Our third Secret Norwich: Heritage After Dark event went down a treat last night with wine, great guests, Norwich-made nibbles and some ground breaking art historical analysis by Dr Margit Thofner.
Guests were witness to Margit's brand new interpretation of the iconography of St Peter Hungate, never heard before. In the enchanting surroundings of this much loved building, now an education space but once the parish church of the famous Paston family, Margit unpicked the thought process behind the angel decoration.
As we all craned our necks at the angels on the hammer beam roof, illuminated by the evening sunshine streaming through the windows, we pondered how parishioners were once encouraged to pray for the souls of the Paston patrons, we considered the connection between the work of the family as lawyers and that of the ancient lawyer Saint Jerome (one of the four Latin fathers), who is depicted on a corbel below, and we wondered whether the Pastons might have viewed this connection as an assistance to their own salvation.
But it was in the crossing of the church, a gorgeous oak vault - unusual in itself in a parish church of this size - that the real revelation came. Margit pointed out the figure of Christ in judgement in a boss at the very centre, flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist, beneath them were four angels which she convincingly argued were the archangels, one clearly being Michael with a cross on his chest, but beneath the angels were what looked like more angels, they had wings after all. Yet with closer inspection and the help of Margit's eagle eye we realised that they weren't angels at all, they were in fact the four Evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) with wings! For those of you who aren't familiar with these things it is highly unusual and one might even say unheard of to depict the evangelists with wings. So why did the Pastons and their sculptors decide do it?
Well, Margit reminded us that this was very much a family church, much rebuilt by the Pastons and with the remains of family members beneath the floor. She argued that this space, just before the altar, was supposed to be the place of final judgement where the family would have lain to face their maker before burial. To ensure salvation, something every medieval person sought with fervor, the Pastons had constructed the surest path to heaven that they could by developing a particularly strong visual relationship with God's messengers, the angels.
This had started by creating an association between angels and Pastons in the nave, some bearing the family crest and in one case a book, consolidating the relationship with their own scholarly practice and godliness (only reinforced by the presents of St Jerome and the other fathers of the church, as mentioned earlier). They made the connection explicit in the crossing by giving god's messengers on earth, the Evangelists, a very definite association with god's messengers in heaven, the angels. They chose the archangels rather than other orders because of their particularly close relationship with God. So that when their bodies lay beneath that Judgement scene above, the prayers of their relatives would be given a direct line of communication, via the winged evanlgelists, up through the archangels to Mary (the best intercessor of all) at Christ's side and then to Christ himself who would judge the soul, they hoped favourably, of the family member who had just passed on.
As the light dwindled and we all nodded as the penny dropped, still craning our necks to the oak ceiling, we stood transfixed by the story. Margit reminded us that the angels might also be an expression of the Paston's dedication to the 'true' church, for reasons that have been argued before about East Anglian angel roofs. But this particular set of iconography really did seem to fit her suggestions. We finally heard about the terrible smashing and crashing of William Dowsing and his helpers who took down so many angels across the region. If William had had half an idea just how strongly the Pastons felt about their own icons perhaps he would have torn them down too. Lucky for us, he did not.
Once we'd come round, we chatted about it over wine and nibbles and were then treated to a private tour by Margit, also trustee of Hungate, of the new rood screen exhibition.
Who needs to go to the continent for the gems of medieval Europe when we've got so many on our doorstep!? Go and check out the angels for yourselves, Hungate is open:
10-4 on all Saturdays and 2-4 on all Sundays until early November.
They also have some special talks on for the exhibition.
In the meantime we'll need a month to recover before the next gem when Nick Groves delights us all with his thoughts on why St Stephens was built at the dawn of the Reformation. For information and booking check our website. http://livingnorwich.co.uk/events/
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