averilburystedmunds: Autumn Flares and Angel Roofs

Abbey Gardens this week.

Virginia creeper adorning
a Bury building.

As the lovely colours on my long roof terrace fade into October ghosts and I dither about watering, so my eyes notice increasingly, yellow-red Autumn foliage flaring among the green as I enjoy my early morning walk. The beauty of leaves growing old is always a delight to witness and especially beautiful when seen in Autumnal sunshine; bright and warm enough; unlike the summer’s heat and dazzle. To stand beneath a canopy of green is a gift but similarly, beneath an arch of branches adorned with the saffron, russet and scarlet of its dying leaves’ final pageant, reminds one of Nietzsche’s ‘season of the soul.’ And the solitary observer somehow gains the best reward. I recently came across, and only then remembered, John Donne’s wonderful lines:

And remembering that, from the upper slopes of ageing, I savour gratefully the sentiment!

St Mary's nave with hammer beam roof and
eleven pairs of life-sized angels.

And now to another subject which has caught my eye; the Angel Roofs of East Anglia of which I had not heard until I went into St Mary’s nearby, a week ago to have a real look at the magnificent interior. The roof did not catch my attention until one of the volunteers turned on the lights and all was dimly revealed. Several hundred angel roofs were built between 1395 and the 1530s, and of these over 170 survive including some which have been defaced during and after the Reformation. Virtually all are in churches, and most are in East Anglia. By definition, all feature wooden carvings of angels though there is significant variation in size and detail. They are inaccessible, virtually immovable, hard to see and still harder to photograph, and thus their beauty and craftsmanship, masterpieces of both mediaeval sculpture and engineering, do not have a wide contemporary audience. They are, in fact, overlooked, neglected and almost hidden national art treasures

“Mediaeval religion was intensely visual.” My recently discovered ‘bible’ of angel roofs [details below] reminds the reader that pre-Reformation churches blazed with colour and images for worshippers who chiefly could not read or could not afford the rare, expensive manuscript books if they could read. Wall paintings illustrated the rewards of virtue and the perils of vice while stained glass presented angels, saints, the Holy Family, and niches held devotional statues. The rood, the depiction of the Crucifixion with Mary and St John, was placed high on the chancel arch in every church and angel roofs, both as ornament and often roof support, fitted perfectly into this colourful mediaeval pageantry.

The first, and most magnificent angel roof was in Westminster Hall, designed and built by Hugh Herland, the master carpenter to Richard 11, between 1393 and 1398. It is also the first known example of a hammer beam roof. This “staggering masterpiece of art and engineering” has never been surpassed and began the fashion for angel roofs and hammer beams which followed. It is suggested that Richard 11 [1377-1399] had a particular fondness for angels which played a prominent part in the iconography of his reign. At his coronation, a mechanical angel bowed down to present him with a golden crown; the Wilton Diptych, a portable altar screen made for Richard features eleven angels; angels adorn his tomb in Westminster Abbey and angels welcomed his reconciliation to the City of London in 1392 when an eyewitness account observed that “angels made great melody and minstrelsy.” Clearly angels importantly conveyed, and justified, Richard’s divinely ordained status. Although it must be remembered that angels were virtually part of everyday mediaeval life with prayers for angelic support commonplace; they were a constant presence in church mystery plays through which religious instruction was presented to the widely illiterate population.

Lithograph of Westminster Hall roof.

Wilton Diptych

From the magnificent beginnings of Westminster Hall grew the fashion for angel roofs and hammer beams [usually but not always created in tandem] in churches which are concentrated in East Anglia. Rimmer [see below] suggests that essential preconditions for such hugely expensive building were money and the will to do the job, plus the technical expertise to accomplish such creations.

The density of church-building in East Anglia reflected the importance of the area [60 churches in Norfolk alone] which was both highly prosperous and one of the most densely populated areas in the country with its successful sheep commerce, fertile agricultural activities and rich coastal waters through which trading partnerships with the Hanseatic League were established. Rich merchants had great power and it was into this very successful region that Hugh Herland, the royal carpenter responsible for the Westminster Hall angel roof, was sent in 1398 to recruit labour for a new harbour at Great Yarmouth. Rimmer suggests it was this single occurrence when Herland would certainly have met and worked with the region’s rich merchants to recruit craftsmen, which planted the seeds of angel roofs with hammer beams in East Anglian churches.