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MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  October 2007

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION October 2007

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Subject:

Archaeologists and the Liturgy

From:

John Briggs <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:19:23 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

For reasons which I shall explain later, I'm going to rave about a book 
before I have read it!  (I may be less enthusiastic once I have done so...) 
The book is:

D.A. Stocker & P.L. Everson, Summoning St Michael: Early Romanesque Towers 
in Lincolnshire (Oxbow Books, 2006) ISBN 1842172131

The authors are archaeologist working for English Heritage, who have made a 
study of a group of parish church towers in Lincolnshire which have 
attracted attention in  the past, because they date either from just before 
or just after the Norman conquest.  (Our authors plump for the late 11th 
century - which was a bit embarrassing, as the fieldwork had been conducted 
for the "Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture"!) They gave a talk a few 
days ago based on their findings, which caused me to sit up and take 
notice - because they have made a link between the archaeology of the 
standing buildings and the medieval liturgy.

These towers all have a bell stage with paired belfrey opening on each face. 
It is fairly obvious that bells were hung there, but our authors found that 
they were rung from a ringing chamber below, not from ground level.  These 
ringing chambers had slit windows, and these faced the direction or 
directions that covered the greater part of the churchyard.  All the towers 
have (or formerly had) west doorways, but the ground floor spaces of the 
towers were poorly-lit, again by slit windows. There was a tower arch into 
the nave, often highly decorated, but this decoration was only on the nave 
side, not the tower side. The conclusion was that the west doorway was an 
exit, not an entrance. The ringing chamber was accessed by a doorway above 
the tower arch - i.e. it could only be accessed via a ladder placed in the 
nave - not from within the tower.

The interpretation of all this was that the vigil over the body of a dead 
parishioner was held overnight in the ground floor stage of the tower, lit 
by candlelight, and that the funeral procession subsequently left via the 
west doorway, with a bell tolling until the instant that the body was laid 
in the grave.  Our authors suggest that these towers were built in response 
to a change in the liturgy, driven by Bishop Remigius as he built his new 
cathedral at Lincoln, after 1072.

So far, so good - although some awkward questions arise.  As you should know 
by now, I am somewhat sceptical by nature, so I asked why these towers were 
found only in Lincolnshire, when the diocese famously stretched from the 
Thames to the Humber?  The answer was that they seemed to be confined to the 
three archdeaconries of Lincolnshire (I do wonder if we should look to the 
archdeacons rather than the bishop - as deacons they might well be more 
concerned with the liturgy away from the altar...)  Also, they claimed that 
Remigius was following the lead of Lanfranc, but I can't find any support 
for their larger claims in the Decreta Lanfranci.

For there is more: our authors claim that this use of western towers is 
mimicking the liturgical use of the transept ends of abbey churches and 
cathedral priory churches (and presumably secular cathedral churches such as 
Lincoln, although they weren't too clear on that point).  They claimed that 
these incorporated belfreys, and mortuary chapels dedicated to St Michael. 
I suppose their book may have been published too late for Jon Cannon to take 
their findings into account in his own book - which could be a bit 
embarrassing if they turn out to be right!

Because I have a feeling that I may be less convinced once I have read the 
book.  I am convinced that their archaeological interpretation of the use of 
these parish church west towers is correct, but I am less certain that they 
are on firm ground with their interpretation of the liturgy - but we shall 
have to see!

John Briggs

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