Lincoln Cathedral Research Articles

The early west front of Lincoln Cathedral: the threshold to the Heavenly Jerusalem?

ABSTRACT This paper is the result of an archaeological survey of what remains of the Romanesque chambers and staircases found within the west front of Lincoln Cathedral. It provides evidence, for the first time, that Remigius had begun to build a symmetrically planned west front, complementing the three arched bays to the west and the arch to the south, with a further one on the north west elevation, not the plain wall and low arch we see today. It is argued that, rather than an example of an early fortified church or lord’s tower, as proposed by some scholars, the Romanesque west front of Lincoln Cathedral has within it evidence of a liturgical architectural form which was to be developed fully in thirteenth century west fronts, most famously at Wells and Salisbury.

The Date of Beverley Minster and its Role in the Development of Northern Gothic in the Late 12th and Early 13th Centuries

Drawing on close archaeological examination, a study of masons’ marks and especially new dendrochronological data, this article defends and develops Christopher Norton’s argument, published in 2009, that Gothic construction at Beverley Minster commenced soon after a well-documented fire in 1188. This dating was widely accepted until the 1860s, but since then there has been widespread consensus amongst scholars that Gothic construction at Beverley began no earlier than 1220. This radical re-dating disassociates Beverley with Lincoln Cathedral, and instead locates its design in relation to early Gothic construction at the abbeys of Fountains, Byland and Jervaulx, together with a wider group of ‘northern’ Gothic churches. New documentary and dendrochronological evidence also provide a more secure dating for Beverley’s 14th-century nave.

A Reattribution of the Tree of Jesse Tomb Slab in Lincoln Cathedral

In the north-east corner of the nave of Lincoln Cathedral is a tomb slab made of Tournai marble emblazoned with the iconography of the Tree of Jesse. A Victorian inscription proclaims that it belongs to the building’s founder, Bishop Remigius de Fécamp (r. 1072–92). Since its ‘rediscovery’ in the cloister in 1857 scholars have examined the tomb slab’s material significance and its placement within the greater network of incised funerary monuments of the 12th century. This article re-examines the tomb’s possible patron and occupant, challenging earlier assumptions about its date and placing it within the context of Saint Hugh’s reconstruction of the cathedral’s east end. In so doing, it reassesses the importance of the Lincoln tomb slab and the iconography of the Tree of Jesse in medieval England.

The Seals of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter

The 14th-century audit accounts of the chapter of Lincoln Cathedral record expenditure for the year 1305–06, and contain valuable information about the manufacture of a silver matrix for a ‘great seal’. This short note considers why the chapter might have spent a large sum of money on a seal matrix when they already possessed a common seal, and reveals the rediscovery in 2018 of the original 12th-century silver matrix of the seal of the chapter of Lincoln Cathedral.

Dyed Cloth in the London Thornton Manuscript

It has been well documented that between c. 1420 and 1460 Robert Thornton, a member of the gentry of Yorkshire’s North Riding, copied and compiled the contents of two large manuscripts for his family’s personal use: Lincoln, Lincoln Cathedral, MS 91 (‘Thornton’) and London, British Library, MS Additional 31042 (‘London Thornton’).1 Their contents vary so widely that they resemble miscellanies. Yet codicological evidence and other internal and external features of both books evince Thornton’s purposeful organization of the texts that he acquired and copied, not only within each of his two manuscripts but between them.2 So explicit are the physical and generic associations that Thornton made between two particular texts—not otherwise obviously affiliated by circulation or subject matter—that they comprise their own booklet in London Thornton.3 These texts are the Middle English poems now known as Richard Coeur de Lion (hereafter RCL) and the Apocryphal History of the Infancy (hereafter Infancy).4 Most likely copied from separate exemplars,5 RCL and Infancy appear consecutively in the manuscript, occupying fols. 125ra–163va and fols. 163va–168vb, respectively.6 RCL fills quire ‘g’ and part of quire ‘h’; Infancy begins below RCL on fol. 163va and concludes on the final extant leaf of quire ‘h’ with room to spare.7 Thornton not only made the two texts physically proximate; he also linked them by labeling both ‘romance’—a characterization somewhat standard in extant copies of RCL but unique to Thornton’s copy of Infancy and almost certainly his own addition.8 The two-line explicit of RCL reads: ‘The Romance/Of Kyng Richerd þe Conqueroure’ (Add 31042, fol. 163va, ll. 22–23). Directly below, Infancy’s incipit proclaims, ‘Here Bigynnys the Romance/of þe childhode of Iheu Criste þat/clerkes callys Ipokrephum’ (Add 31042, fol. 163va, ll. 25–27). Other romance flourishes are unique to London Thornton’s copy of Infancy including, for instance, the knightly designation ‘Sir’ before characters’ names.9

A new ammonite discovery from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation (Lower Bajocian) of Eastern England

A newly discovered ammonite of the genus Hyperlioceras from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation of Eastern England enables the biostratigraphical position of the principal building stone of Lincoln Cathedral: the ‘Silver Bed’ variant of Lincoln Stone (Lower Lincolnshire Limestone) to be precisely dated as subsectum biohorizon of the Lower Bajocian, Discites Zone. Ammonites are extremely rare in this formation thus the impetus to record it here and provide a firm date for strata in which it occurred following its discovery. The lithostratigraphical provenance of the specimen is briefly discussed and evidence provided to support the conclusion.

Frederick H. Evans's Lantern-Slide Lectures as a “Clock for Seeing”

In Frederick H. Evans’s Lantern-Slide Lectures as a “Clock for Seeing,” Dervla MacManus presents an indepth examination of the British photographer Frederick Henry Evans’s Lincoln Cathedral lantern-slide lecture, which he delivered three times—in 1896, 1899, and 1902. Although better known for his platinotype photography, Evans also created series of lantern slides that represent prolonged encounters with buildings played out in sequences of images. Recalling Roland Barthes’s description of the photograph as a “temporal hallucination,” MacManus identifies and explores the spatial and temporal hallucinations evoked by Evans’s Lincoln Cathedral lecture. She argues that the temporal character of the lecture was a complex constellation driven by the built fabric of the cathedral itself, moving back and forth between past and present, and in turn giving rise to a spatial ordering of time. This analysis highlights the significant role played by optical technologies in Evans’s creation of a spatially and temporally idealized version of the cathedral. Further, it shows how Evans’s encounter with the building, mediated by the camera lens, encouraged a shift in photographic modes—from a spatial mode intended to re-create architectural experience to a scopic mode that scrutinized the cathedral’s richly carved surfaces.

The Development of a Manor House over the Longue Durée: Nassington Prebendal Manor, Northamptonshire

ABSTRACT Excavation beneath the standing building of the Prebendal Manor House at Nassington revealed the remains of part of a tenth-century structure and the plan of an early eleventh-century timber chamber and single-aisle hall. The eleventh-century remains are identified as the hall of the priest which was later transferred to endow a prebend at Lincoln cathedral. That building was modified in the twelfth century when the single-storey chamber was replaced with a two-storey structure. The timber house was replaced c.1200 on almost exactly the same site by an unaisled stone hall with a span of 7.6 m and a stone chamber. The chamber was conjoined with the hall, but entered externally. In 1433–50 a major reconstruction of the hall was undertaken, with the walls raised and a new roof constructed. The service wing was rebuilt in a slightly later phase, with a clasped purlin roof dated to c. 1455. The later development of the manor house is treated more summarily. Parts of the hall are still standing, while the chamber was not demolished until c. 1800. The persistence on the same site of a manorial building from the eleventh century onwards is notable, and the reasons for this are examined.

Hereford and Lincoln Cathedral Libraries during the High Middle Ages

In this study evidence is brought forth from large treasuries of scholastic manuscripts at Hereford and Lincoln that challenges R. M. Thomson's assessment of the importance of those collections during the High Middle Ages. As it turns out, as early as the twelfth century those libraries contained copies of the most important works in the developing Parisian theological curriculum, and the earliest copies of those works may reside in these and other English cathedral libraries. Manuscripts preserving early versions of the Sentences are especially interesting, since they make it possible to study the evolution of Peter Lombard's thought during his lifetime.

How Anne Askew Read the Bible

ABSTRACT The two parts of Anne Askew's Examinations (1546–47) offer a first-hand retrospective narrative of the interrogation, condemnation, and execution of a woman who ran afoul of English clerical and secular authorities because she violated prohibitions on public Bible reading when she read the scriptures at Lincoln Cathedral. This was not a capital offense in itself, but her devotion to Luther's doctrine of sola scriptura (“by scripture alone”) led to her execution for denying orthodox belief in transubstantiation and the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Mass. Her experience provides an outstanding example of how reading and interpretation of the English Bible as it was translated by William Tyndale (1494–1536), individuals associated with him, and their successors led a literate laywoman to being burnt alive for heresy. This investigation clarifies our understanding of reading practices, the materiality of early modern books, book editing, contemporary politics and religion, and other subjects related to her Bible reading.

Getting into a Scrape: The Buckler Dynasty, Lincoln Cathedral and Mid-Victorian Architectural Politics

AbstractBetween 1859 and 1866, John Chessell Buckler (1793–1894) was accused, as architect to Lincoln Cathedral, of overseeing a process of ‘scraping’ the exterior stonework of the building during its restoration. The controversy involved the leading architectural bodies of the time, with professional journals and both national and local newspapers reporting on it over the course of half a decade. In his defence, Buckler published an angry book that, rather than exonerating the author, offended many members of the architectural profession, particularly George Gilbert Scott and the Ecclesiological Society. The dispute took place during a conservative shift in attitude to the repair of historic buildings. This essay attempts to clarify what Buckler did, what was at stake for his detractors, and what the ‘scraping’ scandal reveals about the political atmosphere of nineteenth-century British architectural culture.

Review: Electric Light: An Architectural History, by Sandy Isenstadt and Palazzos of Power: Central Stations of the Philadelphia Electric Company 1900–1930, by Aaron V. Wunsch and Joseph E. B. Elliott

Sandy Isenstadt Electric Light: An Architectural History Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2018, 304 pp., 27 color and 109 b/w illus. $44.95 (cloth), ISBN 9780262038171 Aaron V. Wunsch and Joseph E. B. Elliott Palazzos of Power: Central Stations of the Philadelphia Electric Company 1900–1930 New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2016, 160 pp., 124 b/w illus. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 9781616895006 “A bicycle shed is a building. Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture,” Nikolaus Pevsner famously wrote at the beginning of his Outline of European Architecture .1 The two books under review, both of which deal in various ways with electricity and architecture, offer compelling evidence of how far the study of architectural history has moved away from Pevsner's formulation. Beyond this, the books diverge. Sandy Isenstadt's Electric Light is a series of meditations on the way electrical lighting has altered both the built environment and our perception of it. In contrast, Palazzos of Power , with text by Aaron V. Wunsch and images by Joseph E. B. Elliott, is a case study of a single building type erected by a single company in a single urban area over a narrow time span. It is probably best to think of Palazzos of Power as a portfolio of photographs. It includes a short but eloquent foreword by David Nye, the peerless chronicler of the history of technology, who puts the subject into a broad historical perspective. Wunsch contributes an informative essay that discusses in more detail the history of the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO), the technology it employed, the buildings it erected, and the two men most responsible for the buildings pictured in the book, namely, company engineer William C. L. Eglin and the Philadelphia architect John T. Windrim. According to Wunsch, PECO was the result of a series of mergers that took place during a period of tumultuous technological change in the electrical industry. The result was a unified power company for the Philadelphia region, one of the country's most heavily industrialized urban areas. As the company grew, it became clear that the power stations located in the city center and using direct current for transmission were insufficient to …

AN EARLY VERSION OF PETER LOMBARD'S LECTURES ON THESENTENCES

The discovery of a copy (in Lincoln MS 230) of Peter Lombard's lectures on theSentencesin three books (starting with the hexameral discussion that follows the treatise on the angels in the four-book version edited by Brady) makes possible for the first time investigating the development of the Lombard's theological teaching during his Parisian teaching career and thefortunaof that teaching outside of Paris. The fact that the Lombard began his early-career lectures on theSentencesin precisely the same place as he began his lectures on Genesis means that all of his teaching originated with Scripture. Moreover, the fact that Lincoln MS 230 is one of many early copies of the Lombard's Parisian teaching found in English cathedral libraries — Lincoln's Cathedral Library has another manuscript containing another copy of theSentences, Lincoln MS 31, this one on four books, almost certainly copied within the Lombard's lifetime — has revealed the inadequacy of Brady's edition for scholarly understanding of the Lombard's career and teaching. Until now, no scholar paid much attention to the fact that Brady's choice of manuscripts was largely arbitrary and that his edition reflected the state of the Lombard's text around the time of Bonaventure in the mid-thirteenth century. Thus this discovery makes clear that theSentences, like Gratian'sDecretumand Comestor'sHistory, developed over time. TheSentenceswere not, as so long assumed, a book written by the Lombard late in his career but rather the product of lectures delivered over the course of his career. The discovery of a treasure trove of English manuscripts preserving the Lombard's earliest extant Parisian teaching will enable scholars for the first time to trace the origins and development of the institutional practices of the cathedral school of Paris right up to the time of its transformation into the University of Paris.

A Revelation of Purgatory

A Revelation of Purgatory

‘…But have you Read this?’: Dialogicity in Robert Thornton’s Holy Name Devotions

This article examines a particular set of texts in an early fifteenth-century religious anthology composed by the Yorkshire gentleman Robert Thornton. Together with other religious prose and verse, Thornton copied a number of Middle English and Latin texts, on the subject of devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, into the folios of what is now Lincoln Cathedral MS 91. The article demonstrates the uniqueness of this set of Holy Name texts in late medieval England, both in terms of individual items and the combination of material. Some of these texts, namely those written by the English mystic Richard Rolle, were controversial in their treatment of the Name of Jesus, and contained claims for which some of Rolle’s followers were criticised by the early fifteenth century. I argue that their controversial content does not easily accord with scholarly characterisations of Thornton’s collecting impulses as conservative and spiritually unambitious. The article also discusses how Thornton copied other, more conservative, statements, that aimed to control Rollean Holy Name enthusiasm; in this case by that other great English mystical writer, Walter Hilton. I argue that this juxtapostion of enthusiastic and cautious statements points to practices of compilation and religious reading that were profoundly dialogic, bringing contradictory material together for use by Thornton’s household in their daily devotions that opened up a range of possible practices. Examination of the other religious texts within Lincoln MS 91 suggests some likely responses to the Holy Name material that Thornton copied. The article finishes with discussion of Thornton’s literary networks and how the diaologic nature of his literary practices would have involved complex social relationships with a range of clerical and lay agents. It asks how Thornton’s own agency might have worked in collaboration with clerical advisers who sought to guide, but did not control, his reading.

‘By consent of the whole chapter’: Lincoln Cathedral’s Rewards for Touring Players and School Comedies, 1561-1593

The records of Lincoln Cathedral possess the largest and most enduring evidence for cathedral-funded dramatic performance in medieval and early modern England. In the mid-sixteenth century earlier forms of financial backing were replaced by the rewarding of travelling players by the chapter. The absence of similar rewards in the civic accounts of the period makes the cathedral records unique in their documentation of touring players and school comedies in the city. The following essay demonstrates the unique role played by Lincoln Cathedral and reveals an alternative view of looking at who bestowed financial gifts on travelling players during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Iang Evangelivm Ul-Kadus Menjurat kapada Marcum

The topic of this article is the Malay gospel of Mark of 1629–1630 that was recently discovered in the library of Lincoln Cathedral in England, a gospel translated by Albert Corneliszoon Ruyl, employee of the VOC . Ruyl’s gospels of Matthew and Mark are the earliest attested Bible translations in Malay. This article discusses the question of why the VOC financed the printing of translations of the Bible and other religious literature in the East, what kind of Malay Ruyl used in Mark, and what kind of translation Ruyl made. Ruyl was a very pragmatic translator who used Malay religious terminology from Hindu-Buddhist, Islamic, and Catholic traditions, including the term Allah for God. Finally, this article discusses the academic and societal importance of the first Malay gospels of Ruyl, which, after many centuries, became newly relevant to Indonesian and Malaysian faith communities in the context of religious, legal, and political conflicts about the ownership of the word Allah .

‘The face of the one who is making for Jerusalem’: The Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral and Joy1

This paper examines the Angel Choir of Lincoln Cathedral (c. 1256–80) from the perspective of two interrelated concepts: the heavenly Jerusalem and joy. Building on previous scholarly discussions of the choir’s unusual creativity and profusion of organic and iconographic decoration, it traces connections between the choir and the rich corpus of writing on the joys of the heavenly Jerusalem. In juxtaposition with the hagiography of St Hugh, this opens a valuable seam of meaning and offers a possible explanation for the choir’s decorative intensity. It also reveals a number of ways, previously unnoted, in which Hugh of Avalon and his spirituality are recalled by the choir built to house his relics.

What Say the Reeds at Runnymede? Magna Carta in Supreme Court History

What Say the Reeds at Runnymede? Magna Carta in Supreme Court History DEREK A. WEBB At Runnymede, at Runnymede, What say the reeds at Runnymede? The lissom reeds that give and take, That bend so far, but never break, They keep the sleepy Thames awake With tales of John at Runnymede.1 Introduction: An 800th Anniversary to Remember On June 15, 2015, lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean commemorated the 800th anniversary of the moment when King John affixed his seal to Magna Carta in Runnymede. In Runnymede that day, Queen Elizabeth, Prince William, and Prime Minister David Cameron appeared before a throng of thousands of British and American lawyers and politicians to commemorate the occasion. The keepers of the four remaining “exemplifications” of the 1215 Magna Carta, The Deans of Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral and the archivists of the British Library, the keepers of the four remaining “exemplifications" of the 1215 Magna Carta, were all on hand. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke on behalfofthe United States. The American Bar Association rededicated its small memorial it had first placed in Runnymede in 1965 for the 750th anniversary celebration. The weekend before the big day, churches throughout the country rang their bells, archers vied against each other in skills competitions, a medieval fair replete with traditional jousting was thrown, and, in a colorful river pageant, a flotilla of boats of all shapes and sizes floated down the Thames River towards Runnymede. And the day before the anniversary itself, a fullscale reenactment of the conflict between King John and the barons was staged in the Runnymede Pleasure Grounds. And in Washington, D.C., that day, the Supreme Court commemorated Magna Carta in the way it often does best: Justices Antonin MAGNA CARTA IN SUPREME COURT HISTORY 211 Scalia and Stephen Breyer argued about its implications for a case in dueling citations to the Great Charter. In Kerry v. Din, the two Justices disagreed about whether a decision by the State Department not to grant a visa to the husband of a U.S. citizen deprived that U.S. citizen of “due process.” And both looked back to Magna Carta to help them understand the contours of what the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause required in that situation. It was a fitting tribute to Magna Carta that year, as the Justices cited Magna Carta more often in October Term 2014 than in any other single previous term in Supreme Court history.2 A joke that perco­ lated around the Court that year summed it up nicely: “Write Smarta’—Cite the Carta!” The contrast between the commemora­ tions in Runnymede and Washington, D.C., that day illustrates a unique quality of Magna Carta. Magna Carta is impossibly old. The Supreme Court first opened its doors and met for business on February 2,1790, in the Royal Exchange building in New York City. Five hundred seventy-five years before that, King John met with the barons in Runnymede. The time between those two meetings, more than twice the length of time in which the United States itself has existed, reminds us of the sheer, staggering, nearly prehistoric antiquity of Magna Carta, and the relative youth of our own constitutional system. And yet, across nearly a millennium of history, we continue to look back to Magna Carta as the earliest and most totemic symbol of constitutionalism and the rule of law in world history. Despite its antiquity, Magna Carta has managed to reach out from the vast deep ofthe past to exert a modest but ongoing influence on the deliberations of the Court. Indeed, Magna Carta has served as something of a leitmotif throughout Supreme Court history. Whenever a Justice has reached for a foundational legal text to undergird a claim about the fundamental liberties of individuals and the appropriate limits of government, Magna Carta has been available. As early as 1819, Justice William Johnson observed the easy availability and applicability of Magna Carta for judicial decisions when he wrote, “As to the words from Magna Charta ... after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at length settled down to this...

Reconstructing ‘John Lelamour’s’ Herbal: The Linguistic Evidence

AbstractTwenty years ago, George R. Keiser showed that the mutilated last quire of Lincoln Cathedral, Dean and Chapter Library, MS 91 had once contained a herbal written in Middle English. He discovered moreover that passages parallel to those reconstructable for the Lincoln manuscript appear in other texts, including an important work called John Lelamour’s Herbal after a name mentioned in its explicit, and concluded that Lelamour, an otherwise unknown fourteenth-century schoolmaster from Hereford, was the author of the original treatise that Thornton and other scribes used for the composition of their own herbals. The present article will present ample evidence which will demonstrate that Keiser’s hypothesis on a Herefordian pedigree for this textual family cannot be sustained any longer, and that the origins of this textual family should in fact be sought not too far from Scotland. A linguistic approach based on a collection of scribal modifications, both unconscious and conscious ones (i. e. copy mistakes and changes made on purpose by the several copyists), will be used for the task. This will reveal how linguistic variation between the several manuscripts can be profitably used to reconstruct the dialect of the original translation, which will here consequently be named Northern Middle English Translation of Macer Floridus’s De Viribus Herbarum (or Northern Macer for short).