FRAGMENTS OF FAITH: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

Diarmaid MacCulloch notes that it has taken some time for evidence from material culture to be integrated into histories of the Reformation.Footnote ² However, a powerful case has been made for the ‘materialised study of religion’ based on ‘the assumption that things, their use, their valuation and their appeal are not something added to a religion but rather inextricable from it’.Footnote ³ This view underlies the approach taken here to unpick the frontal’s complex ‘biography’ to demonstrate how ‘materialised study’ may contribute to enhanced understanding of changing religious practices and hence the significance of these altered vestments. The methodology for this study is therefore deliberately interdisciplinary, drawing on both material analysis and the object biography model: Igor Kopytoff’s ‘the cultural biography of things’.Footnote ⁴ Jules Prown argued that the effective study of material ‘transformed by human action as expressions of culture’ requires interpretation based on ‘as full an understanding of the artefact as possible’.Footnote ⁵ Detailed analysis of the frontal considered the evidence of its construction, use, fragmentation, modification and degradation, linked with contemporaneous textual and visual evidence, including that of comparable vestments. Learning from things clearly has huge potential but depends on the objects in question surviving. John Chapman’s stress on ‘parts and wholes’, the processes of division and the ‘absence’ of pieces which are no longer part of the whole is particularly relevant here.Footnote ⁶ This frontal comprises divided artefacts remade into a new whole, so both Chapman’s fragmentation and Alexander Walsham’s recycling models are here applied to a single artefact to illuminate its changing religious significance, social life and patterns of use during possible concealment and re-use.Footnote ⁷

ARCHBISHOP JOHN MORTON

To understand the religious significance of the components of the Auckland frontal, it is necessary to summarise Morton’s turbulent but relatively understudied life. Both his nineteenth and twenty-first century biographers made this point: ‘He has almost been squeezed out of history, although few men ever made more history than he did’ and ‘history has, in large part, forgotten him’.Footnote ⁸

Morton rose from a relatively modest gentry background to the great offices of church and state. An Oxford University graduate, ordained in 1485, Morton became a highly efficient lawyer, diplomat and statesman rather than a theologian.Footnote ⁹ His commitment to the Lancastrian cause meant he fled the country to save his life twice, joining Queen Margaret’s court in exile in Flanders, was attainted twice (1461 and 1484) and was imprisoned in the Tower of London twice (1461 and 1483). After the Lancastrians’ defeat at the Battle of Tewskesbury (1471), Morton took either a pragmatic or an opportunistic step and submitted to the Yorkists. He was pardoned and the attainder against him reversed in 1472. Edward iv’s appreciation of his talents can be seen in Morton’s rapid rise; he became Master of the Rolls (1472) and Bishop of Ely (1478). Morton officiated at Edward’s funeral in 1483 and was an executor of his will and guardian of his children. A rapid reverse followed. Under Richard iii, Morton was again in exile on the Continent, working in support of the Lancastrian claimant to the throne, Henry Tudor. Finally holding power, Henry vii summoned Morton back to England, where he assisted at the coronation (1485) and swiftly became Archbishop of Canterbury (1486), Lord Chancellor (1487) and, eventually, Cardinal (1493). Morton was one of Henry’s most trusted Privy Council advisers, influencing England’s international and fiscal policies as well as managing civic and religious administration.Footnote ¹⁰

Despite his status, surprisingly little of Morton’s personality is known and his character is hard to read. He left no statement of faith, no theological reflections or sermons and few private papers.Footnote ¹¹ Morton recognised family connections in his will and seems to have had an almost paternal relationship with Thomas More, maintaining him first as a page in his household and then as student at Oxford. More repaid this debt by memorialising the cardinal in Utopia.Footnote ¹² When Richard iii imprisoned Morton in the Tower, Oxford University scholars wrote pleading for his release but seem to have been more inspired by Morton’s support as a ‘liberal patron’ and ‘staunch defender and ready helper’ than by personal affection.Footnote ¹³

Work pressures may have meant Morton had no time for ‘sustained intellectual pursuits’.Footnote ¹⁴ Claims for Morton as a translator have proved unfounded.Footnote ¹⁵ Literary activities linked to his circle demonstrate an interest in civil and canon law, classical literature and rhetoric with some leanings towards humanistic ‘new learning’.Footnote ¹⁶ Drama was part of the life of Morton’s household. More is said to have joined the players in such entertainments.Footnote ¹⁷ Henry Medwell, one of Morton’s chaplains, wrote the first known secular English play, Fulgens and Lucrece, which was possibly staged at Lambeth Place in 1497.Footnote ¹⁸ The published version (c 1512) was dedicated to Morton. John Holt, tutor to the boys in Morton’s service, dedicated his Erasmian grammar book Lac Puerorum or Mylke for Chyldren to Morton, while More provided the framing Latin verse epigrams.Footnote ¹⁹ Morton’s ‘fine, eloquent and pithie’ conversation seems to have left no paper trail beyond More’s testimony.Footnote ²⁰

The visual record is equally barren. No painting of Morton survives among portraits of early Archbishops of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace.Footnote ²¹ It is unclear how far the effigy on Morton’s splendid cenotaph in Canterbury Cathedral is a portrait.Footnote ²² Two other possible representations are both contested. Morton is thought to have paid for a carved and painted roof (c 1485) for St John the Baptist, Bere Regis, in Dorset, possibly his birthplace.Footnote ²³ Next to Morton’s coat of arms is a rather crudely carved boss reputed to be his likeness, although no known evidence supports this.Footnote ²⁴ Mozley, a nineteenth-century rector at St John the Baptist, Plymtree, Devon, argued that the painted chancel screen in this church depicted Morton as the ‘patriarchal-looking man’, basing this identification on the ‘vessel made in the form of Morton’s rebus, a ton or cask, with M upon it’ carried by a younger man.Footnote ²⁵ Unfortunately, Mozley had misinterpreted the evidence – there is no such ‘M’ and no other reason to identify the older man with Morton.Footnote ²⁶

Morton’s reputation has been mixed, coloured by suspicions about his conspicuous change of allegiance and early biographies that often reflected their authors’ political agendas and prejudices. The writer of the Chronicles of London considered that ‘in our time was no man like to be compared to him in all things; albeit that he lived not without the great disdain and great hatred of the commons of this land’.Footnote ²⁷ Sir George Buck’s heavily rewritten 1619 account presents Morton as one of Richard iii’s traducers and the source of much malign activity, going so far as to suggest Morton’s involvement in the death of the Princes in the Tower.Footnote ²⁸ Morton’s reputation has not been helped by Francis Bacon’s assertion of his responsibility for the infamous tax strategy known as ‘Morton’s fork’.Footnote ²⁹ Nevertheless, even Bacon acknowledged that Morton was a ‘wise and eloquent man’ although ‘harsh and haughty – that he was much accepted by the King, but envy’d by the nobility, and hated by the people’.Footnote ³⁰ More, not unnaturally, defended Morton as ‘not more honourable for his authority, than for his prudence and vertue’.Footnote ³¹ Morton’s nineteenth-century biographer, John Budden, provides anecdotes of his interactions with politicians and churchmen and praises his care for the poor, summing him up as ‘famous for religion, pollecy and Integrity of life’, renowned in Oxford as ‘a fortunate determiner of causes, a punisher of guilty and obstinate delinquents, an equall servant of iustice, to administer every man his right’.Footnote ³² The consensus seems to be that Morton was an austere, sometimes harsh, but fair man who was a consummate politician. Mozley asserts that ‘Morton made no direct appeal to posterity. He wrote nothing that has come down; he raised no mighty fabric to enshrine his memory’.Footnote ³³ However, this is to ignore not only Morton’s legacy of building works but also the material and spiritual evidence of the vestments he so clearly marked as his. The lack of textual and visual evidence makes the evidence of the Auckland frontal, and what the vestments suggest about the man who commissioned them, even more significant. These show Morton to be a man of sacred and secular power and wealth who clearly was willing to engage with vestments for their liturgical significance, authority and visual drama and, possibly, personal spiritual meanings.

MORTON’S USE OF VESTMENTS

Morton seems to have made good use of the opportunities offered by liturgical theatre, although his performance in such rites also seems to demonstrate genuine devotion, as evoked in Walter Hook’s version of a contemporary account of Morton’s enthronement as Bishop of Ely:

These ‘pontifical’ vestments are evident in both Morton’s memorials in Canterbury Cathedral. His elaborate cenotaph shows Morton’s ‘monumental body’ in full episcopal vestments, including a pallium, stole, maniple, chasuble and dalmatic with a jewelled mitre, embroidered gloves and his cardinal’s hat and rebus of a monogrammed barrel in the canopy above.Footnote ³⁵ In his will, Morton asked to be buried simply under a plain marble slab in the Cathedral’s undercroft, where his body could lie in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary known as Our Lady of the Undercroft.Footnote ³⁶ Despite his request, this slab was ornamented with a memorial brass. Only the indent now remains, showing the Archbishop in his mitre, surmounted by his cardinal’s hat.Footnote ³⁷

MORTON AND VESTMENTS AS GIFTS AND LEGACIES

Morton is known to have used vestments as gifts, which would have reinforced his presence and authority, especially when his coat of arms or rebus were present. Typically, copes and chasubles were designed as sets, each having different liturgical functions. Copes were generally worn for processions rather than by the main celebrant during Mass. Chasubles were a Eucharistic vestment, so often had religious imagery on the back that was visible when the priest faced the altar. After becoming archbishop, Morton gave Canterbury Cathedral eighty white copes, vestments (probably chasubles) and a funeral pall, all with his coat of arms.Footnote ³⁸ The cathedral may actually have received fewer copes than this, but even so this was a costly gift.Footnote ³⁹ The loss of these copes can be traced, as the Commissioners visited the cathedral to remove its material goods and the Canterbury clerics were obliged to dispose of their vestments. The 1540 inventory recorded fifty copes of ‘white golde baudekyn wth golde of Moreton’s gifte wt Orpheras [orphreys] of velvet golde baudekyn’, vestments for a deacon and subdeacon, three stoles and two phanons (maniples).Footnote ⁴⁰ The ‘riche hersecloth of blacke and white golde baudekyn’ is probably the funeral pall given by Morton.Footnote ⁴¹ The 1563 inventory showed the number reducing radically. The first draft lists ‘Item of my lorde Mortons suyte x copes’, but the final version only has ‘foure Copes’ from Morton’s gift.Footnote ⁴²

Others also received vestments from Morton. Within the Canterbury diocese, the 1509 inventory of St Dunstan’s Church, Cranbrook, recorded ‘ii whyte copys, an awbe [alb] ii tewnyklys [tunicles]. White brawdered with fflwrys of my lord Cardylnall Mortymer’s [Morton’s] geft’.Footnote ⁴³ Lincoln Cathedral received ‘a red cope of Cloth of Gold with costly orphreys … the gift of Mr John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury’.Footnote ⁴⁴ Morton also used vestments as gifts for political or diplomatic purposes. In 1498, Erasmus reported Morton’s ‘present of a magnificent vestment’ to Hendrik van Bergen, Bishop of Cambrai.Footnote ⁴⁵

Morton also seems to have supported churches that needed to replace vestments where a public statement of identity would not have been visible. He authorised a period during which indulgences could be granted to ‘Christians within the province of Canterbury … who contribute to the relief of the parish church of St Michael Queenhithe in the city of London, the most part of whose vestments and ornaments were lately destroyed by fire’.Footnote ⁴⁶

Morton’s will underlines his engagement with episcopal accoutrements. He left Ely Cathedral his best mitre and the mitre he had received from his predecessor at Ely in return for Requiem Masses.Footnote ⁴⁷ He does not seem to have left vestments, or funding for vestments, for these Requiem Masses. No further mention of vestments that Morton wore, or might have regarded as personal possessions, has yet been found.Footnote ⁴⁸ In addition to the Auckland frontal, four vestments bearing elements of Morton’s rebus survive, but none corresponds to the vestments described in the textual evidence.Footnote ⁴⁹ St Mary’s College, Oscott, Arundel Castle, West Sussex, and the Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm, each have one such cope. A chasuble, probably originally a cope, is at St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Monmouth.

CHANGING ATTITUDES TO VESTMENTS: PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES

Henrician claims on church property were followed by more systematic removals under Edward vi. Attitudes were obviously different under Mary i, but vestments remained controversial under Elizabeth i. The 1559 Act of Uniformity made vestments subject to the authority of the monarch and parliament, although the 1566 vestiarian conflicts demonstrated continuing theological differences expressed through the choice of liturgical dress.Footnote ⁵⁰ The practical consequence was the continuing reduction of the role of vestments in liturgical practice. Duffy and Ashton have mapped their removal from parish churches and cathedrals along with the strong emotions and protective or iconoclastic actions and reactions produced by things of faith.Footnote ⁵¹ Most vestments had gone from the majority of parish churches by the 1570s, but copes lingered on and were still used in cathedrals as processional vestments.Footnote ⁵²

The valuable textiles used for vestments, particularly copes with their generous lengths of loom-width fabrics, were often repurposed.Footnote ⁵³ Given the adaptability of cloth, some vestments were given new functions within the church. At St Peter & St Paul, Steeple Ashton, Oxfordshire, a cope was reconfigured as an altar frontal and dossal.Footnote ⁵⁴ The table carpet at St Margaret’s, Lyng, in Norfolk, was constructed out of parts of two copes along with embroidered orphreys to make the ‘carpet, silk or other decent covering’ required for the communion table.Footnote ⁵⁵ Not all vestments and textiles remained inside the church. At St Sebastian’s Church, Great Gonerby, in Lincolnshire, ‘all the priest’s apparel that he was wont to wear at mass’ was cut up and sold to William Carter, a local tailor.Footnote ⁵⁶ Some found new life in a domestic setting. In 1566 churchwardens Richard Arnold and Nicholas Colbie of Harlaxton, in Lincolnshire, recorded the sale of two chasubles and other textiles to a Mr Blewet who ‘haithe defaced and cut theim in peces and made bed hangings of them and cusshinges’.Footnote ⁵⁷ Such defacement was a necessary mutilation to de-sacralise the images. Lack of defacement was a concern for those seeking out recusants who might be keeping sacred things whole in the hope they would be needed again. In 1605, Bishop Richard Vaughan instructed his London clergy to establish if ‘there be any in your parish who are noted, knowne, or suspected to conceale or keepe hidden in their houses … copes, vestments, albes, or other ornaments of superstition, uncancelled or undefaced’.Footnote ⁵⁸ Possession of vestments became evidence of adherence to the ‘old faith’. Suspicions deepened as missioner priests started to arrive in England. Those suspected of harbouring priests and their Mass equipment could be arrested, imprisoned and even executed. Changing attitudes to the cult of the Virgin Mary intensified such risks. England was once renowned for Marian devotion, but Henrician reforms rejected Mary’s intercessory role.Footnote ⁵⁹ Devotion to the Virgin was effectively banned from 1538 and her statues removed, part of a longer iconoclastic process that continued under Edward vi and Elizabeth i.

A RECUSANT PROVENANCE

The Auckland frontal is known to have come from Sawston Hall, although the date of its arrival there is unknown. Bradley speculates that the original cope might have been a gift to Sawston church from Morton while he was Bishop of Ely.Footnote ⁶⁰ However, the Edwardian Commissioners’ listing does not include a cope or chasuble corresponding with those now making up the frontal.Footnote ⁶¹ Ironically, John Huddleston was one of these Commissioners, although he later became a Privy Councillor under Mary i. John’s widow Bridget (b. 1515) remained a Catholic under Elizabeth i. His son Edmund (d. 1606) was a partial conformer, so it was his grandson Henry (d. 1657) who continued the Roman Catholic tradition. The family paid recusancy fines and sent their children abroad to be educated; nine entered Roman Catholic orders. Henry was a friend of the English Jesuit priest John Gerard (1564−1637), offering him sanctuary at Sawston in 1594.Footnote ⁶²

Sawston Hall became a centre for recusants, with carefully constructed hiding places to protect the priests in residence, who were often Jesuits.Footnote ⁶³ ‘Prayers’ were held in the hidden attic chapel during the penal period.Footnote ⁶⁴ In operation by at least 1584, this illegal chapel was later described as ‘a gloomy Garret and no ways ornamented; it is quite out of the way by Design, and in case of any Confusion, the Tabernacle and Altar may be easily removed’.Footnote ⁶⁵ After the 1791 Relief Act, Ferdinand and Richard Huddleston were quick to register a legitimate chapel on Sawston Hall’s ground floor.Footnote ⁶⁶ The Huddlestons acquired numerous Catholic Mass artefacts, including chalices, altar frontals (frequently made of remounted fragments) and chasubles with remounted orphreys.Footnote ⁶⁷

THE AUCKLAND FRONTAL

The evidence from the fabrics and threads making up the frontal is key to understanding the stages of its ‘object biography’. The importance of these changes – extended ‘use-life’ in Chapman’s terminology – will be discussed after the frontal’s composition and iconography has been considered.Footnote ⁶⁸

The frontal is an oblong panel measuring approximately 1,560mm × 1,010mm, consisting of twenty-six rectangles and triangles cut from blue silk velvet fabrics (see fig 1). There are twenty-five appliqué motifs worked in polychrome silk and gold or silver threads with other details embroidered directly onto the velvet. The backing, now faded and incomplete, was made of four loom widths, each approximately 800mm (31½ in), of a plain weave wool fabric with a white warp and red weft, embroidered at its centre with an IHS Christogram (fig 2).

Fig 2.

Frontal, reverse. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Tom Sparrow.

SACRED AND SECULAR ICONOGRAPHY

The most important sacred motifs of God the Father and a Lily Crucifix are in the centre of the frontal above a rose-en-soleil motif with two further rose-en-soleil motifs flanking the crucifix. Morton’s rebus with all three elements − the bird, monogram with the O and R enclosed by the M in the form of a stylised tree, and barrel – are on either side of God the Father. There are two other monograms, one centre left and one top right, with two wings from another bird above the former and an angel below the latter. Comparable to seraphs on many medieval vestments, this has a halo, six peacock feather wings and an ermine collar, and is surrounded by small groups of rays. Other secular motifs include four fleur-de-lys motifs towards the corners of the frontal and ten elaborate appliquéd stylised flowers of four different types. This embroidery is typical of the second half of the fifteenth century, when appliqué tended to replace more complex overall stitching. Workshops seem to have produced variants on a range of standardised motifs, such as angels and flowers.Footnote ⁶⁹ Motifs such as Morton’s rebus and the Lily Crucifix were probably specially commissioned and are higher quality work. The IHS enclosed in a sun on the backing is worked as a simple outline in thick couched cord. The highly stylised lettering is similar to some eighteenth-century renditions of this Christogram.

The Lily Crucifix is a very unusual motif, which appears to be exclusively English. Christ is depicted crucified on a lily, Mary’s symbol, rather than a wooden cross. The lily became a regular element in Annunciation scenes from the thirteenth century, evoking Mary’s purity while also possibly referencing the idea that lilies aided conception.Footnote ⁷⁰ The fusion of the Annunciation with the Crucifixion arose from the belief that the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrated on Lady Day (25 March), was the same day as Christ’s crucifixion.Footnote ⁷¹ This idea was current from as early as Augustine (354−430) into the seventeenth century when John Donne wrote Upon the Annuntiation and Passion Falling upon One Day (1608):

Nineteen representations of the Lily Crucifix are known in various media, dating from the mid to late Middle Ages, frequently shown between Mary and Gabriel in an Annunciation scene.Footnote ⁷³ Cervone argues that these representations are dissimilar, suggesting ‘this is not the case of one craftsman or his workshop using and re-using a design’.Footnote ⁷⁴ Some features, such as the number of flowers and the ornate vase, appear fairly consistent but none is sufficiently close to the frontal’s version to be considered as a source. Nevertheless, the designer of this embroidered version seems to have been familiar with all the motif’s key elements. As Morton was in Oxford as a student and then, after 1435, as principal of Peckswater Inn (now Christ Church) and, finally, as chancellor from 1495, he may have seen the Lily Crucifix stained glass window in St Michael-at-the-North-Gate, in Oxford, dating from 1410−80.Footnote ⁷⁵ His cenotaph includes carvings of ‘a large and well carved lily, in a vase’ and there was probably a statue of the Virgin and an Annunciation on the east jamb.Footnote ⁷⁶ The high-quality and sensitively detailed Lily Crucifix on the frontal appears to be unique as a motif on vestments (fig 3).Footnote ⁷⁷ Walter Hildburgh and Christopher Woodeforde, both pioneering writers on Lily Crucifixes, observed that no examples had yet been found on medieval church embroidery.Footnote ⁷⁸

Fig 3.

The Lily Crucifix. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor and Tom Sparrow.

PERSONAL AND POLITICAL MOTIFS

Both his rebus and the rose-en-soleil motif may have had a more personal resonance for Morton as assertions of his identity and allegiances.

William Camden describes Morton’s rebus as a ‘Mor upon a Tun, and sometime a Mulberry tree called Morus in Latine, out of a Tun’.Footnote ⁷⁹ The bird could reference a falcon or the eagle of St John the Evangelist, who could have been Morton’s name saint. Morton’s rebus was clearly recognised within the ecclesiastical community. An eagle on a tun appeared as one of the ‘subtleties’ made from sugar paste, marzipan or wax at the banquet celebrating Morton’s enthronement as Bishop of Ely.Footnote ⁸⁰ Morton used his rebus as a mark of ownership in his books; the MOR on a barrel appears in his copy of Bartolus de Saxoferrato’s Lectura super prima parte Codicis.Footnote ⁸¹ Two versions appear in Richard Pynson’s 1500 edition of the Sarum Missal, signifying Morton’s patronage.Footnote ⁸² His rebus identified his building works at Croydon Palace and Canterbury Cathedral, where it also appears on his cenotaph.Footnote ⁸³ In Oxford, it could once be seen in the Divinity School and St Mary’s Church.Footnote ⁸⁴ Budden summarised the not so subtle message: ‘he hath adorned her [Oxford’s] monuments wth his armes and diuises … all wch make full demonstration of his learning, vertue, high descent, and munificence’.Footnote ⁸⁵ The barrel, generally on its own but sometimes with the initial M, gained wider circulation on the coins Morton was licenced to mint as Archbishop of Canterbury.Footnote ⁸⁶

Two appliqué versions of the rebus on the frontal have all three elements: the bird, MOR monogram and barrel (fig 4). When present on a vestment, the rebus could function as a reminder of the Archbishop’s authority, ownership or gift. It may also have reminded those wearing the vestments or seeing them used during Mass after Morton’s death to pray for him.Footnote ⁸⁷ Abbot Thornton seems to have intended his rebus, now on the back of a funerary chasuble, to evoke prayers for his soul’s repose.Footnote ⁸⁸

Fig 4.

Morton’s rebus. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor and Tom Sparrow.

The rose-en-soleil motif adopted by Edward iv combines the white rose of the House of York with the sunburst emblem of his predecessor Richard ii (fig 5). The presence of this symbol on the frontal suggests a vestment made sometime between 1471 to 1472, when Morton began to serve Edward, and the King’s funeral in 1483.Footnote ⁸⁹ This, combined with blue’s association with royal mourning, may have led to the belief that the frontal included parts of a cope worn by Morton at Edward’s funeral.Footnote ⁹⁰ However, blue was actually worn as mourning by royalty rather than by those mourning royalty, who wore black.Footnote ⁹¹ The rose-en-soleil may also be read as a Marian symbol.Footnote ⁹² The two interpretations are not mutually exclusive as Edward was a devotee of the Virgin, visiting her Walsingham shrine in 1469.

Fig 5.

The rose-en-soleil motif. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor and Tom Sparrow.

UNPICKING THE FRONTAL

This research was initially undertaken to test the hypothesis that the frontal comprised a cope belonging to Morton. Attention focused on investigating and capturing material evidence about making and re-making to gain as full an understanding as possible of the original vestment and the stages in its transformation. Every aspect, from the threads upwards, was considered using detailed visual examination (stitches, seams, direction of warp, wear patterns), chemical analysis (dyes and metals), microscopy and photo-microscopy (fibres, weaves, sequins) and X-radiography (construction). It rapidly became clear that the frontal’s biography was more complex than first supposed. Dye analysis showed the presence of natural plant dyes throughout. These are consistent with fifteenth-century western European textiles, but, because their use continues into the nineteenth century, this did not help to distinguish the dates of the different phases of forming and reforming.Footnote ⁹³

The study revealed the frontal to be made from pieces of two distinctly different blue silk velvets. Despite the surface similarity of the blue pile, one velvet has a predominantly pinkish/blue ground weave and green selvedges (Velvet A) while the other, Velvet B, has a predominately blue ground and creamy-white selvedges (fig 6). Such silk velvet was an expensive imported luxury. For Henry vii’s coronation in 1485, a year before Morton became Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Dudley was supplied with 11 yards of blue velvet at 14 shillings (about £484) a yard, while the crimson velvet for my Lord of Oxford’s robe was a startling 30 shillings (about £1,037) a yard, more than the purple velvet bought from the mercer John Mafthewe for the king at 20 shillings (about £691) a yard.Footnote ⁹⁴ The price variations presumably reflect differences in the quality of the fabric and dyes.

Fig 6.

Reverse of the frontal showing the different colour ground weaves; Velvet A (right), Velvet B (left). Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor and Tom Sparrow.

The twenty-six pieces are stitched together using a variety of construction threads and different seam types (fig 7). Where embroidery motifs continue across one piece to another, these seams can be safely attributed to source vestments. For instance, the seam joining Pieces 1 and 2 runs beneath an appliqué. These seams can be seen to have selvedges where they are visible on the reverse. The single selvedges visible on the turnings of Pieces 8 and 13 show these pieces incorporate unpicked vestment seams. X-radiography was particularly useful in clarifying different seam structures and stitching as well as revealing cut or selvedge edges, especially where these are obscured by the partial backing. Original vestment seams are neatly sewn with an evenly sized backstitch. Later seams are mostly in coarser, unevenly sized running stitch and poorly aligned to the seam direction, with roughly cut, uneven or excessive turnings.

Fig 7.

Diagram showing the individual pieces of the frontal: red arrows indicate the grain direction of the fabric; blue lines are seams between the pieces; green lines are seams original to the vestments. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor, Rachel Kershaw and Tom Sparrow.

The appliqué motifs were first embroidered with silk and metal threads onto a plain weave undyed linen fabric, using mainly split stitch and laid and couched work, then cut out and stitched to the velvet. The full rebuses and the Lily Crucifix are composites, the latter having eighteen separate appliquéd elements. Some elements, such as the vase and barrels, are in raised metal thread work. The curved ray motifs, curlicues and other direct embroidery are worked in couched metal threads and simple stitches such as back and chain stitch. The threads are typical of the period: silk floss and metal threads made from narrow gilded metal strips wrapped on fibre cores.Footnote ⁹⁵

The angel, floral and fleur-de-lys appliqués are on Velvet A. The figure of God, the Lily Crucifix, rebuses and rose-en-soleil motifs are all on Velvet B. The directly embroidered spikes extending from the stylised flowers on Velvet A are accentuated by rows of domed sequins with punched central holes. These have a silver-copper alloy base with a very thin fire-gilded gold layer on the upper surface.Footnote ⁹⁶ These spikes and the other directly embroidered curlicues and trails are in metal threads shadowed by lines of yellow silk split stitch embroidery. The directly embroidered elements on Velvet B are quite different. These depict branching plants made of paired couched metal threads that form leaf-like ends infilled with yellow silk (fig 8). There are exceptions, but these fragments of direct embroidery have been repositioned, probably when the twenty-six pieces were stitched together. Some appliqué motifs have also been moved. The Morton monogram in the frontal’s top right corner has been cut out with some of its original ground velvet and re-attached across the seam between Pieces 11 and 10 with the letters up-side-down (fig 9). The two bird wings stitched across Pieces 3 and 4 are also no longer in their original locations. This evidence shows that Velvet A and Velvet B were not used in the construction of a single vestment but are from separate vestments.

Fig 8.

Detail of direct embroidery on Velvet A (left) and B (right). Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor and Tom Sparrow.

Fig 9.

Morton’s inverted monogram stitched across Pieces 10 and 11. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor and Tom Sparrow.

There are two crudely made vertical tucks forming raised ridges on the front, dividing the frontal into approximate thirds. Sewn with a thick cream thread and large, uneven running stitches, the tucks pass through all the frontal’s layers except for the white tape reinforcing the reverse top edge. There are also four narrow white tape loops stitched vertically onto the back, three towards the top edge of the frontal (fig 10). The fourth loop is halfway down one side below the major horizontal seam (see fig 6). The turning of both parts of this seam conceals a blue tape. X-radiography indicates the same, or a very similar tape, hidden under the white tapes at the top of the frontal on Pieces 1/2, 9/10 and 11.

Fig 10.

Reverse of Pieces 9/10 and 11 showing the white tape reinforcement and a tape loop. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor and Tom Sparrow.

Silk is particularly prone to photodegradation; both velvets are weak and their pile powders easily. Both show wear along the original seams, but wear along the frontal’s bottom edge suggests it was used for some time in this form. Velvet A seems to be considerably more degraded than Velvet B, but there are exceptions that indicate that individual pieces and groups experienced different biographies. Soiling includes wax deposits, mainly along the bottom portion of the frontal. There are many roughly mended tears and holes. The frontal’s top reinforcing tapes and sides have a variety of holes, frequently associated with iron staining indicating the use of nails and tacks for display. Moth frass suggests that insect activity may have been a factor in the removal of much of the wool backing, which now only covers the central third of the reverse. What remains is faded due to light exposure; the colour is much stronger on its reverse and in the protected seam turnings. This light exposure will also have weakened the wool, probably causing tearing and consequent disintegration of the backing, which was then both cut and torn away, leaving only traces of its original extent.

REVEALED AND HYPOTHETICAL SACRED IMAGES

X-radiography revealed previously unsuspected appliqué motifs and associated direct embroidery, including a depiction of the Annunciation on Velvet B, Pieces 3 and 4. Outlines of the missing motifs appeared when the empty stitch holes were highlighted on the enlarged digitised radiographs. They show the Holy Ghost as a dove descending on rays towards the figure of the Virgin with a bird from Morton’s rebus above (fig 11). Ragged cuts, one vertically through the location of Mary, seem to be a deliberate act of destruction and contrast with the apparent care taken in the removal of the Annunciation motifs from the velvet. Morton’s bird was also removed, while the monogram below the Annunciation remained in situ. These velvet pieces were later re-sewn, but slightly out of register. The stitch holes also delineate a scroll next to Mary, reinforcing the existence of a complete Annunciation and making it a reasonable hypothesis that the Angel Gabriel once appeared on an adjoining piece that is no longer extant. Remaining thread tufts suggest this scroll was once worked with a text. There are similar text-bearing scrolls in the Annunciation on a repurposed cope dated to the second half of the fifteenth century in St Augustine’s Church, East Langdon, Kent.Footnote ⁹⁷

Fig 11.

Detail of Pieces 3, 4 and 14 (left) and a diagram of the missing motifs revealed by the empty stitch holes (right) based on a composite positive image of the radiographs. In the diagram, Piece 3 has been moved to its original position in relation to Piece 4 and the obvious stitch lines are marked in green. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. X-radiography: Jason Revel. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor, Rachael Kershaw and Tom Sparrow. Diagram: Sonia O’Connor.

Another lost figure is suggested by the partial nimbus on Piece 24 at the frontal’s bottom centre. This nimbus stands out clearly at the lower edge of the radiographs in figure 12. Given the Marian imagery elsewhere on the frontal, it is tempting to suggest this may have surrounded a figure of the Assumption of the Virgin. These radiographs also show the metal thread work now concealed by the seams and folds, confirming that Pieces 10 and 24 were once a single length of fabric (fig 12). This is clearly seen in the rays that emanate from the angel on Piece 10 and terminate on Piece 24. The radiographs also show the positioning of the feet of the angel directly above the figure in the nimbus. The single strand of metal thread work forming a looped ‘W’ on Piece 24 delineates the location of the angel’s feet, confirmed by empty stitch holes where the embroidery thread once was.

Fig 12.

A composite image from three radiographs showing that Piece 10 (above) was originally continuous with Piece 24 (below). X-radiography: Jason Revel. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor.

Images of the Virgin are known to have been purposefully removed from church textiles. In 1567, the motif of Our Lady was removed from a blue velvet altar cloth at Great St Mary’s Church, Cambridge, by command of the archdeacon and sold for 6 shillings (approximately £71.47) to ‘a singing man’.Footnote ⁹⁸ Such removals might parallel the defacement of the faces in two Lily Crucifixes in other media. There could also have been political resonances as links were made, explicitly or implicitly, between Mary, Queen of Heaven, and Mary, Queen of England. Thomas Tallis’s antiphon Gaude gloriosa Mater honours the Virgin but may also have referenced an earthly Queen.Footnote ⁹⁹ In his 1553/4 poem, An Ave Maria in commendation of our Virtuous Queen, Leonard Stopes integrates his praise of Mary Tudor within the framework of the Ave Maria.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Anti-Marian fervour might encompass both queens and made it doubly politic to remove her image.

PHASES OF USE, FRAGMENTATION AND RE-MAKING

Four phases of use, fragmentation and re-making are proposed.

Phase 1: original vestments

The evidence of fabrics, seams, selvedges, imagery, stitching technique and materials described above indicates that the frontal was once at least two vestments. Pieces 1/2, 9/10, 11, 12, 13 19, 20, 21/24/25, 22 and 23 are in Velvet A. Pieces 3, 4, 5/6, 7/26, 8, 14, 15/16 and 17/18 are in Velvet B.

Velvet A made up a cope. The alignment of the warp shows how the floral motifs and two fleurs-de-lys were arranged radially at the sides of the semi-circular cope, while the angel, two more fleurs-de-lys and the hypothetical image of the Assumption were arranged vertically down the back (fig 13). The positions of the original seams and the size of the pieces suggest the motifs on Velvet B formed two groups. The long oblong panel with God the Father, the Lily Crucifix and a rose-en-soleil motif (Piece 7/26) form the first group. The second group (Pieces 3, 4, and 14) are all part of the Annunciation scene, originally with the bird and monogram of Morton’s rebus above and below respectively. The scene is now partly obscured by two relocated bird wing motifs, probably derived from the missing bird motif. Either group may have been flanked by the remaining rose-en-soleil motifs and full rebuses (Pieces 5/6, 8, 15/16 and17/18) (fig 14).

Fig 13.

Phase 1: Pieces forming the cope (Velvet A). The green lines show the axis of the motifs and the red oval marks the location of the hypothetical Assumption motif. The orientation of the numbers indicates the rotation of the piece in relation to its positions in the frontal. The original location of Pieces 11, 12 and 13 remains uncertain. Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor, Rachael Kershaw and Tom Sparrow.

Fig 14.

Phase 1: Pieces forming the presumed chasuble (Velvet B). Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor, Rachael Kershaw and Tom Sparrow.

There is no evidence for Morton’s rebus on the cope made from Velvet A nor is there any evidence to suggest that the vestment made from Velvet B, which does have at least three versions of his rebus, was a cope. Given the linear positioning of the important imagery, it could well have been a chasuble. The Lily Crucifix would not have been out of place on the back or the front of a chasuble, but the discovery of the Annunciation motif on Pieces 3, 4 and 14 complicates the situation. Annunciation motifs are known to have been placed on the back of chasubles rather than the more customary Crucifixions, as on the Lucca chasuble (1450–1500).Footnote ¹⁰¹ The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Annunciation motif came from yet another vestment. If this was the case, this vestment would have to have been part of a set with the Lily Crucifix chasuble from the same workshop because they are made from the identical velvet (Velvet B) using the same direct embroidery techniques and motifs. For the sake of clarity, as the existence of a third vestment cannot be proved, this paper continues to assume a single chasuble.

Phase 2: intermediate hanging

At this stage, Piece 11 has been inserted into Piece 10 to infill the curved neckline of the cope. The edges and probably the lower part of the cope, with the speculative image of the Assumption, have been cut away to leave a rectangular hanging featuring the more innocuous angel, flowers and fleur-de-lys motifs (Pieces 1/2, 9/10, 11 and 21/24/25) (fig 15). The top edge has been reinforced with the narrow blue tape and the white tape loops added to enable suspension. This hanging might have been used as an altar dossal in a sacred space or as a decoration in a secular context such as a bed or wall hanging. It cannot yet be determined how the other fragments of the cope and the chasuble were stored or used at this time, but the velvet pile of these pieces is much better preserved, suggesting less light exposure.

Fig 15.

Phase 2: Hanging made from the top central section of the cope (Velvet A). Photograph: Jeff Veitch. Prepared for publication: Sonia O’Connor, Rachael Kershaw and Tom Sparrow.