Beverley Minster

J O N AT H A N F OY L E

BEVERLEY MINSTER

Dr Jonathan Foyle has devoted his career to the preservation and public appreciation of historic buildings, working at Canterbury Cathedral, Historic Royal Palaces and World Monuments Fund as well as consulting for a wide range of sites. A regular contributor to the widely. This is his sixth book; his four earlier studies of Canterbury, Lincoln, Lichfield and Peterborough Cathedrals are also published by Scala.

Beverley Minster History, Architecture and Meaning

Financial Times on architecture and craft, he also lectures

History, Architecture and Meaning

Hailed by many as the best non-cathedral church in England, Beverley Minster’s soaring western towers dominate the surrounding Yorkshire countryside. In this sumptuously illustrated book, architectural historian Dr Jonathan Foyle reveals and celebrates the Minster as one of the finest surviving Gothic churches.

Beverley’s story begins with its eighth-century founder St John of Beverley, bishop first of Hexham and then of York. His tomb lies at the head of the nave and soon became a place of pilgrimage as his reputation for miracle-working grew. The church we see today, remarkable for the unity and coherence of its internal design, dates largely from the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Dr Foyle shows that its layout was directly informed by the requirements of a shrine church, identifying the stone altar screen at the east end as part of an elevated platform that once housed the richly decorated shrine of St John. A superb array of architectural sculpture features both sacred and secular subjects, including a lively group of medieval musicians, while the quire furnishings include a complete set of early sixteenth-century carved misericords.

Illustrated throughout with specially commissioned top-quality photography, Beverley Minster: History, Architecture and Meaning provides a fitting tribute to a magnificent building.

Jonathan Foyle

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Contents INT RO DU CT IO N

1 . BACKG RO U ND

6

9

Origins: the importance of mythology

11

Early history

16

St John of Beverley

18

Why ‘Beverley’?

20

2 . BU IL DING

24

The Anglo-Saxon church

27

The post-Conquest Minster

32

The late twelfth-century rebuilding

36

The eastern transepts

46

The central transepts

47

The chapter house

51

Beverley, Westminster and monarchy

53

The fourteenth century

56

The nave

57

Fourteenth-century tombs

66

The reredos

74

The crisis of the 1380s

78

The west end

82

The east window

86

Quire furnishings

90

3 . BENEVO L ENCE

95

Reformation 97 Civil war and restoration

99

The long eighteenth century

103

Nineteenth-century improvements

112

The west front

114

NOT ES 122 S EL ECT BIL IO G RA PHY 125 INDEX

126

Contents INT RO DU CT IO N

1 . BACKG RO U ND

6

9

Origins: the importance of mythology

11

Early history

16

St John of Beverley

18

Why ‘Beverley’?

20

2 . BU IL DING

24

The Anglo-Saxon church

27

The post-Conquest Minster

32

The late twelfth-century rebuilding

36

The eastern transepts

46

The central transepts

47

The chapter house

51

Beverley, Westminster and monarchy

53

The fourteenth century

56

The nave

57

Fourteenth-century tombs

66

The reredos

74

The crisis of the 1380s

78

The west end

82

The east window

86

Quire furnishings

90

3 . BENEVO L ENCE

95

Reformation 97 Civil war and restoration

99

The long eighteenth century

103

Nineteenth-century improvements

112

The west front

114

NOT ES 122 S EL ECT BIL IO G RA PHY 125 INDEX

126

Beverley’s western towers (far left) and those of its mother church, York Minster (near left).

Introduction ‘Beverley Minster only reveals its perfections more amply in the full light of day.’

A.F. Leach, Memorials of Beverley Minster

Page 4: The spectacular main crossing at the organ loft, with a removable boss at the centre of the crossing vault.

Below: The south side of the Minster enjoys an open view. Seen from here, the lack of a central tower and soaring western towers create an unmistakable silhouette.

Among the parish churches of England, Beverley Minster stands supreme in its present, essentially late medieval, shape. Seen from across the meadows to the south of the town, its cruciform mass resembles a cathedral, an impression that may have been deliberate. This church frames the shrine of a saintly bishop, St John of Beverley, and the grandeur of its twin towers represents a late burst of prestige, as John became a national saint to rival St George. But it is a cathedral form on a reduced scale, which is not immediately obvious. Its overall length, 101 m (333 ft), is greater than Rochester Cathedral’s 93 m (306 ft) but does not match the great eastern cathedrals as fully developed: York Minster at 160 m

(525 ft), Lincoln at 156 m (511 ft), Durham at 151 m (496 ft) or Norwich at 140 m (461 ft).

Beverley is more comparable to its sister churches Ripon Minster, north of York, and Southwell Minster, in Nottinghamshire, which in the tenth century had both also become major ‘collegiate’ churches (manned by secular canons rather than members of a monastic order) within the archdiocese of York. All three were effectively sub-cathedrals of York, providing secondary archiepiscopal churches for the archbishop within his diocese, beyond York Minster.

Like Southwell and Ripon, the footprint of Beverley Minster is reduced by the absence of conventual

buildings or cloisters; even its chapter house has disappeared. All three churches have modest central towers – Beverley’s does not even merit the description. Its grandest and most singular effect compensates for this, however: its western towers stand 50 m (165 ft) tall, almost rivalling York Minster’s 56 m (184 ft) pair and appearing taller still as they are narrowly set. Such a silhouette evokes a French cathedral more than any other English great church, as distinctive within its surrounding plains as the Boston ‘Stump’ of St Botolph’s across the Fens; or Lincoln Cathedral’s vanished spire, once pointing to heaven from its scarp; or Durham’s castellar mass, looming over the river Wear.

But what is this monumental church doing here?

Who was St John, and why is the place he founded called Beverley rather than a name commemorating the saint, such as St John’s, or Market Johnston? What did his shrine

6 | BACKGROUND

look like? And what were the Minster’s makers and incumbents trying to convey through its architecture, sculpture and painting? Lastly, how did it come to survive?

Modern approaches to history might concentrate on patronage and users; the technical business of construction; painted and graven iconography; the patterns of liturgy framed by the church spaces. Yet understanding the highly subjective, frequently mythological, blend of fact and fiction that infused the medieval mind is central to appreciating the buildings that ultimately manifested medieval ideas. Such accounts and beliefs will emerge throughout this book. Its narrative owes much to excellent recent scholarship, as referenced, while offering some new ideas and insights for which the author takes responsibility. Some of these are fundamental to what this place once represented.

| 7

Beverley’s western towers (far left) and those of its mother church, York Minster (near left).

Introduction ‘Beverley Minster only reveals its perfections more amply in the full light of day.’

A.F. Leach, Memorials of Beverley Minster

Page 4: The spectacular main crossing at the organ loft, with a removable boss at the centre of the crossing vault.

Below: The south side of the Minster enjoys an open view. Seen from here, the lack of a central tower and soaring western towers create an unmistakable silhouette.

Among the parish churches of England, Beverley Minster stands supreme in its present, essentially late medieval, shape. Seen from across the meadows to the south of the town, its cruciform mass resembles a cathedral, an impression that may have been deliberate. This church frames the shrine of a saintly bishop, St John of Beverley, and the grandeur of its twin towers represents a late burst of prestige, as John became a national saint to rival St George. But it is a cathedral form on a reduced scale, which is not immediately obvious. Its overall length, 101 m (333 ft), is greater than Rochester Cathedral’s 93 m (306 ft) but does not match the great eastern cathedrals as fully developed: York Minster at 160 m

(525 ft), Lincoln at 156 m (511 ft), Durham at 151 m (496 ft) or Norwich at 140 m (461 ft).

Beverley is more comparable to its sister churches Ripon Minster, north of York, and Southwell Minster, in Nottinghamshire, which in the tenth century had both also become major ‘collegiate’ churches (manned by secular canons rather than members of a monastic order) within the archdiocese of York. All three were effectively sub-cathedrals of York, providing secondary archiepiscopal churches for the archbishop within his diocese, beyond York Minster.

Like Southwell and Ripon, the footprint of Beverley Minster is reduced by the absence of conventual

buildings or cloisters; even its chapter house has disappeared. All three churches have modest central towers – Beverley’s does not even merit the description. Its grandest and most singular effect compensates for this, however: its western towers stand 50 m (165 ft) tall, almost rivalling York Minster’s 56 m (184 ft) pair and appearing taller still as they are narrowly set. Such a silhouette evokes a French cathedral more than any other English great church, as distinctive within its surrounding plains as the Boston ‘Stump’ of St Botolph’s across the Fens; or Lincoln Cathedral’s vanished spire, once pointing to heaven from its scarp; or Durham’s castellar mass, looming over the river Wear.

But what is this monumental church doing here?

Who was St John, and why is the place he founded called Beverley rather than a name commemorating the saint, such as St John’s, or Market Johnston? What did his shrine

6 | BACKGROUND

look like? And what were the Minster’s makers and incumbents trying to convey through its architecture, sculpture and painting? Lastly, how did it come to survive?

Modern approaches to history might concentrate on patronage and users; the technical business of construction; painted and graven iconography; the patterns of liturgy framed by the church spaces. Yet understanding the highly subjective, frequently mythological, blend of fact and fiction that infused the medieval mind is central to appreciating the buildings that ultimately manifested medieval ideas. Such accounts and beliefs will emerge throughout this book. Its narrative owes much to excellent recent scholarship, as referenced, while offering some new ideas and insights for which the author takes responsibility. Some of these are fundamental to what this place once represented.

| 7

BACKGROUND

BACKGROUND

Origins: the importance of mythology The very existence of Beverley Minster depended on a specific time, the early eighth century, and a particular person, who died in 721 and became known as St John of Beverley. He was, of course, not born a saint and upon his death Beverley was not called by that name, for sanctity and placenames are not inevitable but are human choices. We must ask why they were made.

In the Catholic European worldview of the ‘middle ages’, as we have come to routinely call it, saints were believed to transcend time; as incumbents of celestial eternity, their potency extended beyond their own short lives. Access to their earthly remains was believed to heal and favour the living, and to offer a passage to heaven for the dead. The traders in this priceless currency included pilgrims, who travelled to shrines and left coins and valuables in return for blessings, while others chose to be buried near relics, in buildings whose patrons understood that the holy qualities of dedicatory saints should inform the architecture in their name. The character and scale of the present church, which emerged in a brilliant burst of creativity almost half a millennium after St John’s death, reflected the evolving reputation of this saint.

So the first and compound task of this book is to address the founder of this place: who was St John, what do we know of the times he lived in, and what ideas were associated with him that could have shaped Beverley Minster?

Any story of this great church must span almost 1,300 years, but the surviving evidence is fragmentary. We could launch the history of any great English church by revisiting a familiar base camp in the national grand narrative: the arrival in 597 at Canterbury of St Augustine, sent from Pope Gregory the Great to convert the people of the British Isles. Yet this important, though partial, fact (for Britain had already witnessed Christianity) has less significance for our story than mythology.

10 | B A C K G R O U N D

This may sound an odd claim for any historian to make. But let us start this account with a figure of stone, set at the west end of the Minster on the north-west tower. This is a nineteenth-century portrayal of ‘King Lucius’, a legendary British monarch of the second century. Many medieval and later historians believed Lucius to have been the pioneering founder of the

Opposite: St John of Beverley on the west front, as imagined in the late nineteenth century, sponsored by the Guild of St John of Beverley.

Below: St John holding his Minster, nineteenthcentury window in St Peter’s, Langtoft, Yorkshire.

B A C K G R O U N D | 11

Origins: the importance of mythology The very existence of Beverley Minster depended on a specific time, the early eighth century, and a particular person, who died in 721 and became known as St John of Beverley. He was, of course, not born a saint and upon his death Beverley was not called by that name, for sanctity and placenames are not inevitable but are human choices. We must ask why they were made.

In the Catholic European worldview of the ‘middle ages’, as we have come to routinely call it, saints were believed to transcend time; as incumbents of celestial eternity, their potency extended beyond their own short lives. Access to their earthly remains was believed to heal and favour the living, and to offer a passage to heaven for the dead. The traders in this priceless currency included pilgrims, who travelled to shrines and left coins and valuables in return for blessings, while others chose to be buried near relics, in buildings whose patrons understood that the holy qualities of dedicatory saints should inform the architecture in their name. The character and scale of the present church, which emerged in a brilliant burst of creativity almost half a millennium after St John’s death, reflected the evolving reputation of this saint.

So the first and compound task of this book is to address the founder of this place: who was St John, what do we know of the times he lived in, and what ideas were associated with him that could have shaped Beverley Minster?

Any story of this great church must span almost 1,300 years, but the surviving evidence is fragmentary. We could launch the history of any great English church by revisiting a familiar base camp in the national grand narrative: the arrival in 597 at Canterbury of St Augustine, sent from Pope Gregory the Great to convert the people of the British Isles. Yet this important, though partial, fact (for Britain had already witnessed Christianity) has less significance for our story than mythology.

10 | B A C K G R O U N D

This may sound an odd claim for any historian to make. But let us start this account with a figure of stone, set at the west end of the Minster on the north-west tower. This is a nineteenth-century portrayal of ‘King Lucius’, a legendary British monarch of the second century. Many medieval and later historians believed Lucius to have been the pioneering founder of the

Opposite: St John of Beverley on the west front, as imagined in the late nineteenth century, sponsored by the Guild of St John of Beverley.

Below: St John holding his Minster, nineteenthcentury window in St Peter’s, Langtoft, Yorkshire.

B A C K G R O U N D | 11

62 | B U I L D I N G

62 | B U I L D I N G

Musicians with (clockwise from top left) cornet, viol, pipes and tambor, a pair of nakers (small kettledrums), and two Victorian replacement figures with nineteenth-century interpretations of a viol and lute.

instruments such as a fiddle, others the harp of King David, while musical angels are shown with an organ. A fox, signifying a false priest, is attacked by his flock. Each of these images is a parable of right and wrong, sobriety and folly, offering the congregation the means by which to choose the path of righteousness.

The likely explanation for this exceptional investment in nave sculpture is that Beverley was a special case, retaining its pre-Conquest function as effectively a sole parish church, instead of the more usual array of smaller parish churches in cities such as York, Norwich or Bristol, within which various communities could identify with a particular saint. The Minster had to perform several functions; what we now see as a unified nave space was not so six hundred years ago. Rosemary Horrox has shown that numerous altars were set up in the nave, to St James, St Christopher, St Anne, and no doubt there were chantries as well, while St Martin’s chapel was attached to the south-west corner.58 The medieval citizens of Beverley who eventually used the completed Minster rather than St Mary must have crossed the nave and its aisles to reach their chosen focus of dedication, whether chapel or altar. This was a public zone of diverse, personal, social interaction, rather than a through-route or a single destination, and so its detailed carvings projected public and social themes which people could relate to in a general sense, rather than a concerted programme of fixed meaning.

On 21 August 1334 the archbishop of York, William Melton, commanded that his receiver at Beverley should direct 20 marks to the building of the nave and another 10 to the high altar, a mere 26 years after it was previously dedicated. It may have been during this time, perhaps a third of the way through the building of the nave and when a few bays had sufficiently braced the crossing, that the thirteenth-century crossing tower was modified. Its internal corners were bridged to form the base for an octagonal lantern. The exemplar was Ely Cathedral’s oak lantern over an octagonal crossing, imitated in turn by a lost lantern over the central tower of Peterborough Abbey (now Cathedral). Beverley’s diminutive lantern is recorded in a seventeenth-century engraving by Daniel King.

Around half the nave had been completed when the Black Death swept the country between 1348 and 1351.

In the latter year a Bedfordshire man arrived barefoot on pilgrimage to the shrine of St John, testament to the

saint’s established reputation as a healer by this time.

In the wake of that terrifying plague, medieval society shifted. In Beverley 85 percent of the town’s merchants opted to be buried in St Mary’s rather than the Minster.59 The main reason was no doubt that the nave remained a building site for the best part of a century; the Minster was simply unavailable. Even the charnel house attached to the south side of the nave, to which human remains were committed, was disrupted by the reconstruction of the west end of the great building. And there may well

A woman with a lapdog; a similar earlier scene can be found at Lincoln Cathedral. Beverley’s respectable character is contrasted with a drunkard and grimacing fools nearby.

B U I L D I N G | 65

Musicians with (clockwise from top left) cornet, viol, pipes and tambor, a pair of nakers (small kettledrums), and two Victorian replacement figures with nineteenth-century interpretations of a viol and lute.

instruments such as a fiddle, others the harp of King David, while musical angels are shown with an organ. A fox, signifying a false priest, is attacked by his flock. Each of these images is a parable of right and wrong, sobriety and folly, offering the congregation the means by which to choose the path of righteousness.

The likely explanation for this exceptional investment in nave sculpture is that Beverley was a special case, retaining its pre-Conquest function as effectively a sole parish church, instead of the more usual array of smaller parish churches in cities such as York, Norwich or Bristol, within which various communities could identify with a particular saint. The Minster had to perform several functions; what we now see as a unified nave space was not so six hundred years ago. Rosemary Horrox has shown that numerous altars were set up in the nave, to St James, St Christopher, St Anne, and no doubt there were chantries as well, while St Martin’s chapel was attached to the south-west corner.58 The medieval citizens of Beverley who eventually used the completed Minster rather than St Mary must have crossed the nave and its aisles to reach their chosen focus of dedication, whether chapel or altar. This was a public zone of diverse, personal, social interaction, rather than a through-route or a single destination, and so its detailed carvings projected public and social themes which people could relate to in a general sense, rather than a concerted programme of fixed meaning.

On 21 August 1334 the archbishop of York, William Melton, commanded that his receiver at Beverley should direct 20 marks to the building of the nave and another 10 to the high altar, a mere 26 years after it was previously dedicated. It may have been during this time, perhaps a third of the way through the building of the nave and when a few bays had sufficiently braced the crossing, that the thirteenth-century crossing tower was modified. Its internal corners were bridged to form the base for an octagonal lantern. The exemplar was Ely Cathedral’s oak lantern over an octagonal crossing, imitated in turn by a lost lantern over the central tower of Peterborough Abbey (now Cathedral). Beverley’s diminutive lantern is recorded in a seventeenth-century engraving by Daniel King.

Around half the nave had been completed when the Black Death swept the country between 1348 and 1351.

In the latter year a Bedfordshire man arrived barefoot on pilgrimage to the shrine of St John, testament to the

saint’s established reputation as a healer by this time.

In the wake of that terrifying plague, medieval society shifted. In Beverley 85 percent of the town’s merchants opted to be buried in St Mary’s rather than the Minster.59 The main reason was no doubt that the nave remained a building site for the best part of a century; the Minster was simply unavailable. Even the charnel house attached to the south side of the nave, to which human remains were committed, was disrupted by the reconstruction of the west end of the great building. And there may well

A woman with a lapdog; a similar earlier scene can be found at Lincoln Cathedral. Beverley’s respectable character is contrasted with a drunkard and grimacing fools nearby.

B U I L D I N G | 65

be several further reasons for the public shift; perhaps St Mary’s, though a daughter church of the Minster, was considered more the citizens’ own, conspicuously set as it was by the marketplace and northern entrance to the town and sponsored by their contributions. St Mary herself was by then considered the optimal choice for saintly favour, as the maternal host in heaven to whom direct appeal was most effective in times of crisis.

Perhaps as importantly, the Percy family had by then established their aristocratic patronage of the Minster and taken pole position by its altar.

Fourteenth-century tombs Edward II died in 1327, leaving his ten-year-old son to ascend the throne as Edward III. His reign had ushered in a dazzling culture of court arts, parading luxuriousness in an era of hardship. For those seeking eternal redemption, the apparent indulgence of carved and painted canopied tombs seemed a required investment of faith, for such miracles of craftsmanship could create a magnet for saintly attention.

In the south arcade of the nave stands a canopy of broken cusps known as the tomb of the two sisters; a fairly close imitation of the canopy tomb of Archbishop Greenfield of York (died 1314) in York Minster.60 Greenfield was chancellor of England and his court connections must have informed Westminster’s style of monumental sculpture. The ‘two sisters’ canopy cannot be later than c. 1320–30, presumably inserted as soon as the nave’s builders vacated the space. This shows how much of the south arcade must have been built in a relatively short time.

The canopy spans a curious array of columns propping a slab, none of which belong here, being assembled from salvage like a primitive coffee table.

The slab may once have belonged to an altar. The incumbents of the lost tomb chest are unknown.

The most exceptionally preserved tomb monument of early fourteenth-century Europe can be found to the north of Beverley Minster’s high altar. It alone is worth a long trek to see, one Celia Fiennes took on horseback in 1697 and recorded in her travel memoir, published after her death as The Journeys of Celia Fiennes:

longer had resonance for the eye of the beholder, even though this example survived the iconoclasts almost intact.

The splendid ‘ciborium’ or canopied tomb was created during the second quarter of the fourteenth century in the half-finished church, framing the north of the presbytery by blocking the east side of the northwest pier of the minor crossing. This position was always highly favoured as it lay at the junction of the high altar and the reredos, the focal point of the church, where the host was elevated in triumph at masses and heralded redemption.

Its design as a canopied tomb with a great ogival arch followed the general model of the tomb of Edmund Crouchback in Westminster Abbey, dating from after 1296. Before 1824 it contained a chest with a tomb-slab, long bereft of its brass inlays, representing a central figure surrounded by heraldic shields; an unusual array indicative of a noble family and which Sally Badham has related to London designs.61 It was removed, in the mistaken belief that it was unoriginal, robbing the monument of its essential form and purpose. A drawing

of the slab was made by John Carter in 1791, showing that by then it was cracked, perhaps the target of Civil War looting.

The canopy is in excellent condition and is packed with sculpture that seems performative in relating its story, one of heaven and sacrifice. The weight of the sculpture is symbolically supported by Atlas figures, heaving under the burden of inhabiting the inferior realm of purgatory.

The focus of the south side looking toward the altar is the tip of the great ogival arch, where a seated God the Father favourably receives the soul of the incumbent from their shroud into the heavenly realm. Within the cusps at the top of the arch can be found Christ, seated and crowned as the king of heaven, and opposite and to his west is St Mary, also seated as the queen in apt symmetry. Beneath them in cusps are knights holding coats of arms. At the base (left; west) comes St Michael, who had banished Adam and Eve from Paradise and killed the devil with his sword of divine judgement; while a wheel identifies St Catherine, whose martyrdom guaranteed the recovery of heaven for worshippers.

The Percy tomb, a triumph of earlyfourteenth-century design and sculpture, and a miraculous survival.

Earle of Northumberland’s and Lady’s Monuments . . .

The Countess’s monument its very fine, its made of ye same free stone ye Church is built wth, but so finely polished yt looks like Marble, and Carv’d wth figures, birds leaves, flowers, beasts and all sorts of things and ye armes is Cutt out in severall places all about it; the top of the arch is one Entire Stone as much as one can Grasp and its all finely Carv’d wth all sorts of Curiosityes and adorn’d with Gilding and painting.

The octagonal crossing at Ely Cathedral, constructed after 1322 and influential across the east of England; Beverley’s builders set to building an octagonal tower.

66 | B U I L D I N G

To this intelligent diarist, the archaic carved work presented pleasant curiosities of detail and variety. A century and a half after the Reformation had defaced and destroyed medieval Catholic art, its urgent meaning no

B U I L D I N G | 67

be several further reasons for the public shift; perhaps St Mary’s, though a daughter church of the Minster, was considered more the citizens’ own, conspicuously set as it was by the marketplace and northern entrance to the town and sponsored by their contributions. St Mary herself was by then considered the optimal choice for saintly favour, as the maternal host in heaven to whom direct appeal was most effective in times of crisis.

Perhaps as importantly, the Percy family had by then established their aristocratic patronage of the Minster and taken pole position by its altar.

Fourteenth-century tombs Edward II died in 1327, leaving his ten-year-old son to ascend the throne as Edward III. His reign had ushered in a dazzling culture of court arts, parading luxuriousness in an era of hardship. For those seeking eternal redemption, the apparent indulgence of carved and painted canopied tombs seemed a required investment of faith, for such miracles of craftsmanship could create a magnet for saintly attention.

In the south arcade of the nave stands a canopy of broken cusps known as the tomb of the two sisters; a fairly close imitation of the canopy tomb of Archbishop Greenfield of York (died 1314) in York Minster.60 Greenfield was chancellor of England and his court connections must have informed Westminster’s style of monumental sculpture. The ‘two sisters’ canopy cannot be later than c. 1320–30, presumably inserted as soon as the nave’s builders vacated the space. This shows how much of the south arcade must have been built in a relatively short time.

The canopy spans a curious array of columns propping a slab, none of which belong here, being assembled from salvage like a primitive coffee table.

The slab may once have belonged to an altar. The incumbents of the lost tomb chest are unknown.

The most exceptionally preserved tomb monument of early fourteenth-century Europe can be found to the north of Beverley Minster’s high altar. It alone is worth a long trek to see, one Celia Fiennes took on horseback in 1697 and recorded in her travel memoir, published after her death as The Journeys of Celia Fiennes:

longer had resonance for the eye of the beholder, even though this example survived the iconoclasts almost intact.

The splendid ‘ciborium’ or canopied tomb was created during the second quarter of the fourteenth century in the half-finished church, framing the north of the presbytery by blocking the east side of the northwest pier of the minor crossing. This position was always highly favoured as it lay at the junction of the high altar and the reredos, the focal point of the church, where the host was elevated in triumph at masses and heralded redemption.

Its design as a canopied tomb with a great ogival arch followed the general model of the tomb of Edmund Crouchback in Westminster Abbey, dating from after 1296. Before 1824 it contained a chest with a tomb-slab, long bereft of its brass inlays, representing a central figure surrounded by heraldic shields; an unusual array indicative of a noble family and which Sally Badham has related to London designs.61 It was removed, in the mistaken belief that it was unoriginal, robbing the monument of its essential form and purpose. A drawing

of the slab was made by John Carter in 1791, showing that by then it was cracked, perhaps the target of Civil War looting.

The canopy is in excellent condition and is packed with sculpture that seems performative in relating its story, one of heaven and sacrifice. The weight of the sculpture is symbolically supported by Atlas figures, heaving under the burden of inhabiting the inferior realm of purgatory.

The focus of the south side looking toward the altar is the tip of the great ogival arch, where a seated God the Father favourably receives the soul of the incumbent from their shroud into the heavenly realm. Within the cusps at the top of the arch can be found Christ, seated and crowned as the king of heaven, and opposite and to his west is St Mary, also seated as the queen in apt symmetry. Beneath them in cusps are knights holding coats of arms. At the base (left; west) comes St Michael, who had banished Adam and Eve from Paradise and killed the devil with his sword of divine judgement; while a wheel identifies St Catherine, whose martyrdom guaranteed the recovery of heaven for worshippers.

The Percy tomb, a triumph of earlyfourteenth-century design and sculpture, and a miraculous survival.

Earle of Northumberland’s and Lady’s Monuments . . .

The Countess’s monument its very fine, its made of ye same free stone ye Church is built wth, but so finely polished yt looks like Marble, and Carv’d wth figures, birds leaves, flowers, beasts and all sorts of things and ye armes is Cutt out in severall places all about it; the top of the arch is one Entire Stone as much as one can Grasp and its all finely Carv’d wth all sorts of Curiosityes and adorn’d with Gilding and painting.

The octagonal crossing at Ely Cathedral, constructed after 1322 and influential across the east of England; Beverley’s builders set to building an octagonal tower.

66 | B U I L D I N G

To this intelligent diarist, the archaic carved work presented pleasant curiosities of detail and variety. A century and a half after the Reformation had defaced and destroyed medieval Catholic art, its urgent meaning no

B U I L D I N G | 67

Opposite: Dragons are demonic staples of medieval imagery and are often shown eating grapes, which are associated with St John the Evangelist.

Left: Magnificently framed by the north-east transept, the Percy tomb was built for Eleanor Percy around 1340.

68 | B U I L D I N G

Opposite: Dragons are demonic staples of medieval imagery and are often shown eating grapes, which are associated with St John the Evangelist.

Left: Magnificently framed by the north-east transept, the Percy tomb was built for Eleanor Percy around 1340.

68 | B U I L D I N G

Clockwise from near right: Atlas figures portray the burden of upholding heaven. Note the roses and fat bunches of grapes.

God the Father receives a female figure, rising in prayer from a shroud which resembles a boat.

Some shrines were capped by ships, representative of the journey to the afterlife.

Detail of God the Father, showing the face of the woman’s soul, presumably reflecting Eleanor Percy.

Further detail; note the vines representing the apogee of the tomb’s sculptural decoration.

Opposite from top: The Blessed Virgin Mary and Christ shown as the king and queen of heaven in the cusps beneath God. Mary is accompanied by roses, typical symbols of her virtues of charity and chastity.

Two military figures in slumbering recline, like the soldiers at the tomb of Christ; these carry shields of the Percy family and the arms of England, the latter seeming to bear original copper-blue and red paint.

70 | B U I L D I N G

So whose monument was this? The antiquarian John Leland described it just two centuries after it was made, offering a glimpse of its incumbent: . . . Besides the tombs of saints be 3 tombs most notable on the north side of the choir: in one of them with a chapel archd over it is buried Percy earl of Northumberland and his son, father to the last earl.

In another is buried Eleanor, wife to one of the Lord Percys. And in another of white alabaster Idonea Lady Percy, wife to one of the Lord Percys. Under Eleanor’s tomb is buried one of the Percys, a Priest.

It is tempting to think that the idea of a priest buried beneath a noblewoman’s tomb was a mistake, and that any typically engraved robes on the lost brass were not ecclesiastical vestments but Eleanor’s own. She died in 1328 but the heraldry relates to at least a decade later, perhaps suggesting a monument born of sustained grief.

In a cusp on the south side is the figure of a noblewoman holding a shield with a fleur-de-lys over her head, to whom St Michael appeals while destroying the dragon.

So this tomb may have been a conflation of the Crouchback tomb with the Eleanor crosses memorialising Eleanor Percy’s namesake, Eleanor of Castile, queen to Edward I (died 1290), whose funerary route began not far from Beverley and ran south via Harby and Lincoln. Twelve inventive monuments with canopies and standing figures marked the resting places of her cortège en route to Westminster, where she is buried close to the Crouchback tomb. Both these recent works of royal chivalry and militarism may have been invoked by means of the London-influenced tomb slab and the Crouchback form.

The north side is capped by a seated Christ, this time pointing to his spear wound, a form echoing the figures of the Judgement Portal of Lincoln Cathedral and once also featured in the main gable of Lichfield Cathedral.62 Both these cathedrals were dedicated to St Mary and strongly feature a Marian device found in profusion on the Percy canopy – the rose. The five-petalled red rose represented Mary’s sacrifice of her son, being the blood of the five wounds of Christ, and the less common white rose symbolised her virginity. Both types consequently feature in medieval depictions of heaven governed by Mary and Christ. The Percy canopy’s many roses were no doubt once painted blood-red, like those in the ‘Tomb of Christ’ at Lincoln. And set on either side of the Christ

B U I L D I N G | 71

Clockwise from near right: Atlas figures portray the burden of upholding heaven. Note the roses and fat bunches of grapes.

God the Father receives a female figure, rising in prayer from a shroud which resembles a boat.

Some shrines were capped by ships, representative of the journey to the afterlife.

Detail of God the Father, showing the face of the woman’s soul, presumably reflecting Eleanor Percy.

Further detail; note the vines representing the apogee of the tomb’s sculptural decoration.

Opposite from top: The Blessed Virgin Mary and Christ shown as the king and queen of heaven in the cusps beneath God. Mary is accompanied by roses, typical symbols of her virtues of charity and chastity.

Two military figures in slumbering recline, like the soldiers at the tomb of Christ; these carry shields of the Percy family and the arms of England, the latter seeming to bear original copper-blue and red paint.

70 | B U I L D I N G

So whose monument was this? The antiquarian John Leland described it just two centuries after it was made, offering a glimpse of its incumbent: . . . Besides the tombs of saints be 3 tombs most notable on the north side of the choir: in one of them with a chapel archd over it is buried Percy earl of Northumberland and his son, father to the last earl.

In another is buried Eleanor, wife to one of the Lord Percys. And in another of white alabaster Idonea Lady Percy, wife to one of the Lord Percys. Under Eleanor’s tomb is buried one of the Percys, a Priest.

It is tempting to think that the idea of a priest buried beneath a noblewoman’s tomb was a mistake, and that any typically engraved robes on the lost brass were not ecclesiastical vestments but Eleanor’s own. She died in 1328 but the heraldry relates to at least a decade later, perhaps suggesting a monument born of sustained grief.

In a cusp on the south side is the figure of a noblewoman holding a shield with a fleur-de-lys over her head, to whom St Michael appeals while destroying the dragon.

So this tomb may have been a conflation of the Crouchback tomb with the Eleanor crosses memorialising Eleanor Percy’s namesake, Eleanor of Castile, queen to Edward I (died 1290), whose funerary route began not far from Beverley and ran south via Harby and Lincoln. Twelve inventive monuments with canopies and standing figures marked the resting places of her cortège en route to Westminster, where she is buried close to the Crouchback tomb. Both these recent works of royal chivalry and militarism may have been invoked by means of the London-influenced tomb slab and the Crouchback form.

The north side is capped by a seated Christ, this time pointing to his spear wound, a form echoing the figures of the Judgement Portal of Lincoln Cathedral and once also featured in the main gable of Lichfield Cathedral.62 Both these cathedrals were dedicated to St Mary and strongly feature a Marian device found in profusion on the Percy canopy – the rose. The five-petalled red rose represented Mary’s sacrifice of her son, being the blood of the five wounds of Christ, and the less common white rose symbolised her virginity. Both types consequently feature in medieval depictions of heaven governed by Mary and Christ. The Percy canopy’s many roses were no doubt once painted blood-red, like those in the ‘Tomb of Christ’ at Lincoln. And set on either side of the Christ

B U I L D I N G | 71

Opposite: The noblewoman with shield may be Eleanor Percy herself, though the heraldry does not indicate it; below her, in the lowest south-western cusp, St Michael spears the dragon.

Left above: On the north side, Christ reveals the wound caused by Longinus’ spear.

Left below: The figure of Christ on the Judgment portal at Lincoln Cathedral is shown in similarly hieratic style.

Opposite: The noblewoman with shield may be Eleanor Percy herself, though the heraldry does not indicate it; below her, in the lowest south-western cusp, St Michael spears the dragon.

Left above: On the north side, Christ reveals the wound caused by Longinus’ spear.

Left below: The figure of Christ on the Judgment portal at Lincoln Cathedral is shown in similarly hieratic style.

This edition © Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd, 2020 Text © Jonathan Foyle 2020 Illustrations © Beverley Minster except as listed below First published in 2020 by Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd 10 Lion Yard Tremadoc Road London SW4 7NQ, UK www.scalapublishers.com In association with The Friends of Beverley Minster ISBN 978-1-78551-260-5 Project managed by Jessica Hodge Designed by Susan Wightman at Libanus Press Ltd Printed and bound in India 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd. Every effort has been made to acknowledge correct copyright of images where applicable.

Any errors or omissions are unintentional and should be notified to the Publisher, who will arrange for corrections to appear in any reprints.

Front cover: Looking west down the quire.

Back cover: The west entrance.

Frontispiece: Sculptural detail in the nave.

Additional photography Matthew Hillier/creative commons: p. 7 Creative commons: pp. 11, 29, 35 below, 73 below, 112 Andrew Abbott/creative commons: p. 13 Kaly99 at English Wikipedia: p. 17 top The Morgan Library and Museum/creative commons: p. 20 right The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 100, fol. 11v. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program: p. 21 Jonathan Foyle: pp. 23, 53, 54, 55, 78 Jules & Jenny, Lincoln/creative commons: p. 32 John Phillips: pp. 42 above, 86 right, 119 all Historic England Archive: p. 45 David Iliff/creative commons: pp. 66, 82 Peter Smith: p. 75 below Amanda Slater, Coventry/creative commons: p. 103 below