Dear Maddy,
There is an entry on "IHS" in the Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 2, col. 337. It doesn't add much to what you already know, but does have some promising-looking references.
- Ch. Oman, English Church Plate 597-1830 (London 1957) includes a series of English examples between 1450 and 1540
- L. Traube, Nomina Sacra (Munich, 1907)
- Th. Dombart, "Der Name Jesus," Die chr. Kunst, 11 (1914-15), 257-69, which is apparently particularly good on Jesuit examples
- Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, III, 708ff, 715-20, an article by H. Feldbusch
Such combinations of letters were often taken to have sacred power in their own right, like an incantation, and that might be one possibility for accounting for their survival in Wales so long after the Reformation.
Cheers,
Jim
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear learned members,
This is an enquiry which spills over into the post-medieval period (however defined) - but I know the list will have expertise which can help. As an offshoot of work on medieval tomb carvings in Wales, I have been looking at some later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Welsh tomb carvings which include the IHS trigram. My initial assumption was that these were memorials to Jesuits but I rapidly reconsidered. I then decided they must be recusants who were sufficiently powerful in their local communities to be able to be commemorated
with an overtly Catholic device - but now I'm not even sure about that.
The trigram is of course familiar on later medieval tombs but all the pre-Reformation examples I've seen are in black-letter script. From the mid sixteenth century it also starts to appear in square Roman capitals with a cross sitting on the cross-stroke
of the H. A developed version of this, with three nails under the trigram and sometimes a sunburst, was the emblem of the Society of Jesus. I have seen the letters IHS and the cross in square Roman capitals on a couple of fifteenth-century Italian depictions
of Bernardine of Siena, so that style is not unknown pre-Ignatius, but the earliest example I have found on a tomb is from the 1550s.
I am fairly confident that most of the examples I have found are late sixteenth or seventeenth century, but the evidence is stylistic: I have no securely dated examples. I've been reading Blake et al on the cult of the Holy Name of Jesus in Gaimster and
Gilchrist, Archaeology of Reformation, and there does seem to be some ambiguity: the trigram was often regarded as evidence of 'popery' but was also used by people who could have been described as Arminians.
Does anyone know of any datable examples of the trigram in square capitals on a tomb pre-1550? And does anyone have any more thoughts on its significance after that date?
Best wishes
Maddy
Dr Madeleine Gray PhD, FRHistS
Reader in History/ Darllenydd mewn Hanes
School of Humanities and Lifelong Learning /Ysgol Ddyniaethau a Dysgu Gydol Oes
University of South Wales/Prifysgol De Cymru
Caerleon Campus/Campws Caerllion,
Newport/Casnewydd NP18 3QT Tel: +44 (0)1633.432675
'Small wonder politicians no longer read history. It would
give them nightmares.' (Simon Jenkins)
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