Edward the Confessor in the North

Ever since completing my MA thesis I have had a potentially unhealthy obsession with Edward the Confessor. This is why I tend to use him as a point of reference when exploring the medieval catalogue of saints, and this is also why I keep a lookout for his iconography, and I'm always excited to learn of new images and new renditions of him. For this reason I was very happy to find a stained glass window in York, which to my mind most likely depicted Edward the Confessor, and this blogpost gives an introduction to Edward's standing in the North.

The above stained glass can be found in St. Helen's Church, York, and dates to the later Middle Ages. The church is situated in the centre of York and was the parish church of glass-painters who resided in Stonegate, and their emblem can be found among the extant stained glass paintings.

The window portraying Edward the Confessor is placed in a group comprised of - from left to right - William of York, the Virgin Mary and St. Helen. Edward is the rightmost figure, and as seen above he holds an object which looks like the ring he reportedly received from John the Baptist, and which was one of his major attributes in medieval renditions of him. The story was told by Aelred of Rievaulx and gained immense popularity. In the information leaflet provided in the church, it is suggested that this figure is Emperor Constantine, but this is highly unlikely since he was not considered a saint in medieval times - at least not officially. In a book on stained glass in York which I stupidly forgot to note, but which can be bought at Waterstones in the city, it is stated that the glass does indeed depict the Confessor, though no evidence is cited for this. I, however, believe this to be the only likely explanation for iconographic reasons.

William of York (d.1154, can.1227)

Virgin Mary

Interestingly, this painting situated below that of the Virgin Mary, may also depict the Confessor, possibly together with St. John the Evangelist, to whom Edward was especially devoted

St. Helen

After this find I went to visit York Minster's undercroft where I happened to note a roof painting from the York Minster chapter house depicting St. Edmund of East Anglia. The painting in question dated from c.1290. I was quite excited to see this, since I have a major fascination for the cult of St. Edmund as well as that of St. Edward, and these two saints often appear together in later medieval art (and also sometimes in literature). This was the second depiction of St. Edmund I had found in York, the first being a carving from St. Mary's Abbey, which was refurbished in the 13th century. The figure can be found at Yorkshire Museum together with St. Cuthbert.

Edmund holding his arrows

Cuthbert, holding the head of St. Oswald

After having found St. Edmund, I went to ask one of the curators whether there were any depictions of Edward the Confessor in the Minster, and he told me there was none to be found to my initial surprise, seeing as the Confessor had in his time been generously munificient towards the Minster. The curator was wrong, however, as there is a 14th-century depiction of Edward in the lady chapel, but this I learned later. As I talked about the subject with the curator, however, I remembered a few important details from my MA research which made it all abundantly clear why Edward should ostensibly - yet incorrectly - not be present in the York Minster art programme.

St. Edmund and his arrows, painting from York Minster's chapter house, c.1290

Edward's lack of widespread support in the North is a result of the long-standing conflict between the North and the South, and in particular between the Archbishopric of York and the Archbishopric of Canterbury, at that time locked in a continuous squabble over whose archbishop was the primate of England.

This division in the English medieval church runs deep, and when Osbert of Clare failed in his petition to have Edward canonised by the Papacy around 1138, lack of wide ecclesiastical support was probably one of the main reasons why he failed, together with King Stephen's meddling in the Church's affairs. After the Anarchy, however, Alexander III granted the request for canonisation due to the wide clerical support Osbert that had been lacking earlier, and the 12 surviving petition letters do indeed represent a wide clerical spectrum, including the Archbishop of York. However, this unity proved deceptive and when Edward the Confessor was translated to a new tomb at Westminster on October 13 1163, only the diocese of Canterbury was represented.

The lack of devotional paraphernalia pertaining to Edward the Confessor in York suggests that this strife between the two archbishoprics were long-standing and that to the northerners, Edward the Confessor remained a southern saint. It should also be noted, however, that Edward never achieved any wide popularity beyond Westminster and the royal court, so this is not very surprising after all. However, not even Henry III's presence in York - he refurbished Clifford's Tower as his royal manor - was sufficient to move York towards greater appreciation of Edward, and instead the citizens and the clergy focussed on local saints and, as it seems, St. Edmund, whose fame rivalled that of Edward for most of the 12th and 13th centuries in the country at large. Interestingly, this goes contrary to the claim made in the liturgy for Edward the Confessor, composed at Westminster in the 12th century, where it is stated that the entire country rejoices in his sanctity.

I do not know who commissioned the stained glass windows of St. Helen's and York Minster's lady chapel, or what moved the former to place Edward alongside an important local saint such as William of York. Nonetheless, this is an interesting anomaly in York's devotional landscape, and it shows the disparity between the overarching devotional trends and personal preference.

It is of course important to note that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and it may be that Edward had a more prominent role among York's medieval citizenry than has been known or is suggested by the surviving material. Yet ecclesio-political considerations suggest that there is not much to find in this department, and it is perhaps emblematic that the only church around York dedicated to Edward that I know of, is the 19th-century church at Dringhouses.

Bibliography

Dutton, Marsha (ed.) and Freeland, Jane Patricia (transl.), Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works, Cistercian Publications Inc., 2005

Farmer, David, Oxford Dictionary of Saints, Oxford, 2004

Hope, Steffen, The King's Three Images - The representation of St. Edward the Confessor in historiography, hagiography and liturgy, Trondheim, 2012

Rex, Peter, King & Saint: The Life of Edward the Confessor, The History Press Ltd, 2008

Scholz, Bernhard W., "The Canonization of Edward the Confessor", printed in Speculum, Vol. 36, No. 1, 1961

Williamson, E. W. (ed.), The Letters of Osbert of Clare Prior of Westminster, Oxford University Press, 1998

November Poetry - part IV

Last year I posted a few November poems in order to keep a regular posting schedule while in the depths of ennui. This time around I've not sunken completely back into those depths, so this poem is one I would just like to share, namely one of Folgòre da San Gimignano's sonnets of the months.

Folgòre da San Gimignano (fl. 1309-1317) was born Giacomo da Michele but was given his nom de plume on account of his splendid way of life in his native San Gimignano, which is said to be reflected in his poems. He wrote on the pleasures of life, and the poem posted below is from his sonetti dei mesi, the sonnets of the months, which he, according to this website, was dedicated to a band of Siense nobles who took a rather hedonistic approach to life. The poem will be first given in the Italian, and below you will find a translation made by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Italian text is taken from wikisource, while Rossetti's translation comes from this website.

Scorpio, from MS. Harley 4940

Breviari d'amor, Matfres Eymengau de Beziers, French, 1st half of the 14th century

Courtesy of British Library

Novembre

E di novembre Petriuolo, il bagno,
con trenta muli carchi di moneta:
la ruga sia tutta coverta a seta;
coppe d’argento, bottacci di stagno:

e dar a tutt’ i stazzonier guadagno;
torchi doppier, che vegnan di Chiareta;
confetti con cedrata di Gaeta:
e béa ciascun e conforti ’l compagno.

E lo freddo sia grande e ’l fuoco spesso;
fagiani, starne, colombi mortiti,
lèvori, cavrioli rosto e lesso:

e sempre aver acconci gli appetiti;
la notte ’l vento e piover a ciel messo:
e siate ne le letta ben forniti.

A piazza in San Gimignano

Let baths and wine-butts be November's due,
With thirty mule-loads of broad gold-pieces;
And canopy with silk the streets that freeze;
And keep your drink-horns steadily in view.

Let every trader have his gain of you:
Clareta shall your lamps and torches send,—
Caëta, citron-candies without end;
And each shall drink, and help his neighbour to.

And let the cold be great, and the fire grand:
And still for fowls, and pastries sweetly wrought,
For hares and kids, for roast and boiled, be sure

You always have your appetites at hand;
And then let night howl and heaven fall, so nought
Be missed that makes a man's bed-furniture.

Harold Godwinson's Posthumous Reputation, 1066-c.1160

The following is based on a lecture I gave to the student organisation for history students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology earlier this autumn. The translations of passages are all from the editors of the works cited, and the pictures are all from wikimedia.

Introduction

When William Bastard, duke of Normandy, invaded England in 1066 he was very concerned that this would have the bearings of an enterprise that was legitimate according to contemporary norms. After William had been crowned at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve that same year, he made severe efforts to persuade the surviving high-born members of Anglo-Saxon society that he truly was the king of England, and that he was the true deserving subject of their loyalty. As a part in this campaign the writing of history was an important tool, and various Norman and Anglo-Norman chronicles were to argue that William's invasion was not a usurpation, but, quite the contrary, an expedition to rid England of the usurper Harold Godwinson. This text will show in which ways Harold's posthumous reputation was constructed to cement the Norman claim to legitimacy and how this legacy lasted well beyond William the Conqueror's death.

Harold Godwinson in the Bayeux Tapestry

Note the moustaches

Background - Harold Godwinson

Harold Godwinson was born early in the 1020s. His father was one of the most powerful nobles of the Danish empire, and his mother belonged to another Danish house of nobles. During the reign of King Edward the Confessor, the house of Godwin was among the greatest political dynasties in Anglo-Saxon England, and Godwin gave his daughter Edith as the king's wife.

In 1051 England was heading towards a civil war beteween the forces of the Godwin family on one side and those of King Edward on the other. One of the key reasons for this was that King Edward had brought bishops and nobles from the continent, presumably owing to his childhood exile in Fécamp in Normandy. This was met with protestations from the native nobles, and it was a particularly grave matter that the Norman Robert of Jumièges was appointed to the See of Canterbury. Robert had already served as bishop of London and during his rule he had established a hostile relationship with the Godwin family. In the early days of the unrest Robert set out a rumour that Godwin had authored the death of King Edward's brother, Alfred, several years earlier. This made matters worse for the Godwin family and they had to flee into exile. They returned, however, already in 1052 and made peace with the king. The following year Godwin himself died from a stroke during the Easter meal of the royal celebration at Windsor, and this was to have great ramifications of Harold Godwinson's posthumous reputation, as we shall see.

When his father died, Earl Harold was the most powerful noble of the kingdom, and his landed revenue even exceeded that of the king. It is therefore no wonder that the childless King Edward were to appoint Harold Godwinson has his successor on his deathbed in January 1066. Harold's own reign lasted only 10 months, and in October that same year he died at the Battle of Hastings, allegedly by an arrow through the eye.

Contemporary likeness of Harold the King

Norman historiography

William of Jumièges

Christmas Eve 1066 Duke William became king of a country he had no family bonds to, and he was well aware of the necessity in establishing his legitimate right as rule of the English. The key to this problem was King Edward. In his youth, Edward has been in exile in Normandy and in the new reign of William it was now purported that Edward, in gratitude for his Norman lodgings, had promised the throne of England to the family of Duke William. This claim was first put forth by the Norman chronicler William of Jumièges in his Gesta Normannorum Ducum, which was completed around 1070.

According to William's chronicle, King Edward had sent the archbishop of Canterbury, the anti-Godwinist Robert, to William Bastard with the purpose of appointing him as Edward's heir (1). This claim was also put forth in the poem Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, and the poet even exceeds the chronicler. In the poet it is stated that not only had King Edward appointed William, but he had done so with the support of the entire English people. Furthermore, in the poem Edward - with Robert as his vessel - hands William his ring and his sword, an investiture episode whose symbolic strength and importance can not be overestimated (2).

However, it was an indisputable fact that King Edward had also appointed Earl Harold as his successor, as testified by a number of contemporary witnesses, William of Jumièges solved the problem accordingly: Edward, we are told, asked Harold to swear fealty to William as his next lord and king. Harold promises to do so and leaves for Normandy to perform the oath before William the Bastard. On the way he is captured by a local count, but he is later released from captivity by Duke William. In other words, not only is Duke William the man appointed as Harold's future king, he is also his saviour (3). Consequently, it becomes an even graver matter when Harold later seizes the throne upon Edward's death. He is both an oath-breaker and a usurper, and this is why Harold is depicted as dying from an arrow piercing his eye, for according to contemporary ideas, this was how oath-breakers died (4). Despite this, however, it is interesting to note that Harold is in fact labelled as rex in the Bayeux tapestry.

Harold dies early in the Battle of Hastings, according to William of Jumiéges, and many Englishmen were also slaughtered. This was considered God's punishment for the murder on Alfred, King Edward's brother. William does indeed go so far as to call Harold "a traitor like Judas" (5).

Harold swears his oath to William

William of Poitiers

The next historiography to be written in the aftermath of the conquest was the Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitier, also composed around 1070. The narrative follows the pattern presented in Gesta Normannorum Ducum, but William of Poitiers adds a few more details. In his version, Harold admits to swearing fealty to Duke WIlliam, but that King Edward passed the lordship of England over to him on Edward's deathbed, and that Duke William's claim is against English custom. Duke William is of course offended by this, but he says that he will let the English people decide, not wishing the English to die as enemies on account of this disagreement (6). Earl Harold, on the other hand, ignores this peace offer and leads his army towards Hastings. Thus, Harold's betrayal becomes even more severe and it is he who is responsible for sending the English into their death.

It is nonetheless interesting to note that William of Poitiers treats Harold with a certain amount of respect. He compares Harold's prowess in battle with heroes from classical poetry - which in turn serves to elevate Duke William's own prowess and courage - and the chronicler states that "we do not revile you, Harold; but we grieve and mourn for you with the pious victor who weeps over your ruin. You have reaped the reward that you deserved, and have fallen bathed in your own blood; you lie in a tumulus on the seashore and will be an abomintion to future generations of English no less than Normans" (7). Harold is placed in a tumulus, a grave for the common folk, in the manner of Pompey as described in Statius' Thebaid. Harold thus becomes an epic antagonist who leads his people into destruction and therefore gets his deserved revenge.

This was the first stage of the history writing which established Harold Godwinson's reputation as the great historical antagonist in the game of England. How many of the English who actually believed in these historigraphical constructions is impossible to ascertain, but due to the contemporary understanding of history - where mankind was subject to the assaults of the Devil in a grand narrative presided over by God - it was necessary to find an antagonist who could bear the blame in order to make sense of the punishments meted out by the Divine on account of the evils of kings and clergy. For instance, in the text Vita Ædwardi, King Edward's first biography, it was the clergy and particularly Archbishop Stigand, who bore the blame for the troubles wrought upon the English, while the Norman sources move the blame over to Harold.

Later generations of historiographers also used Harold as the grand antagonist in the scheme of English history, and if nothing else, Harold was at least an expedient figure for this matter. Regardless what the individual chroniclers themselves believed, it was necessary to explain why God had allowed Duke William - whom many probably considered a wicked tyrant - to invade and conquer the English. King Edward's reign was lauded as a golden age of peace contrasted with the harsh rule of William, and Edward was honoured by both English and Norman historiographers. Harold, on the other hand, suited both sides as a historical villain, as shall be seen, both those who saw things from the Norman perspective and those of the other side.

English historiography

Eadmer of Canterbury

One of the voices from the other side was the historian Eadmer of Canterbury, born shortly after the battle of Hastings and strongly nostalgic towards the English. In his Historia Novorum in Anglia he presents a new twist to the Norman historical fiction. In Eadmer's rendition Harold is forced by William to yield his lordship by Duke William during Harold's stay in Normandy, and King Edward later scolds Harold for thus having brought England into disaster. Eadmer adds that the Normans claim Harold died because of this broken oath (8).

The next important historiographer is William of Malmesbury, who wrote his Gesta Regum Anglorum in the 1120s. He occupies a special place in the historiographical landscape since he was himself of both Norman and English heritage. Nonetheless, he unquestionably belongs to the English historians since he exhibits clear sympathies for the English and laments that the English culture is losing ground to the culture of the Normans. William is also interesting because he has a more nuanced view of King Edward than found in the works of earlier historians.

William points out that there are various view on how Harold acceded to the English throne. In his own opus, William seized the crown and uses here the verb arripere which may have connotations to thievery or otherwise illegal action (9). The English, William states, claims that Harold was given the crown from King Edward, and it is possible that William here also includes Eadmer of Canterbury, whom he refers to in his introduction. Despite uncertainty regarding the details, William, too, states that Harold had promised to give the crown to Duke William and that he thereby was guilty of oath-breaking. In his summary of the Battle of Hastings, William points out that Harold deserved his death because of his faithlessness.

Harold crowned as king. Note the vilified Stigand on his left

Henry Huntingdon

The final historiographer in this overview is Henry Huntingdon, who completed his Historia Anglorum in the 1150s. Henry is perhaps that historiographer who passes the most severe judgement on Harold Godwinsson, and this suggests that his sources - including his English material - carries a strongly anti-Godwinist tone.

In his description of Harold's accession to the throne, Henry applies the word inuadere, which points to an aggressive, though not necessarily violent, action (10). The meaning is nonetheless clear: Harold was a usurper who came to the throne by means of force rather than law, and this was one of three reasons Duke William invaded England. The other two reasons also pertained to the Godwin family.

Henry's antipathy towards the Godwin family is not, however, most clearly expressed in his depiction of Harold, but the portrayal of Harold's father, Godwin. As stated in the introduction, Godwin died from a stroke during the Easter celebration at Windsor in 1053, and Henry fused this tradition with William of Jumièges' description of Godwin as a Judas in a powerful condemnation of Godwin and his family. Henry was not the first to do this, but it shows how powerful this legacy was even about a century following Godwin's death.

Henry tells us that Godwin was anxious to persuade King Edward that he had nothing to do with the murder of his brother Alfred. During the Easter meal in 1053, therefore, Godwin says to King Edward that "if the God of heaven is true and just, may He grant that this little pice of bread shall not pass my throat if I have ever thought of betraying you". Henry furthermore states that God heard Godwin's false words and shortly afterwards Godwin chokes on the piece of bread and thus "tasted endless death" (11).

This episode is heavy with symbolism. It is set at Easter, the holiest time of the Christian year, it takes the form as a Last Supper scene and Godwin furthermore swears an oath despite Christ's commandment not to swear. Godwin is thus expressly portrayed as a Judas, and Harold Godwinson is thereby the son of a Judas which adds further shame to his own broken oath roughly 13 years later.

The death of Harold

Conclusion

Harold Godwinson's posthumous reputation was one of the historiographical legacies of the Norman invasion of 1066 and maintained a strong position long into later centuries. Harold becomes an antagonist in a cosmic game which caused the English to be subjected to the Norman yoke. This is a testamtent to the duration and longevity of literary legacies and a testamtent to the force of medieval historiography.

Notes

1) Van Houts 2003: vol. II, 158-59

2) Barlow 1999: 18. Traditionally, this poem has been attributed to Bishop Guy de Amiens and dated to c.1067, but later research suggests it may have been composed as late as c.1125. See Riggs 2006: 16-17.

3) Van Houts 2003: vol. II, 160-61

4) Fleming 2004

5) Van Houts 2003: vol. II, 106-07

6) Davis and Chibnall 1998: 122-23

7) Davis and Chibnall 1998: 140-41

8) Bosanquet 1964: 6-9

9) Mynors et.al. 1998: 416-17

10) Greenway 2007: 384-85

11) Greenway 2007: 378-79. Interestingly, Wace's Roman de Rou comes closest to ascribing Edward any direct agency. In Godwin's trial by morsel Edward makes the sign of the cross over it, thus in effect bringing about Godwin's death (Burgess 2004: line 5456)

Bibliography

Barlow, Frank (ed. and transl.), The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1999

Bosanquet, Geoffrey (ed. and transl.), Eadmer's History of Recent Events in England, The Cresset Press, London, 1964

Burgess, Glyn S. (ed. and transl.), The History of the Norman People - Wace's Roman de Rou, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2004

Davis, R. H. C. and Chibnall, Marjorie (eds. and transl.), The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998

Fleming, Robin ‘Harold II (1022/3?–1066)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12360, accessed 6 Sept 2013]

Greenway, Diana (ed. and transl.), Henry, Archdeacon of Huntindon - Historia Anglorum, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2007

Mynors, R. A. B., Thomson, R. M., Winterbottom, M., William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum, The History of the English Kings, Clarendon Press, 1998

Van Houts, Elizabeth M. C. (ed.), The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2003

Edward the Confessor at Ickford?

There's no hiding that ever since beginning my MA thesis I have been cultivating a minor obsession with Edward the Confessor (d. 1066, can. 1161), as may be evidenced by the number of blogposts wherein he features. One of my fascinations is to see how he has been represented throughout the ages, and how people at various times in history have formulated and envisioned him. On the whole, most of the depictions are similar, and this is of course to be expected as part of the point of such a depiction is to make it easily recognised by on-lookers. However, looking around on the Internet for images of Edward, I came across a stained glass window which was very unusual.

This stained glass window can be found at the Church of St. Nicholas in Ickford, Buckinghamshire. It was executed by Sir John Ninian Comper (1864-1960) in the 1920s, and is available on wikimedia.org thanks to Allan Barton, who has uploaded this image to his flickr account and provided the basic information.

It is an unusual picture. First there's his dress - which looks like a floreate leotard with buttons - whose pattern brings to mind the background vines of late medieval stained glass, and to my (albeit minor) experience this pattern is rarely given so much prominence. Nor does it add a regal look to one of England's most important royal saints. Secondly, Edward has no beard. This is the most interesting deviation from the norm, for ever since the first expansive sources depicting Edward, his beard has been mentioned and given some significance. This has been treated to some extent in an earlier blogpost. It has also been a major feature in portraiture depicting Edward throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. Some examples can be seen here.  A later depiction can for instance be found on this excellent blog.

Edward the Confessor as a beardless youth is therefore an unusual occurrence, and it has led me to think that the identification with the Confessor might be incorrect. If the stained glass window does depict Saint Edward, this might be Saint Edward the Martyr who died in 978 at around the age of fifteen. The confusion of these two saints is not uncommon.

Until I have been able to make further inquiries myself I cannot dismiss the identification, but I do remain somewhat skeptical. 

He was an errant knight

Mylde answer made: he was an errant knight
- The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser

A few days back I was roaming the Internet for Pre-Raphaelite paintings, when I happened to come across this beautiful piece by John Everett Millais (1829-96) from 1870 titled "Painting the Knight Errant". The title is a little misleading since, at least to the modern mind, it implies a meta-dimension, but this is not the case. The painting is a lovely composition and showcases the enthusiastic and fertile medievalism embraced by the Pre-Raphaelites.

Millais has chosen has his subject the errant knight, an important figure from medieval romance and renaissance epic. The most famous examples from English literature are found in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, modelled to a significant extent on the great 16th-century Italian epics like Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (1474-1533) and Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso (1544-95). Spenser's well-wrought allegory features several of these knights errants, who were armed soldiers roaming the world for quests and challenges, but not all of them are honourable or protagonists. What defines a good errant knight appears to be the nobility of the quests he agrees to undertake, and sometimes the grand, overarching quest which leads him through the world, such as The Redcrosse Knight's quest to liberate the Faerie Queene from a monstrous dragon.

The notion that the errant knight could have a potential for evil was also picked up by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his Idylls of the King, where he notes that before Arthur gained proper control of the land, many an errant knight could be found throughout it, and Tennyson uses them as one of the symbols of anarchy and chaos preceding the golden age of Arthur. The errant knights of Idylls of the King are markedly different from Arthur's knight in that they leave Camelot first when they have a quest, rather than sauntering throughout the world on the prowl for one. It is also emblematic that Geraint, after he has fallen prey of jealousy and succumbed to the intrinsic darkness, takes his wife Enid and wanders aimlessly about just like an errant knight.

In medieval romance and in renaissance epics, the trope of the errant knight is a brilliant pretext for action and an excellent way of making the adventure move from one location to another, and this was exuberantly taken advantage of by the epic poets of the 16th cenutry.

A Silent Wood - poem by Elizabeth Siddal

Elizabeth Siddal, self-portrait
From wikimedia commons

Days are currently quite busy and I've little energy left for blogging, but in order to maintain a semblance of frequency, I'll put up more poetry now and then. Since I'm currently taking a course on medievalism in Victorian England, I found it fitting to present a poem by one of the key figures of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Elizabeth Siddal (1829-62), a woman of considerable and versatile talents. She has probably gained most fame as a model for some of the most iconic paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites, but she was also herself a painter - as witnessed above - and a poet. Below is one of her poems, A Silent Wood, dated with some uncertainty to 1855-57 by William Michael Rossetti. The text is taken from The Pre-Raphaelites From Rossetti to Ruskin, edited by Dinah Roe and issued in the Penguin Classics series in 2010.

A Silent Wood

O silent wood, I enter thee
With a heart so full of misery -
For all the voices from the trees
And the ferns that cling about my knees.

In thy darkest shadow let me sit
When the grey owls about thee flit:
There I will ask of thee a boon,
That I may not faint or die or swoon.

Gazing through the gloom like one
Whose life and hopes are also done,
Frozen like a thing of stone,
I sit in thy shadow - but not alone.

Can God bring back the day when we two stood
Beneath the clinging trees in that dark wood?

Beata Beatrix (1864-70), Dante Gabriel Rossetti

One of the most famous paintings to which Elizabeth Siddal sat model

The Humility of Snails, part 2 - The snail and the knight

For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

- Luke 14: 11

In my previous blogpost I launched the suggestion that snails in medieval marginalia might be read as symbols of humility, often depicted in contrast to the prideful life of knights and warriors. Furthermore, I suggested that this symbolism was influenced by the paradigm of sanctity that emerged with the foundation of mendicant orders, in which humility was now associated with good works, self-abnegation and a reclusive lifestyle. This is a change from the 12th-century, in which humility and warfare were often twin virtues, inspired by the legends of St. Alexis of Odessa and exemplified with the emergence of the orders of warrior monks such as the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers. This is of course not to say that the mendicant orders were in opposition to the crusades. On the contrary, the Franciscan liturgy for St. Louis - composed towards the turn of the 13th century - praises him for his crusades and viewed them as an imitatio Christi. However, warfare became frequently disassociated with sanctity in the 13th century, and Louis is therefore more a deviation proving the point than anything else.

This two-part exploration was triggered by a recent blogpost from the ever-so-lovely British Library's medieval blog, and the piece in question was written by Sarah J. Biggs. In this second part, I will provide examples from several manuscripts from the time of this paradigm of sanctity and into the 15th century, looking at how well they fit with the idea that the snail is a symbol for humility. For the pictures from MS. Yates Thomspon 27 I am gratefully indebted to Robert Miller. Almost all pictures courtesy of the British Library.

The Marginal Snail

The Gorleston Psalter

The Gorleston Psalter, found in Add. MS. 49622, is an English psalter made in the timeframe 1310-24, and contains two depictions of the snail that fit very well with the idea of the snail as a symbol of humility. The first example can be seen above, where a knight has planted his sword in the ground and lifts his hands, pressed together, at the snail as if in devotion. If the slug represents humility and the peaceful life, this scene may show a warrior, a man of pride, casting aside the weapon of his trade in devotion to the virtue which stands in starkest contrast to his own way of life. We might even imagine there has been some sort of combat or debate in advance of this scene, and the knight is now defeated and yield to the humble victor. This idea is strengthened by the second example, as seen below.

Monkey business of the worst kind

Here we see combat depicted, an arrow launched by an ape is flying towards the snail. Apes (distinguished from the monkeys by their lack of tails) were frequently associated with evil and vices in medieval imagination. Bestiaries claimed that they took their name from the fact that they aped after humans, and as such came to represent a mirror-image to the human world, where apes and other simia were doing the devil's work or at least turned the ideals of the Christian world upside down. This ape is clearly at war with humility, and from the look of it he seems to be winning, reminding perhaps the viewer that the devil can overcome mankind's humility.

MS. Yates Thompson 19

Next up is MS. Yates Thompson 19, containing Li Livres dou Trésour, an encyclopedia written in 1264 by Brunetto Latini, the master of Dante Alighieri. The manuscript was made in the timeframe 1315-25 in Northern France. As an encyclopedia it was not exclusively - nor perhaps even primarily - a work of devotion, but we might presume that Christian devotion is not absent from the work.

In the manuscript, as seen above, we find another combat scene featuring a snail, here standing against a charge by an armoured knight. We don't know the outcome, but here we might imagine the haughtiness of war about to do battle with the virtue of humility. This scene is particularly interesting because of another, similar, combat scene, in which the knight's target is not a snail, but a gryllus, otherwise known as a hybrid.

The meaning of such hybrids is still a matter that remains unsolved, but the snail and the gryllus can easily be contrasted as representatives of two different worlds, the virtuous and the viceful, the good and the evil. If this is the case, the scenes above can be said to depict examples of bad and good chivalry respectively, for it was customary in medieval didactic writing to educate through good and bad examples alike, a tradition reaching all the way back to Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica and beyond.

The Luttrell Psalter

This psalter, found in MS. Add 42130, was made in the timeframe 1325-40 on the orders of Geoffrey Luttrell III (1276-1345), a Lincolnshire landowner. The work was carried out in stages and its illumination programme was left unfinished for reasons unknown. The snail found in this psalter is different from the rest here presented, in that it does not seem to interact with anyone, so that it does not invite comparison with a representative of either vices or virtues. It is simply a bas-de-page illumination, yet it might be intented to serve as a mnemonic helper for the psalm text. The text is from Psalm 89 and the snail is just below the verse "Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in the light of your presence". If this snail, too, represents humility or meekness, it certainly fits well with the psalm text in question.

Picture courtesy of this website

The Hours of Yolande of Flanders

This book of hours, following the Use of Paris and found in MS. Yates Thompson 27, was made in the timeframe 1353-63 for Yolande of Flanders. This wonderfully weird book contains three snails, all of which can be successfully read as symbols of humility. It is of course particularly interesting to note that as a female member of high society, Yolande was a representative of that echelon from which the Roman Catholic sanctorale drew many of its new members in the 14th century.

In the selection above we find again the motif of snails and knights. The first seems frightened and awestruck by his encounter with the gastropod, possibly in the realisation that he has erred in his ways, or something in that vein. The second might be considered a continuation of the first scene, and this knight - or the same knight - has succumbed to the mastery of the snail, yielded his pride of arms, perhaps, to the humility so emblematic of 14th-century sainthood.

There is also another fascinating example in this MS., as seen above. What this naked man represents is difficult to say, though if the snail is a symbol of humility this might very well be pride sitting astraddle the animal, chastising it with a club.


Spiegel der Weisheit

The last example in this blogpost takes us out of the 14th-century and the mendicant paradigm of sainthood, and also away from the psalters and books of hours. Like Latini's Books of Treasure, this is an anomaly, but intended as a continuation of the collection so far considered. This book is Ulrich von Pottenstein's Spiegel der Weisheit, here found in MS. Egerton 1121, an Austrian MS. from 1430. Here, as seen below, a snail is standing face to face with a black cat, which, as we know, has accrued a particularly negative reputation. If the snail here, too, is meant as a representative of humility, it is presumably mirroring the wickedness commonly ascribed to the cat. Their symbolic difference may perhaps be exacerbated by the fact that the snail is here rendered in white - though that might also owe to the fact that Southern European snails do have white shells.

Summary remarks

The array of books presented in this two-part blogpost spans a wide variety of literature, about two centuries and several countries. Each has contained some depiction of a snail or a snail-like hybrid. Reading these images as symbols of humility, in tune with the Christian virtues and the emphasis of contemporary sanctity, gives meaning and makes sense of the snails and their companions and environment on the page, both as protagonists facing a viceful foe or as mnemonic devices accompanying the page's text.

This in its turn proves nothing. We have too little information about the extent and the frequency of snail imagery in devotional books - and non-devotional for that matter - to make any broad statements. This has merely been a thought-experiment in which the snail has been interpreted in a particular manner. As I hope to have successfully shown, it is indeed a possible conjecture which fits both with the contemporary currents and the purpose of the books in which most of them are found. Much remains to be done here, and in the future it will be necessary to carefully consider each illumination together with accompanying text and the illumination programmes of their respective books. However, I hope this demonstration has established one possible way of making sense of these images, which might be considered just as plausible as the suggestions put forth by past scholarship.