The Discovery of an Anglo-Saxon Painted Figure at St Mary's Church, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire

2006 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 66-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Bagshaw ◽  
Richard Bryant ◽  
Michael Hare
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Wall Paintings ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Structural Context ◽  
The Subject ◽  
East End ◽  
Significant Addition ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Church

The church of St Mary at Deerhurst in Gloucestershire is well known for its Anglo-Saxon fabric and sculpture. In 1993 a painting of an Anglo-Saxon figure was discovered, and in 2002 it became possible for the authors to study the painting in detail.The painting is on one of a pair of triangular-headed stone panels set high in the internal east wall of the church. The discovery provides a significant addition to the tiny corpus of known Anglo-Saxon wall paintings. The identity of the standing, nimbed figure remains elusive, but the figure can be tentatively dated on art historical grounds to the middle to late tenth century.The authors also explore the structural context of the painting. It is suggested that in the first half of the ninth century the church had an upper floor over the central space (the present east end), and that this floor possibly extended over the whole church. At the east end, there were internal openings from this upper floor into a high-level space in the polygonal apse. At a later date two of these openings were blocked and covered by stone panels, one of which is the subject of this paper. It is possible that the panels flanked a high-level altar or an opening through which a shrine, set on a high-level floor in the apse, could be viewed.

The Position of the Altar in Early Anglo-Saxon Churches

1973 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. M. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
North African ◽  
Similar Treatment ◽  
African Churches ◽  
East End ◽  
The Church

SummaryA survey of the structural and contemporary literary evidence for the position of the altar in Anglo-Saxon churches before the Viking invasions of the ninth century indicates that it was not at the east end of the church but in a more central position. This was sometimes near the east end of the nave and sometimes in the eastern compartment. As an indication of how this practice may have arisen in England, references are given to evidence for similar treatment of the altar in Continental and North African churches at somewhat earlier dates.

scholarly journals Illustrations of damnation in late Anglo-Saxon manuscripts

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 231-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Semple
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Late Ninth Century ◽  
Religious Devotion ◽  
Divine Punishment

‘Many tribulations and hardships shall arise in this world before its end, and they are heralds of the eternal perdition to evil men, who shall afterwards suffer eternally in the black hell for their sins.’ These words, composed by Ælfric in the last decade of the tenth century, reflect a preoccupation in the late Anglo-Saxon Church with perdition and the infernal punishments that awaited sinners and heathens. Perhaps stimulated in part by anxiety at the approach of the millennium, both Ælfric and Wulfstan (archbishop of York, 1002–23) show an overt concern with the continuation of paganism and the evil deeds of mankind in their sermons and homilies. Their works stress the terrible judgement that awaited sinners and heathens and the infernal torment to follow. The Viking raids and incursions, during the late eighth to ninth and late tenth centuries, partially inspired the great anxiety apparent in the late Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical leadership. Not only were these events perceived as divine punishment for a lack of religious devotion and fervour in the English people, but the arrival of Scandinavian settlers in the late ninth century may have reintroduced pagan practice and belief into England.

The Old English Benedictine Rule: writing for women and men

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 147-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohini Jayatilaka
Keyword(s):  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Monastic Reform ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
Benedictine Reform ◽  
The Status ◽  
Linguistic Level

The Regula S. Benedicti was known and used in early Anglo-Saxon England, but it was not until the mid-tenth-century Benedictine reform that the RSB became established as the supreme and exclusive rule governing the monasteries of England. The tenth-century monastic reform movement, undertaken by Dunstan, Æthelwold and Oswald during the reign of Edgar (959–75), sought to revitalize monasticism in England which, according to the standards of these reformers, had ceased to exist during the ninth century. They took as a basis for restoring monastic life the RSB, which was regarded by them as the main embodiment of the essential principles of western monasticism, and in this capacity it was established as the primary document governing English monastic life. By elevating the status of the RSB as the central text of monastic practice in England and the basis of a uniform way of life the reformers raised for themselves the problem of ensuring that the RSB would be understood in detail by all monks, nuns and novices, whatever their background. Evidence of various attempts to make the text accessible, both at the linguistic level and at the level of substance, survives in manuscripts dating from the mid-tenth and eleventh centuries; the most important of these attempts is a vernacular translation of the RSB.

The Ninth-Century Polychrome Decoration at St Mary's Church, Deerhurst

2008 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 109-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gem ◽  
Emily Howe ◽  
Richard Bryant
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Technical Analysis ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Special Regard ◽  
Original Scheme ◽  
The Church ◽  
Contemporary Context

This paper presents the results of a detailed analysis of surviving paintwork on the chancel arch, the carved animal heads and the figurative panel in the west porch at the Anglo-Saxon church of St Mary, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, UK. The context of the polychromy in relation to the ninth-century fabric of the church is assessed. The detailed results of the technical analysis are presented. The original scheme of painted decoration is described, including the newly discovered plant scroll painted on the arch. The results of the examination are evaluated, setting the polychrome decoration of the ninth-century church into its contemporary context in England and on the Continent, with special regard to both the technical and the artistic aspects.

Apostolic Monasticism at Tokalı Kilise in Cappadocia

1985 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 57-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Cutler
Keyword(s):  
Alluvial Soil ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
Wall Paintings ◽  
Relative Chronology ◽  
The Church

At least as early as the day, nearly eighty years ago, when Hans Rott gained access to “Doghalikilise” through an entrance reduced to a narrow cleft by heaps of rubble and alluvial soil, the monument has been recognized as the largest and most important in Göreme. Many of the wall-paintings of both the Old and the New Church at Tokalı were published by Jerphanion who correctly appreciated the relative chronology of these successive phases. This pioneering and still fundamental survey was supplemented by the excellent photographs of Jeannine Le Brun in Restle's corpus of 1967. In the same year, Cormack suggested on stylistic and iconographic grounds a probable date of ca. 913–920 for the decoration of the Old Church, a period little less than half a century before its relatively gigantic successor was cut transversely across its eastern end. Now, within a year or two, Tokalı Kilise will receive the ultimate accolade of monographic treatment by Ann Wharton Epstein in a book which treats the church as a cultural whole and finally recognizes the frescoes in the New Church as the supreme achievement of Byzantine wall-painting to survive from the tenth century.

Repton and the Vikings

Antiquity ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 66 (250) ◽  
pp. 36-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Biddle ◽  
Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle
Keyword(s):  
Burial Mound ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
River Bank ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
East End ◽  
The Church

In 873 the Viking Great Army took winter quarters at the Anglo-Saxon monastery of Repton in the heart of Mercia. Excavations 1974–88 found their D-shaped earthwork on the river bank, incorporated in the stone church. Burials of Viking type were made at the east end of the church, and an existing building was cut down and converted into the chamber of a burial mound containing at least 249 individuals. Here is a first account of the evidence for the Vikings at Repton in and after the campaigning season of 873-4.

An Unknown Late Anglo-Saxon Text About old St Peter's in Rome

1990 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-117
Author(s):  
Veronica Ortenberg
Keyword(s):  
Present Note ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
English History ◽  
Short Text ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

Ms Royal 2. B.V. in the British Library, London, is a tenth-century Psalter from Winchester, possibly from Nunnaminster. On the last folios of this MS (189-190) were added in the late tenth century, miscellaneous computistical entries, which include the years ofChrist, the ages of the world, the ages and generations, the numbering and reckoning of years and the number of years from the Creation to the foundation of Rome. Two texts, the ‘De longitudine mundi’ (fol. 189) and ‘Longitudo, latitudo et altitudo templi et tabernaculum (sic)’ (fols. 189randv) precede, and another, ‘De area Noe’ (fol. 189v) follows a short text entitled ‘De aedificatio (sic) ecclesie sancti Petri apostoli’ at folio 189v.With the exception of this last, all these texts are also found in a ninth-century MS, British Library, Cotton Vespasian B.VI (fols. 106-70). To the best of my knowledge, the ‘De aedificatio[ne]’ does not exist in any other manuscript, and there is no known source for it. The present note aims solely at bringing this text to light and providing an edition of it; an examination of its implications for English history and architecture will be provided elsewhere.

St. Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber: Excavation and Structural Study, 1978–81

1982 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warwick Rodwell ◽  
Kirsty Rodwell
Keyword(s):  
Structural Study ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Free Standing ◽  
Medieval Church ◽  
Four Seasons ◽  
Complex Development ◽  
Considerable Detail ◽  
The Church

SummaryFour seasons of excavation and structural study in St. Peter's Church have revealed a complex sequence, beginning with domestic occupation of the Pagan Saxon period, followed by a Middle Saxon settlement enclosure with adjacent cemetery of Christian character. In the later tenth century a three-celled turriform church was built in the cemetery, after the exhumation of graves covering its intended site. Related features in the cemetery include the foundation of a large free-standing cross, a group of wells and an oven, probably for baking bread, all grouped to the east of the chancel. Some of the pre-Conquest graves yielded evidence of probable barkwood coffins built with clenches and roves, while some twenty further graves contained rectangular timber coffins in varying states of preservation. Several were in near-perfect condition and have yielded exceptionally good evidence for techniques and tools employed by Anglo-Saxon carpenters.The extant Saxon and medieval fabric of the church has been recorded in considerable detail, providing an insight into building and scaffolding methods, particularly of the tenth century. Excavation has revealed the complex development of the medieval church and its internal layout; and 1,326 graves, spanning a millennium, have been investigated.

scholarly journals XIII. On the word “Mass:” By John Bruce, Esq. In a Letter to Thomas Amyot, Esq. F.R.S. Treasurer

Archaeologia ◽  
1827 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 113-116
Author(s):  
John Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Subject ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The derivation of the word “Mass” having lately been the subject of our conversation, I am induced to offer you the following Remarks upon it, from which I think it will appear that the word, as used to signify the service of the Roman Catholic Church, is wholly distinct, both in derivation and sense, from “mas” the adjunct to Christ, &c. in the words, “Christmas,” “Candlemas,” “Lammas,” &c. In the former sense it seems to come from the Latin “Missa,” and in the latter from the Anglo-Saxon “mærre;” the one having been used in the early ages of the Church as a word of dismission to the congregation, or a part of it, and the other signifying a feast or solemn festival.

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