This is a resending of a message from a fortnight ago. We had problems with
outgoing mail at the time.
In the meantime, I noticed another 'spring structure', illustrated in
'Medieval Panorama', ed. Robert Bartlett (London, 2001), p. 120. It's in a
French ivory panel, 14th C (source given as Wallerstein-Oettingen
Collection). The well is on the far right, with water flowing from two
decorative animal masks. The structure appears to be roughly spherical with
a fancy top, perched on a stand (!). It doesn't seem to be a pump, however.
The panel depicts a royal stag hunt, with riders having left a castle on the
left. The scene is likely, then, to be in a (probably enclosed) deer park,
rather than in a wildwood. A hunter seems to be dispatching a stag who
drinks from the stream (cf Jaques' wounded stag in As You Like It?). The
well head doesn't look very practicable; more related to the objects often
seen in the middle of a medieval enclosed garden ('hortus conclusus').
Christine B.
Dear Jeremy,
Many thanks - that's very useful.
Grandisson seems to have worked up Sidwell's legend extensively, so I'd
cheerfully go along with the date for the Exeter panel. The well provided
the Cathedral precinct with its water supply, so it would have been quite
useful to encourage people to respect it. NB Sidwell's feast coincided with
Exeter's Lammas Fair, 1 August - not sure what the earliest ref to the Fair
would be. So there may be economic reasons behind building up local saint's
cult. (Edmund K&M and Edward the Confessor were the national patron saints
of England before 1415; Sidwell was Exeter's patron. Helen's legend gets so
garbled - pass.)
Is the Armel alabaster the Stonyhurst or the Plas-y-Pentre, or another?
Maddy Gray and I have been investigating the first two. It seemed to us that
both represent a river flowing past a town (Ploermel?), rather than a well.
The river is geographically correct for Armel's cult area in Brittany (close
to the HQ of Henry VII's long-time host, Francis II, Duke of Brittany), and
for the legend, what we know of it. There's also a large lake near Ploermel
(memory of prehistoric depositions in Armel's leading the dragon to its
death by drowning, or of a deposition of an idol?). Google Earth isn't
focused enough to show any stream sources, near Ploermel anyway, nor will it
locate Mont-St-Armel.
Maddy and I think that 'our' two alabasters have to be dated to early
Tudor - still before Reformation, of course - not least because of the
splayed toes of Armel's footwear. We'd be interested to know if anyone does
know of an Armel well, anywhere, or another alabaster, or evidence of
veneration in England before 1485. At least Armel is watery, if not a well
saint, but he may be a well saint too.
When you say 'early' depictions of Holywell, are you thinking of pre
Margaret Beaufort's rebuild of c.1500? I haven't a clue what was there
before, except that there should be three springs, somewhere ('Treffynnon').
All good wishes,
Christine B.
-----Original Message-----
From: WATER TALK - the email discussion list for springs and spas
enthusiasts [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Jeremy
Harte
Sent: 30 December 2005 12:44
To: Christine Buckley
Subject: Re: Wells in stained glass windows
Dear Christine & All,
The east window at Exeter Cathedral was created by the glazier Robert Lyon
of Exeter in 1389, but he seems to have reused a great deal of older glass
although he was fairly scrupulous about matching up the style. St. Sidwell
is one of the reused panels and would originally have featured in a slightly
smaller window of 1360x80. She is part of a set with St. Helen, Edward the
Confessor, and Edmund - all of them indigenous saints; but although the
window would have been commissioned about the time that Bishop Grandisson
was working on his Legenda, there doesn't seem to be any organising scheme
in the choice of saints, except that the women are on the left and the men
on the right. I'm relying on Herbert E. Bishop's The Building of the
Cathedral Church of St. Peter in Exeter (James G. Commin, Exeter, 1922)
pp154-5 for all this.
Any ideas based on the St. Neot's window should be taken with great caution
as they were extensively restored (i.e. mucked around with) by J.P.
Hedgeland in 1826-9. The fish-and-well panels were among of the more
fragmentary ones and he may have added details to the well which weren't
there before. Gordon MacNeil Rushforth first drew attention to this in Devon
& Cornwall Notes & Queries 17 (1932-3) pp224-6, which I've seen, and
afterwards published A Short Guide to the Painted Windows in the Church of
St. Neot, Cornwall (Exeter, 1937), which I haven't.
St. Neot seems to belong to a genre of Life-and-Miracles windows for local
saints: apart from the St. Thomas ones at Canterbury, they all seem to be
14th or 15th centuries, with the subjects set out one by one in the panels
of Perpendicular glazing. There's St. William at York, St. Werstan at Great
Malvern, and St. Robert of Knaresborough at Morley (but originally at Darley
Abbey). The St. Chad windows at Peterborough, described by Hope from
information supplied by Canon James Raine, were in the cloisters and seem to
have survived until the Civil War. There may be more information in the
online Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi.
A list of mediaeval art showing saints and their wells would be worth
having. St. Endelient and her well appears on the rosary of Nicholas
Roscarrock, which is in the V&A - it's illustrated in Nicholas Orme's
edition of the Lives, but not very helpfully. I've seen an alabaster plaque
of St. Armel with dragon on a leash and a well springing at his feet. There
are early depictions of the Flintshire Holywell, aren't there? Otherwise not
much.
Hope you had a good Christmas and best wishes to all for the New Year.
Jeremy Harte
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