Chapter XIV

.; all these are quite first-rate in their different lines, and should make us speak with respect of our Saxon ancestors.

Having already noted the Gainsborough group (Chap. XVII.) and the Caistor group (Chap. XX.), we will now make our way towards a third group of pre-Norman towers to be seen on the Louth and Grimsby road.

[Sidenote: NORMAN DWELLINGS]

In Norman times strongholds and churches were built all over the country, and doubtless many domestic houses which did not aspire to be more than ordinary dwelling-places. It is curious how almost entirely these have vanished; one at Boothby Pagnell and three in Lincoln are among the very few left. In Lincoln ‘The Jews’ House,’ ‘Aaron’s House,’ and ‘John of Gaunt’s Stables’ or ‘St. Mary’s Guild’ go back to the beginning of the twelfth century. They none of them would satisfy our modern notions of comfort, but neither do the much later houses, such as the mediæval merchant’s house called “Strangers’ Hall,” in Norwich, which is so interesting and so obviously uncomfortable. When King John of France was confined at Somerby Castle in the fourteenth century he had to import furniture from France to take the place of the benches and trestles which was all that the castle boasted, and to hang draperies and tapestries on the bare walls; and though some of these were supplied him by his captor, comfortable furniture seems to have been not even dreamt of at that time in England.

[Sidenote: ROOD-SCREENS]

For the churches the Normans did surprisingly well, as far as the building and stonework went, but the beautiful woodwork, which is the glory of our Lincolnshire marsh churches, is mostly the work of the men of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. We see this mediæval workmanship sometimes in the bench ends and stalls and miserere seats, but most notably in such of the rood screens as have escaped the successive onslaughts made on them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whilst the shameful neglect of the eighteenth and the shocking ignorance of both clergy and laity in that and the first part of the nineteenth century, have swept away much that was historically of the utmost interest, and which the better informed and more responsible guardians of the churches to-day would have preserved and treasured. This mediæval woodwork is found most frequently in the more remote parts of the country. The best rood loft I have ever seen is in a little church in Wales, near Towyn, and some of the finest rood screens with canopies are in the churches of Devon; of these, Mr. Hubert Congreve, in his paper contributed to the Worcester Archæological Society, notes that at _Stoke-in-Teignhead_ there is one of the fourteenth century, carved in the reign of Richard II. From this the loft has been removed, and it was generally the case that when this was taken away as idolatrous, the screen itself was not objected to.

Many of these screens in the Devon churches have an extremely rich and deep cornice, and they often extend right across the nave and both the aisles. Perhaps the finest of these is in the famous parson Jack Russell’s church at _Swymbridge_. This is of the fifteenth century. From the same source we learn that _Bovey Tracey_ has a similar screen, but it has had to be greatly restored since the Commonwealth destruction, and that _Atherington_ has a lovely screen in the north aisle, with fan-shaped coving springing from figures of angels holding shields. The cornice is delicately carved, and there is some fine canopy work over the parapet, with niches which once held figures of the saints. This screen was originally in the chapel at Umberleigh Manor, and is perhaps the only screen in the county which has never been painted. When I visited lately the quaint little town of _Totnes_ I saw what is most uncommon—a stone screen. This dates from 1479, and richly and beautifully carved, much after the pattern of the screen in the Lady Chapel at Exeter Cathedral.

All this fine mediæval work suffered terribly from the ultra-Protestant mania for iconoclasm which exhibited itself in the reign of Edward VI., in 1547, and again under Elizabeth in 1561. Finally, under the Parliament both in 1643 and 1644, was issued “An ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament for the utter demolishing, removing and taking away of all Monuments of superstition and idolatry.”

This Act provided specifically for the taking away of all altar rails and the levelling of the “Chancel-ground” and the removal of the Communion table from the east end, and the destruction of all stone altars, so that it is always noticeable when we find one such, either in a side chapel or in the pavement, with its five and occasionally six dedication crosses cut on the stone. Norwich has one in which a small black slab bearing the crosses is let into the large altar slab.

[Sidenote: ICONOCLASM]

All images, “representative of the persons of the Trinity or of any Angell or Saint” were to be “utterly demolished,” and all vestments “defaced”; with the quaint proviso that the order should “not extend to any image, picture or coat-of-arms set up or graven onely for a Monument of any King, Prince or Nobleman, or other dead person _which hath not been commonly reputed or taken for a saint_.”

FONTS.

In our English churches the most noticeable bit of mediæval work is in many cases the font, which has often escaped when all the rest of the building inside and out has been defaced by neglect or destroyed by restoration. Much destruction followed on the Reformation, and even in Elizabeth’s reign, in spite of a royal mandate to preserve the old form of baptism “at the font and not with a bason,” attacks were constantly made on the fonts, and especially on the font-covers, which makes the preservation of the _Frieston_ font-cover with a figure of the Virgin Mary on the top very remarkable. We have in the churchwardens’ accounts in various places this contemptuous entry:—

“Item. For takynge doune _ye thynge ower the funt_ XIIᵈ.”

Parliamentarian soldiers went to greater lengths and broke up the font itself in very many churches. The bowls were often cast out or buried in the churchyard. At _Ambleston_ in Wales the font pedestal was only ten years ago found in use by a farmer as a cheese-press, and the bowl on another farm doing duty as a pig-trough.

Still many have escaped with the loss of their carved covers, and how great the loss is can be judged when we see the beauty of such work as the cover which we still have at Ufford in Suffolk, eighteen feet high, or the similar ones at _Grantham_ and _Fosdyke_ and _Frieston_ in our own county, or at _Ewelme_ (Oxon), and _Thaxted_ (Essex), and again in Suffolk at _Sudbury St. Gregory_ and _Hepworth_, and one at _Thirsk_ in Yorkshire which rises to the height of twenty-one feet. Sometimes the cover takes the form of a canopy, as at _Swymbridge_ in Devon, and more beautifully in that erected by Bishop Cosin at _Durham_ in 1663. The _Sudbury_ font-cover has doors in it, as we see in the Jacobean cover in _Burgh-le-Marsh_ church, and in the beautiful modern cover at _Brant Broughton_, both in Lincolnshire.

[Sidenote: FONTS, SAXON AND NORMAN]

There were at one time many Saxon fonts, most of which were swept away and replaced in a different form by the Normans. One of the earliest we have is in _St. Martin’s Church, Canterbury_, the lower part of which, built of twenty-eight wedge-shaped stones, is Saxon or Romano-British, the upper part being Norman put on to heighten it, with the old Saxon rim crowning it, though by some this is called Transitional. This font was inside the church when King Ethelbert was baptised by St. Augustine in the ninth century. But we get back still further when we find runic inscriptions, as on the wonderful square tub font at _Bridekirk_, Cumberland, and on the little low hollowed stone at _Bingley_, Yorkshire, attributed to the eighth century, and having three lines of runes which are read thus:—

“Eadbert, King, ordered to hew this dipstone for us, pray you for his soul.” He reigned 737 to 758, when as Æthelred King of Mercia in 675, had done at Bardney Abbey in the previous century, he resigned the crown and took the tonsure. _Mellor_, in Derbyshire, has a Saxon font, but without inscription.

The remarkable font at _Bag Enderby_, Lincolnshire (_see_ Chap. XXX.), with its Scandinavian myth, is unique among fonts, though it has counterparts on many of the pre-Norman crosses in Northumbria. The font at _Deerhurst_, Gloucestershire, is also a very early one, and covered with Celtic scroll-work, this, though of the same kind, is bigger than the usual plain little stone tubs which, as a rule, mark the Saxon period.

The Norman fonts also are mainly of tub form, but often ornamented with cable moulding and arcading, as at _Silk Willoughby_, Lincolnshire.

[Sidenote: LINCOLNSHIRE FONTS]

The lead fonts, twenty-nine of which are in existence, are all Norman; most of these have arcading all round and figures within the arches; perhaps the best is at _Dorchester_, Oxon, showing the apostles. But at _Brookland_, in Romney Marsh, there is a double row of arcading with the signs of the Zodiac above, and figures cleverly emblematic of the months below. At _Childrey_, Berks, the figures are without arcading and represent bishops with crosiers, all quaintly of the same attenuated shape, and in very high relief. Berkshire and Oxon have several of these lead fonts, and Gloucestershire exhibits six, all cast in the same mould; Lincolnshire has only one at _Barnetby-le-Wold_, which is noticeable, however, as being the largest of them all, thirty-two inches in diameter; that at _Brookland_ being the deepest with sixteen inches.

The _Tournai_ group of black marble or basalt with thick central pedestal and four corner shafts, of which that at Winchester is the best, are described under Lincoln, in Chap. XIX. This form of support is pretty general through the thirteenth century, often with much massive carving and ornamentation on bowl and shafts, until the shafts developed, in some cases, into an open arcade round the central pillar, as best seen at _Barnack_, Northants. The tallest fonts and finest in design are of the fifteenth century, and are mostly octagonal pedestal fonts and frequently mounted on steps as in the churches of the Marsh near Boston, _e.g._, _Benington_ and _Leverton_. Some bowls are found with seven panels as at _Hundleby_, six as at _Ewerby_, _Heckington_ and _Sleaford_, nine as at _Orleton_, in Herefordshire, and at _Bigby_, in Lincolnshire, thus giving eight panels for figures, and allowing one to be placed against a wall or pillar; and ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen are not unknown. In our own county we have mentioned the font in nearly every case when describing a church, and will only now recall a few instances of the best. In addition to the _Tournai_ font at _Thornton Curtis_ and that of lead at _Barnetby_, the finest specimens of Early English will be found at _Thorpe St. Peter’s_ near Wainfleet—a very chaste design; the supporting shafts are gone, but the capitals show heads of bishop, king, and knight, and a knot of flowers supporting the bowl; and at _Weston_, near Spalding, where is one of singularly graceful form, standing on steps with a broad platform for the priest. At _Thurlby_, near Bourne, is a tub of Barnack stone which has pilasters all round it, and curious carved work dividing the panels, the whole being set on four square stone legs.

Of Decorated fonts, _Ewerby_ is remarkable; hexagonal, with sides going straight down from the bowl, each panel representing a window with tracery, tending in design to Perpendicular, so that it probably dates from the end of the fourteenth century. The windows are filled with diaper work, and surrounded by a border of quatre-foils and flowing foliage. Other good Decorated fonts are at _Strubby_ and _Maltby-le-Marsh_ and _Huttoft_, all near Alford. The Perpendicular period is best seen at _Covenham St. Mary_, _North Somercotes_, _Bourne_, _Pinchbeck_, _Leverton_, and _Benington_.

It is on the panels of the handsome fifteenth century fonts that the seven sacraments are carved, leaving one panel for any appropriate subject, and these panels are often real pictures of the methods of the time, and form most valuable records; the pedestal usually has its panels filled with Apostolic figures.

[Sidenote: EAST ANGLIAN FONTS]

It is curious that nearly all the thirty “seven sacrament fonts” in the kingdom are found in East Anglia; those of _Walsoken_, _Little Walsingham_, _East Dereham_, and _Great Glenham_ in Norfolk, and _Westall_ in Suffolk, are specially fine. And the churchwarden’s accounts for _East Dereham_ show that no expense was spared on the making; the total of £12 14_s._ 2_d._, being equivalent to over £200 of our money.

The sacraments depicted are Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, The Eucharist, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. But to return to our own county.

_Utterby_, near Louth, has an open channel to drain the water off from the font into the churchyard—a very uncommon feature.

_Wickenby_, near Wragby, retains the old bar and staple to secure the font cover, at the time when the fonts were all ordered to be locked to prevent possibility of the water being tainted by magic. “Water bewitched” is a familiar expression for weak tea. I wonder if it comes from this.

Of later fonts the quaintest is in _Moulton_ church, near Spalding, and now disused. It represents the trunk of a tree carved in stone, the branches going round the bowl and the serpent round the trunk, with Adam and Eve, rather more than half life size, discussing the apple. It dates from 1830, and seems to be a copy of one in the church of St. James’, Piccadilly, said to have been carved in marble by Grinling Gibbons.

Mr. Francis Bond, in his charming book on porches and fonts, says that some of the fonts in our most ancient Lincolnshire churches, _Cabourn_, _Waith_, _Scartho_ and _Clee_, look older than they are by reason of their coarse workmanship. He notes that the cover of the _Skirbeck_ font belonged to a larger one destroyed by the Puritans, the present font having been put up in 1662.

[Sidenote: WOODEN FONTS]

The material of all the fonts described above is either stone or lead. We have very few of any other material, but of these by far the most interesting are those made of solid oak, of which specimens are extant at _Dinas-Mawddwy_ (pronounced Mouthy) and _Evenechtyd_ in Wales. But one might go on long enough talking about fonts, and I would only urge readers to go themselves and study them, and if they would pick out a few of the finest they should visit the fonts and font covers we have mentioned, and especially such typical fonts as are to be found at _Winchester_ and _Durham_, at _Walsoken_ in Norfolk, at _Fishlake_ in Yorkshire, and _Bridekirk_ in Cumberland, whenever they happen to be in those neighbourhoods.

The worst of fonts is that they are so easily removable. Even in such out-of-the-way places as _Crowle_ the font has not remained, though the Norman south wall with its beautiful doorway is in quite good repair.

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