Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T11:59:05.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The West Portal in the Porch at Higham Ferrers: A Problem of Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

G. D. S. Henderson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

The thirteenth-century west portal of Higham Ferrers Church, Northamptonshire, despite its rural setting, has claims to represent international and metropolitan taste in its ornament and general layout. The sculptured portal was originally part of a larger decorative and iconographic scheme, the coherence of which was drastically impaired in the rebuilding of the west porch, tower, and spire in the 1630s. Fragments of what seem likely to have been major sculptural groups were then built into the westface of the tower. Thefigurescenes, framed in medallions, which fill the left and rightportion of the tympanum of the portal are among the best preserved thirteenth-century sculptures in England, but the identification of the individual scenes is fraught with difficulty nor is it easy to judge the level at which the sculptures were intended to communicate. Contemporary illustrated Psalters, designed for personal devotional use, may provide the key, but curious symptoms of seventeenth-century interference also require interpretation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , September 1988 , pp. 238 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Lethaby, W. R., Westminster Abbey Re-examined (London, 1925), 75Google Scholar; Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain: the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1955), 120Google Scholar; Webb, G., Architecture in Britain: the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1956), 108Google Scholar; Brieger, P., English Art 1216-1307 (Oxford, 1957), 191Google Scholar.

2 See note by T. Cocke in the exhibition catalogue edited by Alexander, J. and Binski, P., Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400 (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1987), 380–1, no. 418Google Scholar.

3 Henderson, G., ‘The imagery of St Guthlac of Crowland’, in Ormrod, W. M. (ed.), England in the Thirteenth Century. Proceedings of the 1984 Harlaxton Symposium (Harlaxton, 1985), 86–94 and fig. 8Google Scholar.

4 Buck, S., Antiquities [15 collections of views, Each containing 24 plates by S. & N. Buck] (London, 1721-1742), 1, pl. 2Google Scholar.

5 See Henderson, , op. cit. (note 3), 86–91Google Scholar and fig 2; also Gresley, J. M., Some Account of Croyland Abbey, Lincolnshire, from the MSS and Drawings of the Revd William Stukeley (Ashby-de-la-Zouch, 1856)Google Scholar.

6 Bridges, J., The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire. Compiled from the Manuscript Collections of…J. Bridges, by the Revd P. Whalley, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1791), 1, iiGoogle Scholar.

7 Ibid., II, 173.

8 Egbert, V. W., ‘The portal of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Higham Ferrers’, The Art Bulletin, xli (1959), 259Google Scholar.

9 Pevsner, N., Northamptonshire, The Buildings of England (Harmondsworth, 1961), 247Google Scholar.

10 For example, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 12, fo. 12, for which see Morgan, N. J., Early Gothic Manuscripts, i: 1190-1250 (London, 1982), pl. 147Google Scholar.

11 Rickman, T., An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England from the Conquest to the Reformation (3rd edn., London, 1825), 274Google Scholar.

12 id., An Attempt… (5th edn., rev., London, 1848), xxv and pl. opp. 90.

13 Anon., Architectural Notices of the Churches of the Archdeaconry of Northampton (Parker, J. H., London, 1849), pl. opp. 2Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., 3.

15 Compare the design of the west portal of the Elisabethkirche at Marburg an der Lahn, for which see Hootz, R., Deutsche Kunstdenkmäler, Hessen: Ein Bildhandbuch (Munich, 1964), pl. 258Google Scholar.

16 Bridges, , op. cit. (note 6), 11, 173–4Google Scholar.

17 Maycock, A. L., Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding (London, 1938), 273–5Google Scholar.

18 Anon., op. cit. (note 13), 6 and nGoogle Scholar.

19 Bony, J., ‘Higham Ferrers Church’, Arch.J. cx (1953)) 190–2Google Scholar (Northamptonshire summer visit of the Royal Archaeological Institute).

20 Anon., op. cit. (note 13), and pl. on 176Google Scholar.

21 Henderson, G., ‘Bible illustration in the age of Laud’, Trans. Cambridge Bibliogr. Soc. viii (2) (1982), 187Google Scholar.

22 Sauerlander, W., Gothic Sculpture in France 1140-1270 (London, 1972), 442–3Google Scholar.

23 Pevsner, , op. cit. (note 9), 247Google Scholar.

24 Sauerlander, , op. cit. (note 22), pls. 80–1,Google Scholar 112-13, 224-5.

25 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London, i: Westminster Abbey (London, 1924), pls. 7, 155, 158Google Scholar.

26 See Prior, E. S. and Gardner, A., An Account of Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England (Cambridge, 1912), figs. 45, 263Google Scholar; and Pevsner, N., Staffordshire, The Buildings of England (Harmondsworth, 1974), pl. 14Google Scholar.

27 All Souls College, Oxford, MS 6, fo. 13. Alongside the main stem of Jesse, naked bust-length figures emerge from the leaf terminals.

28 Egbert, , op cit. (note 8), 257 n. 9Google Scholar.

29 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 330. De Brailes's musicians play a viol, a psaltery, a hurdygurdy, and a harp. A contemporary French parallel for the musician ancestor of Christ is provided by an initial by the ‘Dominican Painter’, to St Matthew's Gospel in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Lat. MS 16722, fo. 41, for which see Branner, R., Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis (Berkeley, 1977), fig. 355Google Scholar.

30 See Swarzenski, H., ‘Unknown Bible pictures by W. de Brailes and some notes on Early English Bible illustrations’,. J. Walters Art Gallery, i (1938), 55 ffGoogle Scholar.

31 Matthew 1:3, Thamar; 1:5, Rahab and Ruth; 1:6, ‘ex ea, quae fuit Uriae’,.

32 Ruth 2:7.

33 For example, Trinity College, Cambridge, MS B.II 1.4, fo. 4V. The reaper, using a sickle, is wrongly described as binding the corn in Morgan, , op. cit. (note 10), 98Google Scholar.

34 Women reaping corn are represented in the margin of fo. 172V of the Luttrel l Psalter, British Library, London, Add. MS 42130. See Sekules, V., ‘Women in art in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, in type="editors">Alexander, and Binski, (eds.) op. cit. (note 2), 46Alexander,+and+Binski,+(eds.)+op.+cit.+(note+2),+46>Google Scholar and fig. 15.

35 For the sculpture at Wells, see Roberts, M. E., ‘The tomb of Giles de Bridport in Salisbury Cathedral’, The Art Bulletin, lxv (1983), 581,Google Scholar pl. 46; for the Queen Mary Psalter, British Library, London, Royal MS 2.B.vii, see Sir Warner, G., Queen Mary's Psalter (London, 1912), pl. 188.Google Scholar Compare the form of Christ's seat with the lectern placed alongside the shrine of St Edward on p. 30 of La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, University Library, Cambridge, MS Ee.3.59. For the interpretation of Christ with the doctors in the Temple as the Word of God, see St Augustine on Psalm 101 in Ennarationes in Psalmos, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 40 (Turnhout, 1956), 1426,Google Scholar ‘Aut etiamsi periti senes, quid illorum peritia ad Verbum Dei?’.

36 Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.302, fo. 2V, for which see Sandier, L. F., The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and Other Fenland manuscripts (London, 1974), fig. 71Google Scholar.

37 See, however, what is evidently the Virgin in secular dress in a Visitation group from Röldal, Norway, in Andersson, A., English Influence in Norwegian and Swedish Figuresculpture in Wood 1220-1270 (Stockholm, 1950), 159, fig. 65Google Scholar.

38 Luke 2: 21-40, esp. 36-8. The story of the twelve-year-old Christ in the Temple begins at Luke 2:41.

39 At the top centre of the tympanum the left segment of the trefoil arc h (immediately below the censer of the left angel, see pl. XXVIIIb) is out of alignment with th e vertical shaft framing the central panel of the tympanum. This trefoil arch should be of the thirteenth century, judging from its leaf forms and from the style of the immediately adjacent angels. If so it is remarkably precocious in tha t it mimics natural branches, with broken-off twigs. For later parallels for such mock-rustic work see Henderson, G., Gothic: Style and Civilization (Harmondsworth, 1967), 123Google Scholar and pls. 55, 70.

40 Prior, and Gardner, , op. cit. (note 26), 56Google Scholar.

41 Page, W. (ed.), The Victoria History of the County of Northampton, III (London, 1930), 275Google Scholar.

42 Egbert, , op. cit. (note 8), 258Google Scholar.

43 Pevsner, , op. cit. (note 9), 247Google Scholar.

44 British Library, London, Cotton MS Caligula A. xiv, fo. 26, for which see Temple, E., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066 (London, 1976), pl. 294Google Scholar.

45 British Library, London, Cotton MS Nero C. iv, fo. 4, for discussion of which see Henderson, G., ‘Abraham Genuit Isaac’,: Transitions from the Old Testament to the New Testament by the prefatory illustrations of some twelfth-century English Psalters', Gesta xxvi (2) (1987), 131–5Google Scholar.

46 See the text of Pseudo-Matthew in Le protévangile de Jacques et ses remaniements latins… Textes, traduction et commentaire par É. Amann (Les Apocryphes du Nouveau Testament) (Paris, 1910), 291Google Scholar.

47 Rickard, M. R., ‘The iconography of the Virgin Portal at Amiens’, Gesraxxii (2) (1983), 155, fig. 9Google Scholar.

48 Augustine, St, op. cit. (note 35),Google Scholarloc. cit. ‘Ibi accepit, inquant, formam servi, ibi nostra indutus est paupertate…’,. For the titulus of Psalm 101, see also Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum LXXI-CL, XCVIII, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (Turnhout, 1958), 897Google Scholar.

49 See Dodwell, C. R., ‘Description of the initials’, in Pacht, O., Dodwell, C. R. and Wormald, F., The St Albans Psalter (London, 1960), 242Google Scholar.

50 Turner, D. H., ‘The Evesham Psalter’, J Warburg Courtlaud Inst. xxvii (1964), 28Google Scholar.

51 Trinity College, Cambridge, MS B.11.4, fo. 113v, for which see Morgan, , op. cit. (note 10), pl. 170Google Scholar.

52 See Page, W. (ed.), op. cit. (note 41), 268Google Scholar for a summary of these events. For Robert de Ferrers see Knighton, H., Chronica de eventibus Angliae…, in Sir Twysden, R. (ed.), Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores (London, 1652), 2438.Google Scholar See also Sir Powicke, M., The Thirteenth Century 1216-1307 (2nd edn., Oxford, 1962), 188–9,Google Scholar 199, 208 n. 2, and 212 n. 1.

53 Dugdale, W., The Baronage of England (London, 1675), 262Google Scholar.

54 See Bridges, , op. cit. (note 6), 174Google Scholar; also Prior, and Gardner, op. cit. (note 26), 268 n. 90Google Scholar.

55 See Henderson, , op. cit. (note 21), 173–216Google Scholar.

56 For the general significance of this letter, see ibid., 189.

57 See, for example, Pigler, A., ‘Portraying the dead: painting, graphic art’, Acta Historiae Artium Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, iv (1956), 53, fig. 57Google Scholar.

58 For example, the Kitchin family kneeling at prayer in their night shirts on a brass in St Stephens, Bristol, a monument to Robert Kitchin, died 1594.

59 Serre, J. Puget de la, The Mirrour which flatters Not (London, 1639), 87.Google Scholar See also the shroud on the pole in Boria, Juan de, Empresas morales (Prague, 1581),Google Scholar reproduced in Henkel, A. and Schöne, A., Emblemata, Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1976), 996Google Scholar.

60 Ferrar, N., The Ferrar Papers, ed. Blackstone, B. (Cambridge, 1938), 117Google Scholar.