This splendid volume arises from a conference held in York in October 2008. Four of the papers given at York are published here, together with three specially commissioned essays and an additional chapter that brings together the known English tomb contracts from the period. Noting the wealth of medieval tomb monuments that survive in England and Wales, the theme of this volume is to set them, through the studies presented, within the wider context of tomb production and workshop practices. Most of the essays consider carved effigial monuments, but cross slabs, incised monuments and brasses also find their place in the discussion.
The contributors to the volume range from established authorities to scholars who are here presenting the outcomes of their postgraduate research. Among the latter, Aleksandra McClain focuses on the production, distribution and consumption of cross-slab monuments in northern England, in which there was regional variation despite standardization among the masons producing the slabs. McClain is persuasive in challenging perceptions of cross slabs as ‘poor cousins’, adopted where there was limited wealth and a lack of social differentiation; rather, they were effective in communicating their messages and dealing with social distinctions and identity.
Rhianydd Biebrach's doctoral study based on Glamorgan promises to be instrumental in extending into Wales the resurgence of interest in researching church monuments that England has witnessed since the late 1970s. The eleven memorials of fourteenth-century date seem generally to be associated with the descendants of the socially dominant Anglo-Norman settler class. Four different stone types are found in use, two quarried locally and two imported, the latter occurring within the established cultural and economic links between south Wales and south-western England. Observing that Yorkshire has the largest county collection of alabaster monuments, Jane Crease examines the output of two northern alabaster workshops in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, particularly the construction and assemblage of tomb chests, noting that differences in this might provide a useful tool for the identification of workshops, alongside stylistic analysis.
Mark Downing's chapter on military effigies in eastern England between c 1295 and 1350 focuses on forty-eight military effigies that may be linked stylistically and therefore associated with a single group of carvers. Downing argues for a workshop that served eastern England, reaching its heights stylistically in the 1330s, and subsequently declining with the loss of craftsmen, and perhaps the Black Death. Robin Emmerson reconsiders the distinctive fourteenth-century tomb effigies in the church at Aldworth (Berkshire) where he highlights the sophistication of the sculpture and the importance of its diversity; the arrangements are virtually ‘orchestrated’. Stylistic analysis links these effigies with the sculpture on the west front of Exeter Cathedral. Marie Louise Sauerberg, Ray Marchant and Lucy Wrapson, all from the Hamilton Kerr Institute, present a case study of the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral, examining primarily the ‘tester’ or canopy that takes the form of a large polychrome panel painting; the tomb is thus interpreted within its context, as ‘total art work’.
Among the leitmotifs within this volume are two strong lines of discussion. First, there is the key question of how these workshops actually worked. Sally Badham asks fundamental questions of what constituted a workshop, although she is not alone in doing so. Her discussion highlights the evidence of the documents, to which the last chapter, by Badham and Sophie Oosterwijk, returns when it brings together transcriptions, translations and discussions of the seven known indentures for the production of tombs in the long fourteenth century. Badham highlights that, with the exception of London, workshops were not primarily urban enterprises. Furthermore, the workshops that produced the tomb monuments were likely also to be producing other sculptures, including architectural sculpture, small-scale devotional images and altarpieces; and also applied colour to their products.
The question of whether tombs were carved on-site (or near by), or transported in from some distance, is a question that arises with frequency, and this is pertinent to the other key recurring theme, the importance of petrology. Several of the studies emphasize the stone being used and show how workshops used specific quarry sources and were probably located at or near quarries. The combination of stylistic and petrological analysis is used to demonstrate the probable activities of travelling carvers and therefore of production on-site.
This is a well-produced book supported with excellent footnotes and bibliography, and high-quality photographs accompanying each chapter. There is also a helpful glossary. This collection of essays will therefore be of interest to the specialist reader while accessible to both the general reader and the novice. Furthermore, the editors are justified in presenting these studies as incorporating ‘cutting-edge research’, making the volume a valuable starting point for students of medieval art, archaeology and history.
