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A Lost Cycle of Canterbury Paintings of 1220

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Madeline Harrison Caviness
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Summary

Mid nineteenth-century sketches of paintings then in the vaults of the Trinity Chapel ambulatory of Canterbury Cathedral are published for the first time. They provide an opportunity to discuss the iconographic programme and style of the lost paintings. Kings of England and local saints were among those represented in commemoration of the translation of the relics of Becket to the Trinity Chapel in July 1220. The date of 1220 which seems to be given in an inscription is confirmed by comparison with a Canterbury Psalter of before 1220, and sculptures at Wells.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 66 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1974

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References

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page 67 note 1 See the obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine, 185, N.S. 31 (June 1849), pp. 659–61; his drawings of the paintings are mentioned, p. 660.

page 67 note 2 Add. MS. 1, ff. 29–38v. I am indebted to Dr. William Urry for his assistance, and to Miss Oakley of the Cathedral Library for her help with photographing the manuscript.

page 67 note 3 For this reason I have relied entirely on the sketches. Tristram arrived at fourteen figures by taking into account some subjects from both series of drawings.

page 67 note 4 A letter in Austin Senior's hand on f. 45 refers to wall paintings in the Trinity Chapel of ‘encounters with eastern infidels’. These were removed during the restoration of the Cathedral under Dean Percy, in Austin's time.

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page 69 note 2 The reign of Henry was computed from his coronation at Gloucester, 28 October 1216; Powicke, Thirteenth Century, p. 1.

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page 70 note 1 Cave, op. cit., p. 46. For the capitals see Newman, John, North East and East Kent (The Buildings of England), (Harmondsworth, [1969]), p. 179Google Scholar, fig. 28.

page 70 note 2 Toke, op. cit., p. 220, gave evidence for the mosaic being in situ.

page 70 note 3 Comparison was made by Dudley, Colin, ‘Sacred Geometry’,Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle, 64 (1969)Google Scholar, figs. 7 and 8.

page 70 note 4 The tomb was identified as Hubert Walter's when it was opened in 1890; see Hope, W. St. John, ‘On the Tomb of an Archbishop recently opened in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury’, Vetusta Monumenta, vii. i (1893), p. 11Google Scholar.

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