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Some of the traces of the patronesses of Kent are faint: an outline on a wall, a line in will, largely unpublished and often hidden under their husband's name.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.
The head and shoulders of the kneeling male on the left of the archway, with what might be the hint of a red beard.
Lindsay Llewellyn-MacDuff
Bishop’s Chaplain, Diocese of Rochester
Extract from Bertha's Daughters: A History of the Church in Kent
This post is part of a series exploring women’s histories through the collections at Rochester Cathedral. Find out more on the Heritage page:
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Fragments of mural paintings date back to the 13th century and collections of portraits of previous bishops and canons.
Exploring the history of the Cathedral as contributed to by women, and items in the Cathedral collections revealing the lives and experiences of women in the past.