medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Diana Wright has once more kindly put some of my pictures on her site -- at
_http://nauplion.net/buryan.html_ (http://nauplion.net/buryan.html) .
This is the last of my VCH (Victoria COunty History) task, this time from St
Buryan, the mother church of St Levan, and I am hoping that you can once more
help me.
All the pew-ends here were ripped out in 1814 and many were taken off to
surrounding farms. All that remains are two which are now part of a litany
desk. It is very dark in the church just now, and the ends have been seriously
damaged -- by fire? Both seem to have sections inset, and those could be much
younger, I suppose, or just better protected.
The lushness of the imagery, poorly preserved though it is, reminds me of
the lush imagery of the St B roodscreen -- with which I am however not familiar
enough to make much comparison.
The little church guide has a sketch of one end (the left) which bears
little resemblance to what I can see. It describes it as 'two mermen' (I can make
out one rather fine male head, but the rest looks like fishes and fronds to
me); and the other (the right-hand one) is said to be two horses' heads. If
there are heads there -- and I can see something like -- I'd say they were
dragons or wyverns rather than horses -- but that the whole was a symmetrical
floral array. The scaly thing on the left is part of the mended section and I
can't see anything similar on the right...
Any ideas? Diana's site has a scan of the sketch in the Guide, as well as
pix of the actual thing.
Sadly, the Victoria County History survey for reasons unknown does not
include rood-screens.
Susan
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