Of Sirens and Centaurs: Medieval Sculpture at Exeter Cathedral

By Alex Woodcock

Of Sirens and Centaurs provides a superb introduction to the fascinating world of medieval sculpture through examples in Exeter Cathedral which, for a Gothic building, contains a surprisingly rich repertoire of such classically-derived monsters. Glacial faces, secretive and obtuse, stare out from corbels and roof bosses; geometrically arranged creatures tessellate into kaleidoscopic patterns; figures are frozen, often in extremes of emotion; mythical monsters lurk. And yet within this otherness there is often a sense of play, of character, of unstable identities, of a world beyond the mask. In this guise the architectural carvings make visible the unseen life-force of the building. Carved into crucial architectural elements these sculptures are the building. The energy they carry is also the energy of the life of their creators and their material and spiritual worlds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Impress Books
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781907605444

Book preview

Of Sirens and Centaurs

Of Sirens and Centaurs introduces the diverse range of images to be found among the medieval architectural sculpture at Exeter Cathedral. A striking array of fabulous monsters and exotic beasts, angelic musicians, saints and Green Men appear throughout this unique Gothic building, carved into roof bosses, corbels, capitals and misericords. Blending the most current research with a practical knowledge of working stone, themed chapters explore the medieval contexts and possible meanings of these carvings, tracing their history and the working lives of the stonemasons and carvers who made them. From plants and dragons to scenes of the Crucifixion, the sculpture at Exeter, particularly that of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, represents some of the best work in European medieval art. This book provides an accessible and informative guide.

The west front of the cathedral.

Of Sirens and Centaurs

Medieval Sculpture at Exeter Cathedral

Alex Woodcock

Photography by Mark Ware

Contents

Title Page

List of figures

Foreword by the Dean of Exeter

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Chronologies and Contexts

2 Masons, Carvers, Sculptors

3 Plants and Dragons

4 Animals and Insects

5 Birds, Fish and Sirens

6 Monsters and the Grotesque

7 Legends

8 The Green Man

9 The Human Figure

10 Musicians and Angels

11 Biblical Figures and Saints

Epilogue

Select Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Copyright

Figures

1.1 Late Romanesque tomb with quatrefoil decoration

1.2 Tomb of Henry Marshall, Bishop of Exeter (1194–1206)

1.3 Piscina and sedilia, Lady Chapel

1.4 Pulpitum screen, west end of choir

1.5 West front image screen

1.6 Cadaver tomb of Precentor William Sylke (d.1508)

1.7 Altar panel depicting the mass of St Gregory

2.1 St Catherine and the head of a craftsman

2.2 A man wrestles with a lion, presbytery roof boss

2.3 A bird takes flight on a roof boss in the presbytery

2.4 Angel from the lower tier of the west front image screen

2.5 Detail of mugwort leaves from one of the early fourteenth-century presbytery corbels

2.6 Detail of a panel on the pulpitum screen

3.1 Early Gothic stiff-leaf capitals, cloister door to nave

3.2 Double-bodied foliate dragon, from a misericord

3.3 Decorated initial ‘B’ from an early thirteenth-century manuscript in the Cathedral Library

3.4 A wild rose, St Gabriel Chapel roof boss

3.5 Vine leaf with grape clusters, Lady Chapel roof boss

3.6 Corbel carved with oak foliage and acorns, presbytery

3.7 Dragon with partially foliate body, roof boss, St John the Evangelist Chapel

3.8 Dragon roof boss from the presbytery

3.9 Dragon roof boss from the nave

3.10 Charging knight attacked by three dragons, roof boss, central transept area

4.1 Bear and ape capitals, south nave aisle

4.2 Dragon-like beetle emerging from leaves, misericord supporter

4.3 Cat catching a rat, south porch roof boss

4.4 Elephant misericord

4.5 Fox feigning death to lure carrion birds, Lady Chapel roof boss

4.6 Lion and dragon roof boss, nave

5.1 Fish eating smaller fish, Lady Chapel roof boss

5.2 Two fish placed upright upon their tails, misericord

5.3 Birds feeding upon berries, roof boss, east presbytery aisle

5.4 Bird and cat fighting, roof boss, south choir aisle

5.5 Mermaid holding a fish, misericord

5.6 Merman and mermaid holding a drum, misericord

5.7 Male and female harpies, misericord

5.8 Mermaid roof boss, presbytery

5.9 Mermaid roof boss, Chapel of St Paul

6.1 Two monsters, north nave aisle

6.2 Centaur, nave roof boss

6.3 Centaur as archer, misericord

6.4 Grotesque and a dragon in combat, capital to west window

6.5 Leonine-bodied monster, nave roof boss

6.6 Mouth-puller corbel

7.1 Marcolf and goat, presbytery roof boss

7.2 The Knight of the Swan, misericord

7.3 Pelican-in-her-piety, nave roof boss

7.4 Aristotle/’locust’ misericord

7.5 King Herod in a bath of hot oil, misericord

7.6 Murder of Thomas Becket, nave roof boss

8.1 Cat head disgorging foliage, misericord

8.2 Leaves, berries and seed-heads sprouting from the mouth of a cat head, misericord

8.3 Green Man roof boss, Lady Chapel

8.4 Double Green Man roof boss, east presbytery aisle

8.5 Green Man disgorging coiled stems and broad leaves, presbytery roof boss

8.6 Green Man roof boss, choir

8.7 A lame man rests his foot on a beast head disgorging foliage, corbel, north transept

8.8 Capitals carved with Green Men, north side of west window

9.1 Cast of late Romanesque corbel carved with a Sheela-na-gig

9.2 Four heads, Lady Chapel roof boss

9.3 Corbel head, exterior of St Edmund Chapel

9.4 Man and lion, nave roof boss

9.5 Seated king with angels bearing foliage, nave roof boss

9.6 Section of the west front image screen

10.1 A seated figure plays a viol, presbytery roof boss

10.2 The minstrels’ gallery, north side of the nave

10.3 Detail of the minstrels’ gallery

10.4 Corbel in the choir with a Green Man, musician and Coronation of the Virgin scene

10.5 Angel from the west front image screen

10.6 Angel playing a harp, presbytery roof boss

11.1 Crucifixion scene, presbytery roof boss

11.2 Crucifixion scene, nave roof boss

11.3 Life-size roof boss of Christ, Grandisson Chapel

11.4 Detail of Virgin and Child, nave corbel

11.5 Coronation of the Virgin, presbytery roof boss

11.6 Coronation of the Virgin, nave roof boss

11.7 Martyrdom of St Andrew, nave roof boss

Foreword

Exeter Cathedral has an immensely rich and enormously varied range of carvings in both wood and stone. From the unique and extensive collection of thirteenth-century misericords through to the roof bosses of the longest uninterrupted Gothic nave roof anywhere, the carvings of Exeter Cathedral are one of its many glories.

Carvings, of course, are done by people, and Alex Woodcock has a done a great service to the carvers of Exeter Cathedral and for us today by helping to bring them to life through the work they have done. Their stories are every bit as important and interesting as those of the great and the good who ran the cathedral or who funded the work. Alex stands in that tradition himself, which makes him especially well suited as author of this wonderful book. He not only brings the skills and experience as one of the cathedral’s mason/carvers today to the subject, but also brings the skills and knowledge of his scholarship (not all cathedral masons hold higher degrees) to the book as well. These skills are well balanced by an easy and accessible style which should make it possible for a very wide range of people to enjoy it.

Exeter Cathedral was built to tell a story: the story of the Christian faith and of those who are important to it or to the life of the cathedral. The cathedral itself and the memorials, stained glass and carvings all have a significant teaching role. They all have a spiritual purpose as well. The cathedral was built as a foretaste of heaven, a place of order and beauty, of light and colour, of spiritual words and wonderful music, a place where the people of God can find inspiration and comfort, challenge and awe, where their senses can be engaged along with their hearts and minds. The carvings of the cathedral, in particular, help to populate this threshold of heaven with the familiar (and sometimes fantastic) elements of daily life, making it a place of transition where the things of earth lead us to the things of heaven. The carvings help the cathedral to be a ‘thin place’ where heaven and earth are close, where the mystery and beauty of God can seem close, where each of us can be drawn closer into the life of God. In the Epilogue to this book Alex writes:

In the dissolution of boundaries between animal and human, plant and bird, mortal and immortal, we might glimpse a profound philosophy of creation, one in which the impossible coexists with the recognisable, the ridiculous and the ordinary. Through this lens everything becomes extraordinary: the images show us again and again that the physical world and our life within it, like a mermaid playing a drum or a dragon with a leafy tail, is astonishing.

We might also sense this in the cathedral and through its carvings that boundaries between ourselves as material and spiritual beings are dissolved too.

This is a book for a wide range of people: for those who wish to understand the carvings of Exeter Cathedral, for those who wish to know more about the world in which these carvings were done, for those who like a good story well written, and for those who want their experience of this cathedral and other places enriched by being able to ‘read’ the building better. Above all it is a book for those who would like their spirits lifted and their enjoyment of life increased, for they will find both – in this book and in the stories it tells.

The Very Revd Dr Jonathan Draper

Dean of Exeter

Acknowledgements

This book would never have got off the ground without the unflagging support and enthusiasm of two people: Conrad Donaldson, Chairman of the Friends of Exeter Cathedral, and Dr Richard Willis at Impress Books. I wish to thank them both for their belief in the project, which at times, and certainly at the beginning, far outstripped my own. I also wish to acknowledge with thanks the financial assistance of the Friends for their contribution towards the costs of photography and printing.

I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues at the cathedral for their support and interest, particularly those from the Works department: Malcolm Green, Damian Lawrence, Josh Ritson, Chris Sampson and especially Head Stonemason Gary Morley. Thank you also to Cheryl Dewar and Paul Patch from the Cathedral Shop.

To everyone who glanced at a paragraph or ploughed through an entire draft of the book at various points in its development, many thanks; your comments and thoughts often sent me back to reconsider the material and as a result improved the text considerably, and occasionally, confirmed that I was on the right track. Thanks are due in this respect to John Allan, Glyn Antle-Trapnell, Pip Dunwell, John Goodliffe, Sarah Grainger, Professor Anthony Harding, Dr Philip Hickman, Christopher Paterson, Malcolm Walker, and Anne Willoughby.

For the generous Foreword my sincere thanks go to the Dean of Exeter, the Very Reverend Dr Jonathan Draper.

For the exceptional photography, often undertaken in difficult conditions and with considerable obstacles, as well as his deep appreciation and understanding of the visual arts, I would like to thank Mark Ware.

The team at Impress Books have made me feel welcome from the start; many thanks to them all.

Many thanks also to Bethan Collins, Simon Lane, Dr Theresa Oakley, Mimi Rousell, Dr Robert Wallis and John Whiting.

A plan of Exeter Cathedral

Introduction

Medieval sculpture is fascinating. An almost abstract quality percolates through much of it: glacial faces stare out from corbels and roof bosses; geometrically arranged creatures tessellate into kaleidoscopic patterns; figures are frozen, often in extremes of emotion; mythical monsters emerge from twisting foliage. And yet within this otherness there is often a sense of play, of character, of unstable identities, of a world beyond the mask. In this guise the architectural carvings make visible the unseen life force of the building. As the artist Philip Rawson has put it, these ‘lesser sculptures, of a kind we usually consider merely decorative, were meant to induce and contain live spiritual energies in the fabric of the sacred site they were made to adorn’.¹ Carved into crucial architectural elements these sculptures are the building. The energy they carry is also the energy of the life of their creators and their material and spiritual worlds. Primarily, this book is about these so-called ‘lesser sculptures’.

The title of this book – Of Sirens and Centaurs – was chosen to place these often overlooked, distant and under-appreciated images at its heart. While it is a book about much more than just sirens and centaurs – indeed, all medieval sculpture is considered – Exeter Cathedral does, for a Gothic building, contain a surprisingly rich repertoire of such classically derived monsters. Some of these carvings are among the best work in the cathedral; the spirited centaurs of the misericords which manage to effortlessly convey such a sense of movement, the angular and otherworldly mermaid on a roof boss in the Chapel of St Paul and her bold sister in the choir, the symmetry and strangeness of the foliate-tailed bird-sirens. In part it was also because there are several examples of both, and that traditionally, in Romanesque art, siren and centaur are paired. Despite the original, soaring and luxuriant palm-like vaulting of the Gothic interior, Exeter owes a considerable debt to its Romanesque past. While the rebuilding of the cathedral attempted to re-imagine the structure in the guise of the new style it was always constrained by its Romanesque predecessor. The height of the floors in the tower bell-ringing chambers, for example, determined the height of the new choir and nave roof vaults, while the walls of the nave itself were built upon the Romanesque ones which still stand to windowsill level.² The further one looks the more it becomes apparent that, curiously, the Romanesque is more present than absent. The early thirteenth-century misericords positively buzz with archaic hybrids and Romanesque-like interpretations of them, double-bodied and often foliate; many of the Gothic bosses use Romanesque techniques of repetition and distortion, simplifying the shapes of animals and turning leaves into highly decorative designs. The ‘voluted-trefoil’ leaf found upon the bosses toward the west end of the nave closely echoes the compacted fronds and spirals of Romanesque foliage from two centuries before.

This is an introduction to the medieval sculpture at Exeter Cathedral. It is not meant to be exhaustive and it does not list every single carving – there are other resources available that do that already.³ I have been highly selective about the images that are considered here and it was by no means an easy task when faced with a corpus of Gothic sculpture as rich as Exeter’s. My aim is to explore some of the different aspects of the imagery, to attempt to give some flavour of the material present in this cathedral. References are provided for those wishing to go further, as any meditation upon medieval sculpture inevitably leads to other places, be they books to read, other images to see, or other opinions to consider. This is far from a definitive text: if anything it is more of an entry point into the world of the medieval masons and sculptors responsible for these forms and the contexts within which they worked. I hope it raises more questions than it does provide answers. And I sincerely hope that it sparks the imagination, starts discussions and even disagreements: these images live as long as our interest in them continues.

Notes

1 Rawson, P., 1997. Sculpture, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 60.

2 Allan, J. and Jupp, B., 1981. ‘Recent Observations in the South Tower of Exeter Cathedral’, PDAS 39: 141–154.

3 In particular, the website by Avril K. Henry and Anna C. Hulbert, n.d. Exeter Cathedral Keystones and Carvings: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Medieval Interior Sculpture and Its Polychromy, published online at http://www.hds.essex.ac.uk/exetercath/index.html (accessed between October 2012 and March 2013).

CHAPTER 1

Chronologies and Contexts

In its development over several centuries Exeter Cathedral presents a collection of different styles of architecture and sculpture. This chapter explores the work that survives and the different historical periods to which it belongs in order to provide a context for the chapters that follow. We