Their Polychromy, an illustrated introduction to, and explanatory catalogue of all the figurative sculpture that is part of the original interior fabric of the medieval building.

This extensive web-site is designed primarily for art historians and medievalists, but is also intended to enable lay people to enjoy the wonderful medieval work which can often be seen more clearly here than is possible within the building, even through binoculars.

Experienced users will find their way around simply by using the Navigation Buttons on the left. Alternatively, THE RESOURCE: COVERAGE AND USE explains how the site works.

Your feedback (responses, corrections, problems) would be much appreciated: to .

THE RESOURCE: COVERAGE AND USE

MATERIAL COVERED

Exeter Cathedral Keystones & Carvings: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures & their Polychromy offers a complete, explanatory record of the medieval bosses, corbels, labelstops, figurative capitals (and a few other interior carvings) which are an integral part of the medieval interior construction of Exeter Cathedral, Devon, England. The authors describe the carvings' architectural context together with their significance both as indicators of the sequence by which a Norman cathedral was refashioned into a Gothic one, and as objects of great beauty and interest in their own right. There is no attempt to present a visual tour of the Cathedral, or to show the architectural context of each object, apart from its position on the Cathedral Plan, though views of the main areas of the Cathedral are provided.

The resource's parameters exclude the exterior West Front figure screen and tomb figures, as well as the two Tudor Chantries at the east ends of the Chancel Aisles (Speke in the north and Oldham in the south). The misericords, which were originally part of the lost thirteenth-century stalls are also excluded, being cathedral furniture rather than part of its fabric.

The carvings, mostly stone, but including the bosses of the wooden Tower vaults, are remarkable not only for their sculptural interest but also for the fine medieval polychromy surviving on many of them. This cathedral provides some of the best evidence in the UK for late-thirteenth and fourteenth-century painting of sculpture. The carvings were the subjects of a restoration programme of the late 1970s, which made the photography possible. After Ms Hulbert's employment on the programme (after heavy restoration of the three westernmost bays of the nave) all restoration colour was applied over a removable varnish. Wherever possible, images showing the original colour are provided, and it is carefully distinguished from restoration.

USING THE SITE

The web site has been designed for ease of navigation and flexibility. Essentially, you can move easily from anywhere to anywhere. Using the Navigation Bars, you can view everything in whatever order and by whatever method you choose. There are two main routes into the material, Visual and Verbal.

The Visual Route is in two parts.

	A.		Via the miniaturised Cathedral Plan at the top of the Navigation Bars on the left of each page (see below under CATHEDRAL PLAN). This route is for those who know the rough position in the building of the area or object that they wish to study, or the name of the area in which an object is to be found. It is also for those who prefer to work by means of images rather than words.
	B.		Via the Images navigation button (see below under IMAGES).

The Verbal Route is for those who are more at ease with text than with images. They may prefer to treat the resource as an on-line book, and work via a written, chronological account of the building. This route is followed by using Navigation Bars 'Contents', 'Introduction', 'Catalogue' , 'Bibliography' (and even 'Footnotes').
Moving between the two Routes is simple and intuitive. Hotspots (links) are orange-pink.

NAVIGATION BUTTONS

The vertical bar on the extreme left of the window changes colour as the user moves around the site, to reflect the colour of the Navigation Button for the area of the site being viewed: for example, when you are using Search the vertical bar is purple.  

CATHEDRAL PLAN

A miniaturised Cathedral Plan stands above the Navigation Bars on the left of each page. Clicking the miniature will call up a larger Plan. The colour-coded sections of the larger Plan roughly indicate building periods, the dates of which are shown on the key at the bottom right of the Plan. (Note: A colour-coded section is not the same as an architectural 'area'. Colour-coded sections indicating building-dates may contain several architectural 'areas' (listed as in the Catalogue); for example, the central light yellow section contains the Crossing, Easternmost Bay of the Nave (with several arches and corbels westward but built at the same time), North and South Towers, North and South Transepts, and Pulpitum.)

The Plan is thus not only a springboard to the rest of the material but also a major source of information in itself: the colour coding shows for the first time the unexpected building sequence used by the master masons. This sequence, discussed in the Introduction, is revealed by study of the carvings in relation to the Exeter Cathedral Archive's Fabric Rolls, the rare medieval scrolls preserving many of the Accounts for the Gothic modification and maintenance of the building.

As the mouse-pointer moves over an area of the Plan, a red box highlights the name of that area in the colour-coded list of areas below the Plan itself. You can thus easily learn the name and date of any area.

Clicking any item in the colour-coded list of areas also brings up a mini-map of it.

Clicking any area of the large Plan will call up an enlargement of that area, making visible the clickable numbers and letters that identify the major sculptural objects, and so giving access to their images and descriptions. Each boss is identified by a number and each corbel by a letter. The ascending order of numbers and letters roughly echoes the order in which the Norman cathedral was remodelled in the Gothic period. Half-bosses (semi-circular because abutting a wall) are unnumbered on the main plan (but are included in some of the detailed maps): they bear the same number as the adjacent boss, but followed by an A: thus half-boss 88A is next to boss 88. The numbers and letters proceed East to West, and along each cross-beam they proceed North to South, following Prideaux's precedent.

Clicking on a number or letter will call up a thumbnail image and caption of the object. Clicking the thumbnail will enlarge the image and indicate any details.

It is important to note that large numbers of objects smaller than the great bosses and corbels, such as minor corbels, label-stops, figurative capitals and other carvings (impossible to fit on to the Plan), can be accessed only from CONTENTS and/or CATALOGUE . For these a number/letter -system based on that of Prideaux has been devised.

The so-called Cloister Room has a separate vault-plan (accessible via CONTENTS) because it is physically separate from the main building and so impossible to show to scale on the main Cathedral Plan. It is modern, and currently used as an excellent Cathedral Restaurant; however, its South-East Bay Vault incorporates eight medieval bosses salvaged from the demolished medieval Cloisters. This bay is therefore the only part of the Cloister Room examined.

MINI-MAPS

The main Cathedral Plan is supplemented by mini-maps of its separate areas, which appear where they are useful, for example in Contents, Catalogue and sometimes in Images, alongside headings under which thumbnails are grouped (they occur, for example, by bay-headings such as EAST BAY, NORTH BAY, in the complex Pulpitum, where mini-maps take you first to a diagram of the relevant bay-vault and then, if you wish, to a plan of the whole pulpitum vault). The user can thus go to the images from a variety of places.

It is possible to zoom in and out of any of the maps by clicking the right mouse button. This method gives the user a menu with options of zoom in, zoom out and show all (to restore the image to its original size). This menu also has a print option.

The map windows can also be re-sized to change the map resolution. By moving the mouse to the bottom-right of the window, diagonal arrows appear. Holding the left mouse button down while moving the mouse re-sizes the window.

SEARCH

The Simple Search facility is not case-sensitive. It gives the number of hits found and lists them in context. When a left-hand 'Location' column is offered, clicking hotspots in it will further contextualise hits, revealing the database folder-structure.

Option: 'Highlight Keywords'

This option is fast while searching most fields (Image Descriptions, Cathedral Area Sub-Headings, Bibliography, Footnotes) but it is not necessary when searching these, where keywords are obvious. The exception is in searching 'Text (Excluding Image Descriptions)', where is it essential to select 'Highlight Keywords' even though the search will be slow (about 40 seconds) and somewhat cumbersome: to locate the green-highlighted hits you have to page down the whole of Text (see next paragraph).

Option: 'Text (excluding Image Descriptions)'

	This covers all the written material in the general Introduction and in the introductory paragraphs to each Catalogue section (e.g. to the Lady Chapel or the Presbytery). 'Text' does not include the Catalogue's Image Descriptions, which are separately accessible in the interests of search-speed. To search the entire Introduction and Catalogue (apart from 'building sequence' sentences-see next paragraph) you need to search both 'Text' and 'Image Descriptions'. Excluded also are the 'building sequence' sentences found at the end of some Cathedral Areas. These sentences enable you, if you wish, to follow the sequence in which the cathedral was constructed, rather than the physical sequence of the building east-west and within that north-south. 'Building sequence' sentences, listed here for convenience, occur in the following pages:-
	at the end of INTRODUCTION: The earliest bosses in the building sequence are 24A-28A. at the end of EAST PRESBYTERY AISLE WITH CORBELS AND LABELSTOPS OF THE ADJOINING EASTERNMOST BAYS OF NORTH AND SOUTH PRESBYTERY AISLES): The building sequence continues with bosses 122-126, 130-134, 138-141, and corbels and capitals A'-D, the entries for which are found following boss 85. at the end of PRESBYTERY: The building sequence continues with boss 86. at the end of CHOIR: The building sequence continues with bosses 127-129A, and 135-137A. at the end of CHOIR (continued) The building sequence continues here with boss 172. at the end of TOWER CHAPEL OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST: The building sequence continues with the small western bay of the Choir, bosses 116-121 (under which area are also listed the Crossing corbels H', H, J', J, and their associated vaulting-shaft capitals): see heading for 172-193. at the end of NAVE: SIX WESTERN BAYS: The building sequence continues with 290-319A, 320A-354B and 369. after the Bosses in THE SOUTH TOWER (ST JOHN'S TOWER): The building sequence continues with boss 194, but included in the above area are the eastern Nave Aisle bays, with bosses 285A-289B and 320A-324B. at the end of NORTH NAVE AISLE EAST BAY: For the continuation of the building sequence see the heading for bosses 194-252A. at the end of SOUTH NAVE AISLE EAST BAY For continuation of the building sequence see the heading for boss 194.
	The only way to locate the 'building sequence' paragraphs in context is to use your browser 'find' facility on each of the pages listed above (most easily located via the 'Contents' navigation button). This is inevitably tedious, involving search of some 36 web-pages.

Option: 'Cathedral Area Sub-Headings'

This covers only the various Cathedral Areas subheadings which describe the nature of objects listed, such as BOSSES, CORBELS, CAPITALS, LABEL-STOPS. It does not cover text or catalogue entries under these subheadings. Thus a search here for 'Corbel' will list all the areas (e.g. Lady Chapel, Choir West Bay) where corbels are found. This is quicker than trying to locate object-types via the 'Contents' navigation button.

Option: 'Bibliography'

This is self-explanatory.

Option: 'Footnotes'

This is self-explanatory.

CONTENTS

This lists the resource's verbal contents. It is the quickest way to the Catalogue if you know where you want to look. Cathedral areas listed are 'clickable', taking you to the chosen part of the whole text. Each area has a 'clickable' mini-map adjacent to it. Either text or mini-map may be used to access images.

CATALOGUE

This describes all the representational carvings, not just those accessible from the Plan. However, the Catalogue does not give direct access to the supplementary Views of the Cathedral, which are accessible from relevant hotspots in the INTRODUCTION and CATALOGUE, and more clearly at the end of each page in IMAGES. Each cathedral area (e.g. Lady Chapel) begins with Section Heading that describes the area's place in the re-building programme. Each Section Heading is followed by a list of Catalogue entries for the carvings.

INTRODUCTION

This first places the carvings in their building context, giving an outline history of the refashioning of the Norman Cathedral into a Gothic Cathedral. Known losses from the Cathedral of medieval sculpture and polychromy are described; surviving stones and colours are identified. The carvings are then discussed as objects in their own right, including their function, imagery, sculptural quality and colour. (Note: The first footnote in the Introduction is numbered 2 because number 1 is in Acknowledgements, at the bottom of the Home Page). 

IMAGES

This offers a list of cathedral areas. (The last area named, 'No area', contains images that do not fit any of the listed Cathedral areas, for example, images of one of the Exeter Cathedral Fabric Rolls recording payments made during the construction of the Gothic building. It includes also one image of the Nave, looking West, because the Catalogue treats the Nave in two separate sections.)

Clicking one of areas —listed under 'Images' (such as 'East Presbytery Aisle') takes you to a page of thumbnails covering all the images in that area: you can see at a glance the area's range of objects, arranged in Catalogue order and groups. Each of these thumbnails, if any of its corners is moused over, will pop-up its brief name, so that you can visualise the arrangement of objects in the architecture before looking at them in more detail.

Clicking one of these grouped thumbnails will bring up a similar thumbnail but this time with its usual location, description, hotspots within the description, and the option of clicking the image again to bring up an enlargement (with any Details accessible via hotspots).

Only under 'Images' can you easily see at a glance what is illustrated in each cathedral area, which images are in colour, and what general views are available (at the end of each page). As so many thumbnails are visible at once, this is a good place from which, say, to begin comparisons of different carvers' hands, or to look for certain kinds of images (such as faces, foliage, animals) rather than using 'Search'.

There are no built-in Next and Back buttons here, so to see all the images in Catalogue order you must, at the end of each page, re-select the Images Navigation button, and proceed to the next cathedral area.

The location (database directory structure) at the top of each thumbnail is also clickable, so can be used to navigate quickly throughout the images in a different way. 'Cathedral1, Cathedral2, etc. merely indicate roughly chronological sections of the Cathedral, beginning in the eastern end ('Cathedral1') where the Gothic extension and rebuilding of the Norman original began. Thus 'Cathedral5' takes us to the porches of the West Front (where the rebuilding ceased) and to the modern Cloister Room, where medieval bosses were recycled.

BIBLIOGRAPHY, FOOTNOTES, ABBREVIATIONS

These are self-explanatory. The first two are searchable via 'Search'.

BACK and FORWARD

These follow the user's path, whereas 'Next' and 'Previous' at the top or bottom of web-pages control movement within the predetermined database sequence (roughly chronological order).

PREFACE and ABOUT THE AUTHORS

These are accessible only via hotspots at the bottom of the Home Page, on the principle that they will be read only once.

The photographic images contained in this site can be obtained in a high resolution format. For further information please e-mail: .