St Michael's church, St Albans, Herts - a medieval textbook, part two: contents

This is part two, concerning St Michael's furnishings etc. You can read part one, about the architecture, here.

Apologies for the currently unsatisfactory quality of many of these photos. The next time there's a sunny day and I'm free I shall go and try to take better ones.

A common feature of medieval churches was a depiction of the Last Judgement, known as a Doom, usually over the chancel arch. A substantial handful survive, for example, in Salisbury, Wilts:

and Chaldon, Surrey (an unusually early example from c1200, also unusual in being on the west wall):

They were usually painted on the plaster-covered walls, but sometimes (only five survive, apparently) they were on wood, as at Wenhaston, Suffolk:

and Dauntsey, Wilts:

They usually follow the same format (though the one at Chaldon is different): Christ is in the middle at the top, often sitting on a rainbow, with Heaven on his right (i.e. on the viewer's left), and Hell on his left. The saved are seen being welcomed into the former, while the damned are eternally tormented by devils in the latter. The Dooms were textbooks in a largely illiterate age, designed to teach the congregation about the bliss they would find should they get to Heaven, but also, and even more importantly, to thoroughly terrify them with the horrors of Hell, and thus ensure that they followed the Church's teachings.

Displayed on the south wall of St Michael's is one of only two Herts remnants of Dooms (the other is a fragmentary wall painting in Flamstead). Its rarity is increased by being on wood (though I don't think it counts as one of the five survivors as it's only a small section of the complete painting). Oddly, however, Pevsner ignores it.

In 1808 the remains of St Michael's Doom, probably dating from the 15th century, were discovered over the chancel arch. The custodians of the church at the time lacked the means or the will to preserve it, but at least it was documented before it was painted over, and a reproduction of the original copy of the Doom now hangs beneath the surviving section.

On the left is seen Heaven, imagined as a handsome building with St Peter standing in the doorway. To the right of this is Mary, and above her and to her right is Christ, seated on a rainbow, overseeing proceedings. The middle is a crucifixion, with angels sounding the Last Trump above, and below souls rising from the dead. (The semi-circular section at the bottom is the only surviving detail.) On the right is Hell, imagined as a monster with gaping mouth, swallowing sinners being chivvied in by bat-winged devils. One devil is giving a piggyback to a not especially alarmed woman carrying a tankard, her sin presumably being drunkenness and/or gluttony. The banner (the equivalent of a comic strip's speech bubble) at the devil's heel says 'Go, souls, into eternal fire', and sure enough in Hell's mouth the damned are burning.

But nearly all this has gone. What survives is a wooden tympanum which would originally have fitted under the chancel arch, with the lower third of the cross, and six dead awaking and looking toward Heaven. Note the unperspictival depiction of the coffins; perspective was invented in Italy in the early 15th century, but took well over a century to reach England.

The first figure (top left) seems to be a bearded Pope, wearing his papal tiara. (Incidentally, the dead have mostly lost their robes but retain their headgear as an indication of their status). His hands are not clasped, but extended, palms inwards; I assume that there's a meaning to this gesture but I don't know what it is. Perhaps someone could enlighten me.

The second is a king, also bearded, wearing a crown and what appear to be boxer shorts. Being royal he is spared the indignity of appearing completely naked. He is crossing his hands over his chest; again, I'm sure this gesture must have a significance.

The third (on the bottom left) is a man with a pudding-bowl haircut, familiar from portraits of Henry V (died 1422), so the style would have been fashionable when the Doom was painted. He has an especially awed expression; his gesture is similar to the pope's.

The fourth is a queen with flowing hair, crown and slender waist. She looks serenely joyful and clasps her hands together and to her chest in fervent prayer.

The fifth is a woman with hair even longer than the queen's. She is still wearing her shroud, and appears awed. She is the only one of the six not gesturing, as she's using her arms to get up.

The last of the awakening dead is perhaps the most humanly affecting of them all: he looks surprised, even shocked, arms spread wide and mouth agape, to be witnessing the Last Things and to find himself on his way to Heaven.

On the evidence of this tympanum, fifty percent of those who escaped Hell were either royalty or from the upper echelons of the Church: not very encouraging odds if you were one of the multitude.

The late medieval artist (though he wouldn't have thought of himself as an 'artist', merely as an artisan) who painted the Doom wasn't especially skilful or sophisticated, but he has brought some individuality and humanity to the six surviving resurrecting figures. Believe me, I've tried, but I really can't avoid saying that he's brought them to life.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), 1st Viscount St Alban* and Lord Chancellor, an important figure in the history of science and of some significance in the colonisation of the New World, and in other aspects of life in early 17th century England, lived at Old Gorhambury House**.  The ruins of his home are well worth the mile and a half stroll from the church along a footpath past the theatre. He famously died (at least according to the gossipy John Aubrey) of pneumonia caught by stuffing a chicken with snow in order to study the effects of freezing on meat.

His life-size monument stands on the north side of the chancel. He is shown seated, an unusual posture for figures in monuments (they're usually either standing, kneeling in prayer or recumbent), and, even more unusually, and delightfully, he's having forty winks. This is very endearing, as if he were sitting for a portrait and just couldn't keep his eyes open. His right hand droops languidly and his legs are casually splayed. He's dressed in his best, including those absurd tied-up-above-the-knee breeches that look as if they've been inflated, and, below the knee, extravagant bows. A perky wide-brimmed hat tops off the sartorial composition.

There's a copy of this statue (by Henry Weekes, 1845) in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, which, however, omits the hat. I was brought up to believe that, except in certain well-defined circumstances, hats were not worn indoors by gentlemen. (Not that my respectably lower-middle class upbringing gave me any cause to consider myself someone of such standing. I still pause at the doors of lavatories marked GENTLEMEN and worry that I'm getting above my station.) No doubt etiquette was different in Jacobean times. Perhaps the sculptor of the copy also thought that the indoor hat (especially in a house of God) was a social solecism and left it out to spare Bacon's blushes; you could say, to save his bacon. I'm sorry, I don't know what's come over me today.

It wasn't common for monuments to be signed at this date, and no documentary evidence about the origins of the monument apparently survives. Although it's well carved, it's not up to the standards of the best sculptor of the day, Maximilian Colt (who carved the superb Cecil monument at Hatfield).

There are lots of Jacobean pulpits (i.e. from the reign of James I (1603-25), Jacobus being the Latin equivalent of James), because James issued an edict requiring all churches to have one. (Similar rules had been made before, but presumably not rigidly enforced.) St Michael's example is particularly splendid; it's supported on dragons, and is complete with stairs, book rest, wrought iron hour glass (for timing the sermons), standard (the back board) and tester (the sounding board at the top).

The standard has flanking gryphons. There are also an altar table and a pair of chairs, all of similar date to the pulpit.

There's no medieval glass in the church; this small but richly coloured heraldic shield in the chancel is the only ancient glass.

There is however plenty of Victorian glass, most of it of at least acceptable quality. I'll draw your attention to just one of them, in the westernmost south window of the chancel. It was designed by Nathaniel Westlake (1833-1921) for the firm Lavers and Barraud, in 1861.  I think it's excellent; I like the way all the figures in the top are crammed together, frieze-like, with practically no background, making a very strong pattern, and the uninhibited colours. And, unlike much Victorian glass, the faces aren't too painterly and sentimental.

The window depicts, in the top, the Communion of Saints adoring the Agnus Dei, and, bottom left, Extreme Unction (the last rites), and, bottom right, the sacrament of Communion. There must have been plenty of parishioners in 1861 who shuddered at the Popish implications of all this.

The jambs of the easternmost south chancel window have Victorian painted decoration; a bit twee, but pretty enough.

This crudely painted and worn royal coat of arms dates from 1660, the year of Charles II's restoration to the throne after the Commonwealth.

The south door is original, and has some confidently carved names; they don't look like illicit graffiti, and are perhaps the names of churchwardens. This one records the name John Turner, with an 'I' standing in for a 'J' and a 'V' for a 'U', as was usual before the 17th century, which gives us some hint as to the date of the carving. The backward 'Ns', however, imply limited literacy.

There's more to see in St Michael's than I've mentioned here; in particular, there are three brasses (but, as any regular readers these indigations might have will know, brasses have usually got to be pretty special specimens to interest me). I've usually been lucky when visiting the church and have found it open and welcoming. It's more likely to be open in the summer months than the winter, but even if you are unlucky enough to turn up when it's closed you can console yourself by visiting all the nearby Roman relics. But the church is certainly worth a second (or further) attempt to get in.

* Confusingly, his title is sometimes spelt 'Alban' and sometimes 'Albans'.

** Its Palladian successor, Gorhambury House, is open to the public on Thursday afternoons from May to September (for details see here), and I thoroughly recommend a visit even though you have to join a guided tour and aren't allowed to explore at your own pace. The books in the library are still shelved and organised under classifications devised by Bacon.

St Michael's church, St Albans, Herts - a medieval textbook, part one: architecture

St Michael's church is a winding walk from St Albans cathedral down Fishpool Street, with its many medieval and later houses and low bridge across the River Ver. The church is within the walls (only a few fragments of which remain, however) of the Roman city of Verulamium; to be exact, it stands on or just to the north of the site of the basilica (rather like a town hall-cum-stock exchange). A short distance to the west is the Roman theatre (enough survives to enable the visitor to vividly picture the crowds and the entertainments they presumably wanted to see so much that they were willing to endure the unholy trinity of outdoor seating, English weather and togas). And just across the road is the excellent Verulamium Museum, home of outstanding mosaics and the gorgeous Verulamium Venus. 

The church could almost have been designed as a textbook demonstration of the the five main period of medieval English ecclesiastical architecture: Saxon, Norman (or Romanesque), Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular.* I can't think of any other place in Herts where this is true (even the cathedral, though it was founded in Saxon times, has no visible evidence of work from that time), and there can't be many in the rest of the country. Add to this the proximity of the Roman remains, and, less exotically, the Victorian portions of the building, and St Michael's could justly claim to be one of the most historic buildings in the country.

North nave arcade

The Saxon work is best seen inside the church. The walls of the original nave, dating from about 1000 (roughly the same date as the nave of Reed church), largely survive, and now form the north and south arcades. The best Saxon details are the remains of windows above the arcades, the jambs  and arches made from Roman bricks salvaged from the ruins of the Roman town. There are three on the north; of the two visible in this photo, one is no more than a flourish on the white plaster, while the other is still recognisably a window though it's been cut off vertically. (In the chancel there's also a door of similar appearance in the north wall.)

South nave arcade, looking through to the south (Lady) chapel

Above the south arcade there's a similar Saxon window, cut off horizontally, and now communicating with the south chapel.

The Norman contribution was to add aisles. They did this by simply cutting semi-circular arches through the Saxon walls. Pevsner dates these to the early 12th century, while the Victoria County History and the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments plump for late 12th century. Given how simple, even crude, the arches are, I'm inclined to agree with Pevsner. Curiously, whenever they were cut, no attempt was made to make the two arcades align with each other; the piers and arches on the north don't correspond to those on the south, so there's a disorientating sense of things being out of kilter in the nave. (The round-headed east window of the north aisle is also Norman.)

Early in the 13th century the nave was heightened and clerestory windows in the latest Early English style added. In this period pointed arches were used for the first time, and windows were usually tall, thin and sharply-pointed, and are known as 'lancets'. Some of the clerestory windows have been replaced by later ones, but on the south there are still four lancets, and three on the north.

Probably just a few years later, and still in the Early English style, the south chapel was added (probably as a Lady Chapel, that is, one dedicated to the Virgin Mary). The east wall has a triplet of windows, framed by elegant shafts. The central window is circular***; it's possible that this is a later, perhaps post-Reformation, replacement for the original lancet, though if this is true why it was thought necessary I can't guess, and there are no hints of rebuilding in the external masonry. Oddly, although the canopies of the outer windows are pointed, the windows themselves are round-headed. Again, this is very hard to explain; I don't remember seeing a similar feature elsewhere. Perhaps the designer, or builder, wanted to make the exterior of the building blend with the existing Saxon/Norman structure. Medieval builders don't normally seem to have had such qualms, however; generally they apparently relished imposing the latest styles on old buildings.

The south wall of the chapel has a single central lancet (though again round-headed), which is flanked by later windows, to which we'll return.

The steeply-pitched timber roof of the chapel (not very visible in the current photo) is dramatic, and possibly 17th century.

Late in the 13th century the Decorated style arrived, which, as its name suggests, is much more elaborate than Early English; in particular, decorative stone tracery appeared in the top of windows (which weren't so sharply pointed as before). Decorated architects were especially fond of the ogee, (pronounced, more or less, like 'Oh gee! I've just invented a new style of architecture!'), that is, an S-shaped curve. The window above is in the north aisle; the stonework looks new but it probably reproduces the original of about 1340. As you can see, it's very graceful though essentially composed of the simplest elements, merely four ogees, two smaller (springing from the central mullion) and two larger (springing from the jambs).

The south side of the chancel has an external tomb recess; the ogee curve here isn't as marked as in the windows above it, or that in the north aisle, but the little upward flick at its apex is enough to qualify it as such, and for us to assign it to the Decorated period. (The tiny window to the left of the recess is a squint, to enable those outside the church to witness the services, though how much could be seen through it is doubtful. Alternatively, the VCH suggests that it allowed an anchorite (a religious hermit who'd vowed to spend their life sealed in a room attached to a church) to have some communication with the outside world - for example, to have food and drink passed to them - while living in their now long-gone cell.)

The Decorated style (or 'Dec' as amateurs of churches familiarly call it in a hopelessly doomed attempt to seem casual and cool) is the peak of English medieval architecture. Witness, for example, the east end of Lincoln cathedral, or Ely's crossing and choir. Sadly, it didn't last. It's tempting to think, though impossible to prove, that the Black Death of 1348 put an end to such frivolity (as those searching for an explanation for the terrible plague might have seen it), and a new, less exuberant and inventive and more strait-laced style****, Perpendicular, emerged, to suit the more sombre times. As its name suggests, it emphasises straight vertical lines. Arches are even flatter and less pointed than in Dec, and window tracery becomes repetitive and grid-like. Perp lasted for almost two centuries, nearly four times as long as the far superior Dec.

Partly because it lasted so long, and partly because it coincided with England becoming relatively wealthy and therefore there being plenty of rich donors around willing to sponsor church building projects, a majority of medieval churches have some Perp features, often ones that dominate or replace earlier ones. This is certainly true of Herts churches. St Michael's, however, has got away fairly lightly.

The picture above shows the north side of the nave and the tower (on the right - ignore that for a moment). There are three EE lancets in the clerestory, and the previously discussed Dec window in the nave; all the other windows are flat-topped Perp designs, with a central mullion running right up to the arch. The windows in the south wall of the south chapel, flanking the lancet, are a similar design (indeed, minor variations on this theme were rung for the best part of two hundred years, while Perp dominated). But on the whole we can be glad that between the 1350s and 1530s only minor work was carried out, leaving the bulk of the building to rejoice in its textbook status.

Alas, what many builders spent almost two hundred years mostly failing to do, one builder did in a year or so. Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe (1816-1905), should be honourably remembered as the designer of the clock in the Houses of Parliament that rings Big Ben. Instead, he's generally reviled as a vandalising wrecker of St Albans cathedral (from the 1880s on). He seems to have had no architectural training; his only qualifications for the job of taking over from Sir George Gilbert Scott as restorer of the cathedral were that he wanted to, and could afford to (he paid for the work).

Grimthorpe's west front

I'd like to be able to give a revisionist assessment of Lord Grimthorpe, pointing out, for example, that his rebuilt transepts in the cathedral aren't bad. But he demolished the west front and rebuilt it in his own clumsy style, and he did the same at St Michael's (in 1898). Were the west fronts so rickety that demolition and rebuild from scratch was the only option? I don't know, but I doubt it. The result at St Michael's is an awkward assemblage of mostly EE inspired motifs (the pentagonal window seems to be his own invention). The most cack-handed feature is the buttress between nave and tower, which ruins whatever harmony the composition might have had, and notice the way the buttress's three unequal stages don't correspond with the tower's stages.

In part two of this post I shall write about the church's contents, in particular the Doom painting, another sort of medieval textbook, one designed to teach the congregation to toe the Church's line.

East end of south chapel and chancel. The east window of the chancel is in the Decorated style; to be precise, it's reticulated (i.e. net-like), a typical early Dec feature. This particular window is Victorian, however.

* These terms were first coined in 1817 by Thomas Rickman in his Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture, and, although they're not completely satisfactory, and despite some competing terms**, they've stuck.  It took a century or so for them to become generally accepted, however; in the 19th century the prosaic 'First', 'Second' and 'Third Pointed' were more commonly used. Two early 20th century mammoth works of scholarship, the volumes of the Victoria County Histories and the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (all now freely available online), don't seem to have ever used Rickman's terminology, preferring instead to ascribe architectural features to a century (or more precise date) rather than a style. Pevsner's use of Rickman's terms is perhaps what's really cemented them in the church-visiting public's consciousness.

** In 1763 Thomas Warton (later to become Poet Laureate) proposed the terms 'Saxon Gothic',  'absolute Gothic', 'ornamental Gothic' and 'florid Gothic', which I rather like. (By 'florid Gothic' he means very late medieval buildings such as Henry VII's Chapel at the east end of Westminster Abbey, which architectural historians now sometimes assign to a subset of Perpendicular known as 'Tudor'.)

*** There's another, lower than head height, circular window in the west wall of the south chapel, which now communicates with the porch but once did so with the original south aisle. All the authorities agree that it's 'curious' but say no more about it. It's presumably a squint (or hagioscope) through which parishioners in the aisle could witness mass being celebrated at the altar in the chapel.

**** I recognise that I'm being partisan and not completely fair here. There are of course many superb Perpendicular buildings; the choir of Gloucester cathedral will immediately spring to the mind of anyone who's seen it. The style is also especially suited to the design of towers, as found in such abundance in Somerset.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible / A farewell to RMs* / Another ten random photos

Has it really been seven weeks since I last posted? I can only plead that I've been busy doing nothing, or at least busy preparing to do nothing, as, having been a teacher since 1980, I've decided to abandon my fond attempts to persuade my pupils to use capital letters or full stops, or possibly even both, and retire.

Recently (at the launch of Justin Thurgur's new album at the Vortex in Dalston, north London) I ran into an ex-colleague who retired about 15 years ago. He said that although he'd thoroughly enjoyed his career, he could quite happily have retired at 17, and, allowing for a little rhetorical exaggeration, I feel the same. After all, there are about 16,000 parish churches in England, and I've got an awfully long way to go before I've seen them all (let alone those in other countries).

When people have heard that I'm retiring, the question they most often ask is 'What are you going to do?' My stock answer has been, 'Wake up every morning and think: "Yes! No marking!"' (Another retired ex-colleague tells me that her answer to this question was 'Lie on the sofa for a year and read novels and eat chocolate.') I certainly won't miss the marking, or the meetings, or (angels and ministers of grace defend us) the reports. On the other hand, I will miss the students (especially those who have the good grace to laugh at my rubbish jokes), the teaching, and my colleagues. Nevertheless, I haven't got the energy I used to have, and 36 years (with a couple of caesuras) seems long enough. Time to make room for someone younger. At least I went out with a bang (if you have six minutes to spare you might find it amusing to watch this, in which my fellow English teachers send me off in style and a puff of smoke).

As far as Icknield Indagations is concerned, I hope that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. In the meantime, here's another ten random photos:

1935 butterflies on 15th century rood screen, Earls Barton, Northants

Somerset dragon, Bishop's Palace, Wells

Sheep in Victorian stained glass, Barkway, Herts

Mosaic, Pompeii

Pigeon holes in a Royal Mail railway carriage

Wodwo, Aldbury, Herts

Ashridge House, Herts

Binham Priory, Norfolk

Vicars' Close, Wells

Sion, Switzerland

* The computers at St Chris sport the logo RM, being supplied by a company called Research Machines. I apologise unreservedly for this gratuitous pun.