Wiltshire

by Edith Olivier

  These are no ordinary illuminated manuscripts. They possess, it is true, many fine historiated initials, but they also possess (uncommon in illuminated manuscripts) many full-page illustrations which must have had a great effect on the mural paintings of the district, and there were many of these. The painted book always comes first. At the cradle of all Doom paintings stands the unknown figure of the illuminator.

  So in his own county the Sarum Master is an almost legendary historical figure, but he must have been a very living personality in mediæval Salisbury.

  The Abbeys of Amesbury and Wilton evidently commissioned the two Psalters, and some of the same representations appear in each. Both the Abbeys had from Saxon times been greatly frequented by royal princesses, and both were originally Benedictine foundations; but a few years before the date of the Psalter Henry II gave the Abbey of Amesbury to the Order of Fontevrault, and a nun of this order is painted (presumably as the Donor) twice over in this Psalter in the pictures of the Virgin and Child and of Christ in Glory. The life and the passionate movement in this nun’s figure are most remarkable. It is quite alien from the static character of much archaic painting. In both Psalters the human beauty of the figure drawing has a very feminine tenderness, and both show great feeling for flowers and animals, joined to playfulness and much drollery in the paintings. These two Psalters indicate their connection with Amesbury and Wilton by the fact that in their Calendars are noted the festivals of saints specially honoured in those abbeys, notably Edith of Wilton and Melor, the boy saint, whose relics were preserved at Amesbury Abbey. “ The mediæval life of Melianus the Martyr, abridged from a French Vita and probably written at Amesbury, states that he was of noble British blood, son of Melianus, Duke of Cornowaille” (Hollaender, p. 239).

  The Sarum Missal is a very important book, apparently executed to the order of Henry of Chichester, who was a Canon of Exeter at some period before 1264; but the book also proves its Sarum provenance by its calendar, and further it specially mentions the Festivitas Reliquiarum Sarum. There are twenty miniatures in initials within the text, and the canon of the mass is preceded by eight magnificent full-page pictures depicting the Life of Christ. These are typically English, and perhaps owe something to the famous Westminster Psalter. There is nothing provincial about the Sarum artist, who obviously knew and appreciated the best contemporary work not only in England but probably in France and Belgium as well.

  While this purely ecclesiastical art was just at its summit in Salisbury, there was also immense artistic activity at Clarendon Palace a few miles away. Henry III, who did much rebuilding and re-embellishment of the palace in the thirteenth century, of course employed many court painters, natives both of France and England, for the countries at that time were more closely connected than ever before or since. The excavations at Clarendon by Dr Tancred Borenius and Mr John Charlton have taught this generation for the first time what unequalled beauty was lost when this palace disappeared. The excavations prove that it was elaborately painted from top to bottom; but alas, those excavations have not disclosed the paintings themselves. All have perished. The Interim Report issued by the two excavators in 1936 tells us that:

  “We are told too a great deal about the subjects of the paintings on the walls. In the King’s Chamber the chimney mantel was painted in 1248 with a Wheel of Fortune and a Jesse Tree; and as to what the former must have looked like it is easy to form an idea from the fine Wheel of Fortune also of the time of Henry III (who altogether was very partial to this subject) which survives, though mutilated, on the wall of Rochester Cathedral. Again, in 1252, we read of the King’s Chamber under the King’s Chapel at Clarendon as having been painted with the history of Antioch and the Combat of King Richard—a series of paintings from the history of the third Crusade thus similar to those which under Henry III were carried out at Westminster and in the Tower: the incident particularly referred to being the one of Richard Cœur de Lion’s encounter on horseback with Saladin, who was riding the mare of a colt which he had presented to the King of England. Then there was the chamber painted with the exploits of Alexander the Great—a series once paralleled at Nottingham; series of heads of kings and queens painted in 1246 on the border of the wainscot of the King’s Lower Chamber—a notable fact this in the history of English portrait painting, imaginary and real—and any number of paintings of religious subjects. The mantel over the chimney in the Queen’s Chamber was in 1251 sculptured with representations of the twelve months of the year, and so on ad infinitum.”

  Dr Borenius goes on to describe the stone head of a youth which was found in a room belonging to the King’s own apartments:

  “Great interest attaches to this piece of sculpture from the fact that a good deal is left of the colouring which it originally bore. Thus there are traces of scarlet on the coat round the neck; of the same tint on the lips; of black on the pupils of the half-closed eyes; while the masses of curly hair on a large portion of the surface show a brownish tint which may be the foundation of gilding. In point of fact, I expect the whole of the face originally was coloured.…

  “The whole is carried out with a sense of subtly expressive modelling, of which no reproduction in two dimensions can convey an adequate idea; and, at the same time, in the cut of the features, in the pure oval of the face, in the proportions generally, and in the articulation of line and mass in the hair, one is conscious of a sense of noble and monumental power which goes to produce an unforgettable impression.…

  “On no point is there, however, a reference to anything which by stretch of imagination could be called fortification, not even, I should imagine, the ‘Tower beyond the Queen’s Chamber’, mentioned in 1254; and one even feels a certain incongruity, amid the amenities of a quiet country existence, in the provision for ‘a good and strong prison’ in 1268.”

  If the main stream of mediæval painting ran in a channel of what is nowadays called rather scornfully “narrative pictures”, religious art shows far more of this than any other. Mural paintings in churches were unblushingly didactic. It was said that the walls of the churches were the Bibles of the unlearned.

  As everyone knows, this beautiful method of instruction was frowned upon by the Puritans, and not only frowned upon but whitewashed over. It is sometimes said that a picture gains by a few centuries under whitewash, and that paintings so protected are in better condition than if they had always been exposed to the light. I fear that this can hardly be the case in England, where the main danger is not light but damp; and when wall paintings were being rediscovered in many places about the middle of the last century, they did need a good deal of renovation, and this was sometimes rather beyond the resources of the restorers of that day.

  Most visitors to Wiltshire have an opportunity of judging this by examining the roundels on the ceiling of the choir in Salisbury Cathedral. It used to be said that these were merely an instance of Messrs Clayton and Bell’s idea of what mediæval paintings ought to be. This is not so. The Cathedral authorities did their very best to respect the old paintings. They covered them with a buff wash through which the originals could be clearly seen. Then they employed Clayton and Bell to make careful tracings of the drawings upon this layer of wash. The outlines of the originals were most carefully copied, although, as Dr Borenius says, “in the actual language of artistic expression, a certain accent of 1870 Gothic—instead of 1270 Gothic—is rather noticeable”. Yet today it is possible at Salisbury to see what the worshippers of the thirteenth century were taught by the pictures in their churches. The Salisbury roundels illustrate the calendar of the year in twelve pictures representing the months; and Dr Borenius goes on to say:

  “Nowhere else in England does there survive a complete series of mediæval wall paintings on these subjects. Their purpose was to bring home religious truths; but they also give a completely naturalistic picture of the seasonal activities of the men of the thirteenth century, which must have an interest for the historian.”

  In Januar
y the mediæval man could do little but warm himself at a log fire, and in February he feasted with his friends on loaves of bread, which are displayed before him on the table, accompanied by a very useful-looking bread-knife; while a cup of wine is seen being passed from hand to hand. In March he digs, and in April sows. In May he rides out hawking, and a bouquet of flowers is given in the month of June by a youth to a lady seated on a low stool. In July they are harvesting by moonlight, and in August they thresh the corn. In September comes the apple harvest, and in October the apples have reached the cider press. In November they cut logs for the winter fires, and in December the pigs are being simultaneously fed and slaughtered for the Christmas feasts. These Salisbury paintings are thus by no means the nineteenth-century inventions which we were brought up to believe they were: they really are thirteenth-century designs though superficially treated in the manner of six hundred years later.

  Almost at the same time that the Dean and Chapter were doing their best to preserve the ceiling paintings which had just been revealed, a few miles away another series of murals of almost the same date were being treated far more ruthlessly. In fact, they were being finally destroyed. The church of Winterbourne Dauntsey four miles away was in process of being demolished, when a series of paintings were “discovered beneath the plaster”. They were described in great detail by the Salisbury Journal of the day, but even this most interesting account of these rare artistic treasures could not rouse the neighbourhood to save them. The paper says that “Mr Brooks of Salisbury had taken photographs of seven or eight of the best preserved subjects”, but these pictures are not a triumph for the theory of preservation by whitewash. There were also a few drawings which would probably have been much better, but these have unfortunately been lost. All that can dimly be seen in most of the reproductions is that the pictures showed the Life, Passion and Resurrection of the Saviour.

  No type of picture pointed so plain a moral as did the Doom paintings which could be seen in so many churches. In St Thomas’ Church at Salisbury there is one of the finest of these paintings. It was painted in 1480–1500, and whitewashed over in 1593, at a cost of twenty-two shillings, as can be seen in the churchwarden’s accounts. In 1819 the painting was accidentally rediscovered and the whitewash temporarily removed. It was replaced in the year 1876, and eventually was restored and partially repainted in 1881. The present effect is as good as anything of the kind to be seen in England. Better, in fact, for despite its various vicissitudes, it must originally have been one of the finest Doom paintings of the day, and much of it can still be seen.

  It was painted above the great chancel arch, and perhaps the first thing to arrest the attention is the architecture of the heavenly Jerusalem, two groups of mediæval and very baroque palaces. They tower away on either side of the rainbow, upon which Our Lord sits in judgment, surrounded by angels, with the twelve Apostles beneath him, taking their share in judging the quick and the dead. The Virgin Mary and St John kneel on either hand. From this central grouping there spreads down the two sides of the arch a multitude of figures, the Righteous being called up from their graves in a flowery garden by their guardian angels, while on the left hand the Damned are shown being pressed back into their graves by monstrous demons. The general plan of the picture is familiar, but certain figures and groups are peculiar to the Salisbury painter. The Prince of Darkness has a fine position at the higher centre of this part of the picture, and near him is the Dishonest Alewife with a jug in her hand, being dragged by a little demon towards the flaming cauldron. A Miser with his money bags-has a good place in one group, and nearby, chained together, are a Bishop wearing only his mitre and a King and Queen in their crowns with also no other clothes to identify them. The whole scene is an admirable example of the grouping of large crowds of people, combined with dramatic characterisation. The colour has faded, of course, but though it has all grown fainter with the years, the balance is still very good.

  There is supreme dignity in the still face and figure of Our Lord; and Professor Hollaender remarked about this painting that “the devils in the Salisbury Doom are vivacious and bizarre little demons, full of movement, doing their grim work with apparent rapidity and not without humour, their bearing and attitude nicely calculated”.

  This great picture was painted nearly two hundred years after the Sarum Master was working in Salisbury; and though it is true to say that most mediæval wall paintings derive something from the illuminations which went before, yet the painter of this Doom had to solve a completely different problem. The elaborate crowd grouping was what the illuminator had never attempted, and here it is magnificently achieved. The painter may possibly have been a Fleming, for William Swayne, the Mayor of Salisbury, who was chiefly responsible for building St Thomas’ Church, was a rich wool merchant, closely associated with the Low Countries; and the churchwarden’s accounts of his day mention many foreign dealings in silk and wool. Among these are cloth made at Osnaburg, Dornex, a cheap kind of damask which came from Tournay, Dowle from Picardy, and satin-à-Brydges from Bruges. Flemish cloth cost 7d. per ell.

  A word must be said of the Wilton diptych—two words which flow together as harmoniously as the successive notes in a peal of bells. The painter of this contemporary portrait of Richard II is unknown to us. It has not even been agreed whether he was English, French or Bohemian. It belonged to the Royal Collection till Charles I exchanged it with Lord Pembroke for some of the early Italian and Flemish drawings which are still at Windsor, and it remained at Wilton House till 1929, when it became the property of the National Gallery. Therefore, for about three hundred years, it was a part of the life of this county. Yet it is quite possible that anyone seeing it in the National Gallery may ask how it came by its title. It came by it because for all those centuries it was sheltered at Wilton, and loved and cared for by its owners.

  Chapter Eight

  SPORTS—LARGELY OUT OF DATE

  THE first public sporting event in Wiltshire of which we know anything was the famous tournament at Salisbury in 1194. It was the first to be held in England, and Richard I, who had come to the throne four years before, had always been determined to bring this fashion into the country. His mother, Elinor of Aquitaine, and his two half-sisters, Marie, Countess of Champagne, and Aelis Countess of Blois, were the great European patronesses of these festivals of arms. Richard had always observed that because of these, young Frenchmen were far more skilled soldiers than were their English contemporaries. So, by a letter patent issued in 1194, Richard ordered Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, to arrange five tournaments to be held in various places in England, the first to be on a site between Sarum and Wilton. Although this was a completely new experiment the organisers of the tournament appeared to be in no way amateurs. They realised, as if they had been policemen of today, that an event of this kind must mean large numbers of people moving about the country, and that these must be under control. Accordingly, many regulations were issued before the day. For instance, in going to the tournament, or returning therefrom:

  “No Earl, Baron, or other Person was to take anything by the way, unjustly, or without leave, neither victuals or other provisions; but to purchase all necessaries at a reasonable market. Nor, according to his power, was he to vex, or permit anyone to be vexed. If he found anyone offending, he was, if able, to redress the wrong, and if unable, he was to report it to the Barons who had been duly sworn to preserve the peace of the King, during the tournament, that by their judgment right might be done.… The Earls, Barons, and others frequenting the tournament were to swear that they would do no wrong themselves, nor suffer wrong to be done by their followers; and if any injustice were reported to the Barons, sworn to preserve the peace, they would strive to amend it according to their decree.”

  This is how the authorities dealt with large crowds in the twelfth century.

  The tournament ground was in a wonderful situation on the high ground between the Avon and the Nadder, and opposite to the gates of the cas
tle of Old Sarum. The present Salisbury had not then been built, and the spectators of the tournament could look across the flat marsh from which one day Salisbury Cathedral would rise, to the palace of Clarendon in its lofty position facing the fortress of Old Sarum. To the west could be seen the great buildings of Wilton Abbey with its church, which was in itself almost like a cathedral. The assemblage on the great day fully justified the preparations made beforehand. The villagers from far and near—from Woodford, from Winterbourne, from Wishford, from Fovant, from Newton, from Wylye, from Stapleford, from Britford, from Downton, from Alderbury and from countless other villages—began a day or two before to approach the tournament ground on foot. Early on the morning of the day the main procession issued from the great western portal of the castle itself, the armed men with their banners, their badges and their glittering arms; they were followed, by a dingier procession consisting of cowled ecclesiastics, followed by all the numberless hangers-on and retainers of the castle. Meanwhile, from the direction of Wilton, there appeared a very royal procession, for the Abbey was still the place of education for most princesses of the day, and this tournament was a rare treat for the schoolgirls. Close behind them, too, was another procession from St John’s Priory at Ditchampton. This was an establishment of the crusading knights of Jerusalem, and its inmates were half-soldiers and half priests. They followed their Prior in great number.

  Finally a very gaily dressed procession of courtiers and officials came from the palace of Clarendon, most of them riding on horseback, though some of the ladies were carried in litters. All this preliminary pageantry made the day already worth while for the village people who had walked so far to see it.

  On the tournament ground itself—