Medieval Lady Chapel mural

Medieval Lady Chapel mural

March 04, 2021

Bishop’s Chaplain Lindsay Llewellyn-MacDuff discusses the medieval Lady Chapel mural in an extract from Bertha's Daughters: A History of the Church in Kent.

Some of the traces of the patronesses of Kent are faint: an outline on a wall, a line in will, largely unpublished and often hidden under their husband's name. Sometimes we see traces of the woman who enabled the book in the marginalia of the same. Sometimes we see traces in the architecture of a city, reminders, for example, of the Queen who enabled the cathedral in its layout in relation to her own church (go and stand in front of the door to St Martin's in Canterbury and see how it lines up with Queningate and the Cathedral).

On the east wall of the South transept, can be found the faded remains of a wall painting of two people either side of the blind arch, a man and a woman, facing each other, kneeling in prayer. It's often assumed that they are husband and wife, although we don't know their names or their relationship. It is she who has her face turned to the onlooker, not the man kneeling opposite her. She is the one engaging the viewer in her vision of heaven. She is dressed in appropriately humble garb: a simple green frock, with her hair and neck covered by a wimple and veil. She kneels, hands outstretched in prayer, with an open book in front of her on a lectern.

3D model of east wall of the South Nave Transept featuring the faded remains of an extensive figurative mural. Surviving designs are also found on the inside of the arch.

Little can be seen of the rest of the mural from the floor, but we have a painting, a copy, made a hundred years ago, that give us a clue what it might once have looked like.

Tristram’s full reconstruction identifies at least three tiers of twelve figures between the level of triforium and clerestory. The angels at the very top of the arch are burning incense. The smoke is seen as a symbol of the prayer of the faithful rising to heaven.

To the left of the censing angels, the Angel Gabriel holds a scroll and gestures towards the Virgin Mary opposite in a traditional Annunciation scene. This watercolour reconstruction was produced by Earnest William Tristram at the same time as that of the wider scheme. This part of the reconstruction is based entirely on the surviving scratches in the plaster used as the original artist’s setting-out lines.

Tristram’s watercolour doesnt quite do justice to the vivid blue adorning a faint Mary that can be seen from a close-up inspection, similiar to that decorating the corbel depicting Mary above.

To the left of Gabriel, below two unidentified figures, St Margaret is trampling a dragon that can barely be discerned even in the watercolour. According to the Golden Legend, a powerful Roman Governor asked to marry Margaret, but demanded that she renounce Christianity. Upon her refusal, she was cruelly tortured and swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon. She escaped when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards.

On the right of the picture, beyond the unnamed woman, was a picture of Catherine of Alexandria, identifiable by her surviving wheel. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar who became a Christian around the age of 14. Sustained by a dove and angels sent from heaven during her confinement and torture, she converted hundreds of people to Christianity before their own marytom. Catherine later declined the marriage proposal of the Roman Emperor Maxentius declaring her spouse was Jesus Christ, to whom she had consecrated her virginity. Sentenced to death by breaking wheel, it shattered on her touch, and instead she was beheaded around the age of 18.

Including images of patrons was common in medieval Christian art. Today only the right-hand patron can still clearly be seen.

If the archway framed an altar, then our kneeling lady would have been looking at the presiding priest with the elevated sacrament, much like Joan Burghersh's tomb. Both the kneeling figures were framed by painted vaulted arches. The whole construction was held together, visually, by vaults and pillars, as if to suggest a great extension to the Cathedral beyond the wall into the realm of heaven. There is not – and never was – anything remotely comparable to this down the road at Canterbury.

It's hard to date paintings of this nature, but what we have of the dating of the creation of the blind arch and of the original Lady Chapel in the South Transept, put this mural somewhere between 1240 and 1322, perhaps a little later but not much. During this time the cult of William of Perth is just taking off. There's civil unrest during the 13th century (two civil wars, in fact), but the cathedral still manages to flourish on the back of the income from pilgrims. The time window for this mural closes just before the first wave of the Black Death hits Rochester in 1349.

That this anonymous woman made it onto the wall of the cathedral is in fact extraordinary. Compare Rochester with her nearest relation, Canterbury, a cathedral of some size with no contemporary women at all on the walls. The only women painted on these walls are the ones playing necessary supporting roles in the story of a (male) saint, or saints themselves. Not even in the crowd scenes are there any incidental women. Even the few women that there are, are without exception the only women in the scene. Nowhere are there two women together. Our Rochester lady on the other hand is surrounded by female saints. With the exception of probably-but-not-necessarily-her-husband, the angel Gabriel plus choir, and some lions, it is a wall of women. On this wall of women, this wall of saints, it is our praying lady who gazes out of the picture, not her male partner. She is its centre, the creator of its energy. This is certainly unparalleled in Kent, and I suspect in England.

Now look at who has been chosen to surround her. Both Catherine and Margaret were two of the three principal saints among the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints considered to be particularly efficacious intercessors. Margaret was the woman's woman, a patron of women in childbirth (at the height of her cult, she rivalled the Virgin Mary in popularity, and there were more churches named for her than for the mother of Jesus¹). Catherine, tellingly, was the patron of, among other things, scholars and in particular female scholars (she died because she won an argument against 50 top-notch philosophers). Let me remind you at this point that our nameless wall lady is kneeling in front of an open book. Then add the fact that the third, and principal saint, Mary, is portrayed at the angel Gabriel's Annunciation to her. In mediaeval iconography, the Annunciation was consistently depicted with Mary beside an open book (steeping herself in the word before becoming his home for nine months). Our kneeling lady has been drawn echoing the Virgin Mary, beside the patron saint of female scholars, with the patron of mothers, kneeling in prayer and/or study. Whoever our kneeling gentleman is, he's not the focus of this painting. This whole wall revolves around the woman in prayer. The most likely explanation is that she is a patron, and a significant one, at that. There weren't many options open to a woman in the 13th century to get this kind of acclaim without leaving considerable evidence behind her. Even if she funded the mural herself, she must have built up some considerable credibility in the abbey for it to be permitted. Unfortunately comparatively little documentary evidence remains of Rochester Priory, so there is no certainty concerning the identity of this woman, but there is one important clue. Recent explorations of the mural at height, in a fashion unavailable to our Tristram a hundred years ago, have revealed more about her companion. The gentleman kneeling in prayer opposite our patroness sports what may be a gold leaf crown, and the suggestion of a red beard.

The head and shoulders of the kneeling male on the left of the archway, with what might be the hint of a red beard.

This is the point where we enter the realm of speculation, but bear with me. William II, the son of man who showed up at Battle with an army and a grudge concerning who Edward the Confessor may or may not have declared to be his heir, was often known as William Rufus and it’s usually assumed this was because of the colour of his hair. This William Rufus has left a couple of charters in the cathedral archives, both of which mention Countess Goda² as a significant benefactress, “confirming³” Goda’s gift of significant lands and a book of the Gospels. She is, in fact, the only woman in the cathedral records to be mentioned making a gift entirely in her own name rather than coupled with her husband. Countess Goda was the daughter of King Ethelred (and thus the niece to King Edmund the martyr and to Edith of Kemsing who we’ll come to later) and Emma of Normandy, who had a reputation for intelligence and education. She was also, therefore, sister to Edward the Confessor (feast day: 13 October). We know that the commemoration of her as a donor took place annually with literal bells and figurative whistles. The lands she gave provided the cathedral with a significant income, but perhaps of more interest to us in relation to this mural is the book that she gave which bears her name. At the time of the construction of the Lady Chapel and the design of the mural, the Cathedral's library and records were being rebuilt after they were trashed repeatedly during the 13th century by war and fire. One of the library's most valuable manuscripts, Customale Roffense, was added during this time, as well as a significant Bible commentary by the same hand (one John de Westerham). Moreover, we have the beginning of some serious scholarship among the monks of Rochester from the late 1320s, with the first monks being sent to Oxford to study. We know that a significant drive for the scholarly culture of the Priory was to establish their pre-conquest credibility and legitimacy, underlining the Priory’s links to the early Christian kings of Kent, Mercia and Wessex. I have pointed out, have I not, Goda’s royal, and indeed saintly, bloodline? Goda gospel book was originally in a bejewelled cover and it seems likely that the text influenced subsequent gospel manuscripts at Rochester, having as it does a number of distinctive readings. Her book was important enough to the Cathedral Priory that early in its history some anonymous scribe added her name to it (“belongs to Church at Rochester, through Countess Goda”). It’s one of only four books listed in the Rochester collection as a “textus”, one of only two to survive to this day. Like the other surviving textus (Roffensis) this is described as textus de ecclesiae (Church) rather than the more usual textus de claustro (cloister). Textus sets it apart as a precious text; de ecclesiae suggests that it was kept, not in the library or the scriptorium, but in the church proper, in a place of honour. On the altar of the Lady Chapel, perhaps, in line with the gaze of the lady looking out the picture? In truth, we do not know for sure who this lady was, although Goda is a good candidate. That such a woman, who made enough of an impact on the cathedral to have a wall dedicated to her, has left little or no trace in the written record demonstrates the invisibility of so many of these women in history. Even Goda we know very little about despite her wealth, probable learning and her aristocracy, despite even her considerable responsibilities as a landowner.⁵ Women up and down Kent were supporting artists, scholars, priests, monks and nuns in the service of God. We just don't have their names.

Lindsay Llewellyn-MacDuff

Bishop’s Chaplain, Diocese of Rochester

Extract from Bertha's Daughters: A History of the Church in Kent

Footnotes

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1 including one just up the road from Rochester Cathedral

2 a.k.a. – You guessed it – Godgifu, Godgyfu, and Godiva (no, not the naked horseback lady, although they were near contemporaries).

3 it was not unheard of for legacies at this time to take a couple of "detours" on their way to their destination, whilst still being considered a gift of the original owner. Goda’s property clearly spent a period of half a century or so benefiting the new Royal Family, before landing where she had intended it.

4 a favourite of Edward the Confessor, and, who knows, possible rival to the throne.

5 Of further weight to her identification with the Wall Lady, is the fact that she founded a church on her estates in London (part of her legacy to the Cathedral) which was dedicated to Mary.

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