Westminster Part I: The Art, Architecture and Archaeology of the Royal Abbey

Warwick Rodwell, Tim Tatton-Brown, Warwick Rodwell, Tim Tatton-Brown

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317248033
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

The British Archaeological Association's 2013 conference was devoted to the study of Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster. It also embraced Westminster School, which was founded at the Reformation in the Abbey precinct. Collectively, these institutions occupy a remarkable assemblage of medieval and later buildings, most of which are well documented. Although the Association had held a conference at Westminster in 1902, this was the first time that the internationally important complex of historic buildings was examined holistically, and the papers published here cover a wide range of subject matter.

Westminster came into existence in the later Anglo-Saxon period, and by the mid-11th century, when Edward the Confessor's great new abbey was built, it was a major royal centre two miles south-west of the City of London. Within a century or so, it had become the principal seat of government in England, and this series of twenty-eight papers covers new research on the topography, buildings, art-history, architecture and archaeology of Westminster's two great establishments — Abbey and Palace.

Part I begins with studies of the topography of the area, an account of its Roman-period finds and an historiographical overview of the archaeology of the Abbey. Edward the Confessor's enigmatic church plan is discussed and the evidence for later Romanesque structures is assembled for the first time. Five papers examine aspects of Henry III's vast new Abbey church and its decoration. A further four cover aspects of the later medieval period, coronation, and Sir George Gilbert Scott's impact as the Abbey's greatest Surveyor of the Fabric. A pair of papers examines the development of the northern precinct of the Abbey, around St Margaret's Church, and the remarkable buildings of Westminster School, created within the remains of the monastery in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Part II part deals with the Palace of Westminster and its wider topography between the late 11th century and the devastating fire of 1834 that largely destroyed the medieval palace. William Rufus's enormous hall and its famous roofs are completely reassessed, and comparisons discussed between this structure and the great hall at Caen. Other essays reconsider Henry III's palace, St Stephen's chapel, the king's great chamber (the 'Painted Chamber') and the enigmatic Jewel Tower. The final papers examine the meeting places of Parliament and the living accommodation of the MPs who attended it, the topography of the Palace between the Reformation and the fire of 1834, and the building of the New Palace which is better known today as the Houses of Parliament.

The Polychromy at Westminster Abbey, 1250–1350¹

HELEN HOWARD and MARIE LOUISE SAUERBERG

Although some technical examination has been undertaken of works at Westminster in the past,² the recent detailed analytical information of a number of important painted schemes from the mid-13th to early 14th centuries at Westminster Abbey (Fig. 1) and Palace of Westminster has provided us for the first time with a body of detailed data from which technical comparisons can be drawn with contemporary work in England and northern Europe. Since 1995, technical studies have been undertaken on the Cosmati pavements (Rodwell, Fig. 1, 159); two fragments of ceiling panels from the Painted Chamber in the Palace; the Retable (Fig. 2); the tomb of Aveline de Forz (d. 1274); the tomb of Edmund Crouchback (d. 1296) (Fig. 3); the Coronation Chair (Fig. 4; see also Rodwell, Fig. 14, 55); the sedilia (Binski and Guerry, Figs 11 and 12, 196 and 198); and the wall-paintings in the Chapel of St Faith (Binski and Guerry, above, Fig. 4) and the south transept (Binski and Guerry, Fig. 5, 186).³ A number of these projects included non-invasive methods of examination and analysis, as well as employing a wide range of sample-based analytical techniques. This paper represents an overview of the current state of research within the context of an ongoing study at the Abbey, which is based on a close collaboration between conservators, conservation scientists, and art historians. It provides information on all recent investigations, focusing on painting on both stone and wood (the only two substrates identified, although evidence for the use of canvas was found and will also be discussed). It also identifies some common denominators, as well as unusual traits, within this diverse group of objects, and contextualizes the findings by comparison with coeval works of art from within Britain and elsewhere in northern Europe. As a preamble to the detailed comparisons of technical data, however, it is important to consider the polychrome context within which many of these objects were meant to be seen. The Appendix provides a summary of analytical data to date.

THE POLYCHROMY OF THE ABBEY’S INTERIOR

SEVERAL authors have commented on what they considered the rich medieval polychromy of the main elevations of the Abbey’s interior.⁴ Yet its former overall appearance and the chronology of the early painted schemes remain somewhat uncertain. There seems, for example, to be no physical evidence for the gilding of the diaper work of the arcade spandrels, as reported by G. G. Scott,⁵ and subsequently much quoted.⁶ Expected traces of polychromy are conspicuously absent from these areas, and furthermore the carving remains crisp, in the manner typical of unpolychromed stone rather than of stonework from which polychromy has been removed.

FIG. 1. Westminster Abbey: the Sacrarium and apse, showing high altar and 19th-century screen
© Dean and Chapter of Westminster

FIG. 2. The Westminster Retable, c. 1269; polychrome wood, 0.96 × 3.33 m
Chris Titmus, Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge

FIG. 3. Tomb of Edmund Crouchback, earl of Lancaster (d. 1296); polychrome stone, c. 3.50 × 6.00 m
© Dean and Chapter of Westminster

The influence of the French on the Abbey building and its contents has long been established. In terms of its polychromy, however, the Abbey of the late 13th and early 14th centuries delivered a restrained English palette. This was an overall harmony of soft-coloured stone punctuated by polychrome details, much as suggested by Webb; in other words, it was quite different in impact from the Sainte-Chapelle, without which the Retable, for instance, could not have been imagined.⁷ The general impression was dominated by stone, mainly Reigate and Purbeck and white-washed walls with faux ashlar. Bright colour and gold only featured locally, in the stained glass, and on the cosmateque pavements and tombs, as well as an ever-growing number of polychrome works of art.

Documentary sources provide some evidence regarding the early decoration of the new church. For example, payments were clearly made to artisans employed to polish the many tall and slender Purbeck marble columns.⁸ These would have been beautifully offset by the pale Reigate stone, whether or not it was white-washed. Payments to Adam the plasterer or whitewasher (‘In stipendiis […] Ade dealbatoris’)⁹ appear regularly in the accounts of the 1250s, with further sums suggesting that the interior walls of the Abbey were also decorated.¹⁰

FIG. 4. The Coronation Chair, c. 1300; polychrome oak, 2.047 × 1.142 × 0.725 m
Chris Titmus, Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge

Physical evidence of faux ashlar on the lower walls was recorded by Scott and Lethaby (Fig. 5).¹¹ While numerous examples of this type of decoration are found elsewhere,¹² none appears to survive in the Abbey.¹³ Yet, the finely painted masonry pattern on both the Crouchback tomb and the sedilia must surely reflect the original appearance of the Abbey’s lower interior walls (Fig. 6). The same might be said of the diaper work in the gable of the Crouchback tomb, which resembles that of the Abbey’s main elevations, and which is gilded; the physical evidence does not bear this out, however. The polychromy found in St Benedict’s Chapel, the only area with paint and gilded diaper work, is of unknown date, and does not reflect an overall polychrome scheme of the early interior.

FIG. 5. (left). Faux ashlar work of the lower wall in Westminster Abbey, as seen and drawn to scale by W. R. Lethaby
Lethaby, Westminster Abbey Re-examined (as n. 4), fig. 119

FIG. 6. (right). Tomb of Edmund Crouchback, detail from the south side showing painted faux ashlar work
Helen Howard

The Exchequer pipe rolls of the period leading up to the reconsecration of the church in 1269 list ‘auro in folio. aimallis. diversis coloribus & aliis necessariis ad picturas voltarum ecclesie supradicte & magne camere Regis’, all for the handsome sum of £68 18s. 9½d.¹⁴ Of particular interest is the specific reference to the decoration of the vaults in the Abbey. However, it is clear that much of the material referred to here was destined for the Great Chamber in the Palace of Westminster,¹⁵ and it cannot be assumed that both interiors would have had equally lavish decoration. Unfortunately, most of the colour remaining in the Abbey itself is all but obscured by later whitewash, or has eroded away. Residues of paint and gilding do survive in situ, most prominently on the large stone sculptures, such as those in the transepts and on the chapter-house Annunciation doorway.¹⁶ The fine shields in the nave, particularly those of Henry Ill’s building, display high-quality painting, which may be original (Fig. 7 A–B). Some details of the carving in the Abbey were painted and gilded, such as capitals and figures in spandrels, and a few examples can still be seen in situ protected by later monuments. Other fine, but fragmentary, examples of this can be seen in the Abbey Museum (Fig. 8 A–B).¹⁷ It therefore seems likely that the sculptures in the spandrels and below the dado were once also decorated.¹⁸

FIG. 7. Westminster Abbey, nave, south aisle, c. 1250, details of carved heads from shields, stone with remains of polychromy
Marie Louise Sauerberg

FIG. 8. Westminster Abbey Museum. A: small carved head, c. 1250, 174 × 114 mm, stone with remains of polychromy. B: small carved foliate fragment, c. 1250, stone with remains of polychromy
Marie Louise Sauerberg

Westminster Abbey provides copious evidence for more expensive stones — such as those employed in the cosmatesque mosaic tombs and floors — being imitated in paint. This practice is well documented in contemporary sources.¹⁹ Thus, the plinth of Aymer de Valence’s tomb was skilfully painted as Purbeck marble with characteristic swirls of light-coloured paint representing shell inclusions, a technique also found on the Aveline and Crouchback tombs. For the lower band beneath St Christopher in the south transept, porphyry is imitated in paint by covering a dark green ground flecked with light spots with an emerald green glaze. Imitation of red porphyry is found, for example, on column bases of the Aveline and Crouchback tombs, on the reverse of the Retable, as well as on the great gable above the St Faith wall-painting. The same stone was imitated in many ways, and a few brushstrokes or dots suggesting the characteristic hallmarks were sufficient to make a particular type recognizable.

Little survives of the original stained glass, and none of it is now in its original setting. The effect was purportedly mostly one of ornamented grisaille work with a few morsels of coloured glass decorated with figurative, geometric or heraldic images (Fig. 9).²⁰ However, original 13th-century flooring, both cosmatesque and tiled, as in St Faith’s Chapel, the Pyx Chamber (Rodwell, Fig. 11, 50) and the chapter-house, survives.²¹

TECHNICAL EXAMINATION OF THE POLYCHROMY

Support

Stone

REIGATE and Caen were the major sources of freestone used by the masons of Henry III, and later by Edward I for the Abbey.²² Other sources are mentioned in the accounts,²³ but preliminary examination indicates a predominance of Reigate wherever stone is used as a support for polychromy.²⁴ Curiously, the sculptures of the Annunciation doorway in the chapter-house were made from two different sources: Gabriel was carved in Caen stone while the Virgin was made of Reigate.²⁵ This difference would not, of course, have been visible once the sculptures were painted. Both are finegrained, homogeneous freestone (that is, they can be worked in any direction) that can be worked with a sharp arris. As such, they were the stones of choice for the medieval masons in London.²⁶ Indeed, the quarries of Reigate were considered so important that they were kept in the possession of the Crown.²⁷

FIG. 9. Westminster Abbey Museum: The Ascension, one of four 13th-century stained-glass panels to survive, ex situ
© Dean and Chapter of Westminster

The wall-paintings in the south transept and St Faith’s Chapel were painted directly onto the regularly coursed ashlar blocks used for building the wal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Abbrevations
• Preface
• The Medieval and Early Tudor Topography of Westminster
• ‘A Fine and Private Place’: The Sarcophagus of Valerius Amandinus and the Origins of Roman Westminster
• The Archaeology of Westminster Abbey: An Historiographical Overview
• Edward the Confessor’s Church at Westminster: An Alternative View
• The Romanesque Monastic Buildings at Westminster Abbey
• Numerical Archaeology: Gleanings from the 1253 Building Accounts of Westminster Abbey Revisited
• The Iconography of Henry III’s Abbey: A Note Towards Elucidation of Themes
• The Cosmati Pavements and their Topographical Setting: Addressing the Archaeological Issues
• Seats, Relics and the Rationale of Images in Westminster Abbey, Henry III to Edward II
• The Polychromy at Westminster Abbey, 1250–1350
• The Virgin Mary and White Harts Great and Small: The 14th-Century Wall-Paintings in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Pew and the Muniment Room
• History and Chronicles at Westminster Abbey, 1250–1450
• The Abbey and Palace as Theatres for Coronation
• The New Work: Aspects of the Later Medieval Fabric of Westminster Abbey
• Sir George Gilbert Scott as Surveyor of Westminster Abbey, 1849–78
• An Historical Sketch of the North Precinct of Westminster Abbey with Special Reference to its Prisons
• Westminster School Buildings, 1630?–1730