Stairway to Heaven: The Functions of Medieval Upper Spaces

By Toby Huitson

Medieval stairs, galleries and upper chambers in cathedrals, abbeys, and parish churches have been an enduring source of fascination to historians and archaeologists since the eighteenth century, but their practical purposes have long been shrouded in mystery and speculation. From libraries to lights, clocks to dovecotes, from secret games of skittles played over the vaults to the daring exploits of the twelfth-century Flying Monk, Toby Huitson explores the lofty spaces, nooks and crannies of medieval upper spaces though the interrogation of a wide range of documentary, visual and archaeological materials. Evidence is revealed for over 30 different functions during the period from around AD 1000 to 1550. Generously illustrated and fully-referenced, the text is accompanied by a set of special features and a quick-reference section, making it indispensable to all those interested in medieval history and architecture.

Dr Toby Huitson teaches at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Mar 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781842178614

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/image

The west front at Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire.

The Pulpitum screen of c. 1450 at Canterbury Cathedral. Spine: Spiral stair in the tower at Sts Mary & St Ethelburga, Lyminge, Kent. Back: Vaulting boss in All Saints’ chapel and stained glass in the north quire aisle triforium, Canterbury Cathedral (photos: author).

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Huitson, Toby.

  Stairway to heaven : the functions of Medieval upper spaces / Toby Huitson.

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  ISBN 978-1-84217-861-4 (epub) -- ISBN 978-1-84217-862-1 (mobi) -- ISBN 978-1-84217-863-8

( pdf ) -- ISBN 978-1-84217-665-8 1. Church architecture--Details. 2. Architecture, Medieval. 3.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Architecture of Medieval Upper Spaces

Part 1: Stairs

Part 2: Upper Spaces

Chapter 2: Devotional Spaces

Holy Spaces

Sacred Sights

Chapter 3: Performing the Liturgy

Lights

Sound

Drama

Chapter 4: Supporting the Liturgy

Organising the Liturgy

Intellectual Life

Chapter 5: Behind the Scenes

Accommodating the Community

The Building Fabric

Hidden Assets

Chapter 6: Beyond the Everyday

Dangerous Men

Experiment and Entertainment

Chapter 7: Forms and Functions

Conventional Approaches and Problems

Re-thinking Functional Attribution

New Interpretations of Medieval Buildings

Chapter 8: Conclusions

Appendices

1  Principal functions associated with medieval ecclesiastical upper space

2. A high-level Liturgical year

3. Measuring the step angles of spiral stairs

Reference section

Notes to text

Bibliography

Special Boxed Text Features

Medieval Masons in Upper Spaces I: Craft Roles

Medieval Masons in Upper Spaces II: Apprentices

Three High-Level Access Routes I: Binham Priory, Norfolk

Three High-Level Access Routes II: Boxgrove Priory, Sussex

Three High-Level Access Routes II: St Leonard, Hythe, Kent

Acknowledgements

One of the greatest pleasures of undertaking historical research is the people one meets along the way. Special thanks are expressed to Cressida Williams and colleagues at Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library for access and practical assistance; to head virger Chris Crookes and head of Stonemasonry Heather Newton at Canterbury Cathedral; Colin Tolhurst and the vergers at Rochester Cathedral for enabling access to the Lapidarium and Indulgence Chambers; to John Crook for taking me on a fascinating tour around Winchester Cathedral; John Baldwin of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, and Philip Lankester, Claire Daunton and John McCann for gladly sharing their knowledge. Also, my thanks to Sylvie Pierce and Margaret Bonsall for allowing me to gain access to stairs and upper spaces at Elkstone and Horton Priory respectively. Canon Brian Barnes (then vicar) and Mr Christopher Cooper kindly gave permission and practical assistance respectively with the experimental reconstruction of gallery lights at Hythe. Thanks are also expressed to the numerous other incumbents, churchwardens, keyholders and custodians for their practical assistance.

The research which underlies this book was supported by many individuals and agencies. In addition to my late grandfather’s strong personal interest and encouragement, the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust gave me a much-appreciated small grant before the Arts and Humanities Research Council fully funded my research, to whom I record my grateful thanks. The British Archaeological Association also provided scholarship grants to conferences at Coventry and Limerick, at which B.A.A. members made many helpful comments and suggestions. The publication of this book has been made possible by a generous grant courtesy of the Kent Archaeological Society’s Hasted Prize. I am extremely grateful for the Society’s support, and it is thanks to this award that the high quality of publication with its many colour images has been made possible.

For permission to publish images, I would like to thank the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Library of St-Gallen, Switzerland; the National Monuments Record, and the Sussex Archaeological Society. Images of Canterbury Cathedral were taken and reproduced with kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. I would also like to thank Mary Berg and Howard Jones for allowing me to reproduce a plan from their book, and my friend Geoffrey Phillips for photographing the porch stair at Wraxall for me. All other photographs and artistic material are the author’s own original work unless otherwise acknowledged. The author’s photographs were taken on a Casio Exilim digital camera, and drawings generated using standard software. The inclusion of any image here is does not constitute evidence that public access to the space in question is normally possible, or entirely without personal risk.

Many people have commented on sections of this book. They are too numerous to mention individually, but they know who they are. Special thanks are due to Canterbury Cathedral historian Margaret Sparks, and Jennifer Alexander of the University of Warwick, who both kindly agreed to read drafts of the entire text. I am also grateful to several other academic friends and colleagues including Paul Crossley, Richard Gameson, Alixe Bovey and Gabor Thomas for making many helpful suggestions. Any shortcomings, mistakes or oversights which may remain however, and all opinions expressed, remain entirely my own.

About the Author

Toby Huitson grew up near a Grade I listed medieval church in North Bedfordshire and has been fascinated by medieval architecture ever since. Awarded his PhD in 2010, he now divides his time between teaching in the School of History at the University of Kent, and working at Canterbury Cathedral Archives. Toby was previously Personal Assistant to the Cathedral Organist at Canterbury, during which time he wrote a guidebook, The Organs of Canterbury Cathedral, republished in 2008. He is also a fieldworker contributing towards the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland.

List of Figures

IN.1   Gallery in the sixth-century basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

IN.2   Spiral stair in the north-east angle of the presbytery at Dryburgh Abbey, Borders

IN.3   Rood stair in the north aisle at St Peter & Paul, Lynsted, Kent

IN.4   The fourteenth-century gatehouse at Kingswood Abbey, Gloucestershire

IN.5   St Michael, Bishop’s Cleeve, Gloucestershire

1.1     Plan of St Leonard, Hythe, Kent, after M. Berg and H. Jones, Norman Churches in the Canterbury Diocese (2009), fig. 40. (Reproduced by kind permission of the authors)

1.2     Barrel-vaulted vice in the north-east transept, Canterbury Cathedral

1.3     Typical monolithic step (ex situ), from ruined tower house at Limerick, Co. Limerick, Ireland

1.4     Steps of later medieval form at St Mary & St Ethelburga, Lyminge, Kent

1.5     Plan of the choir at Canterbury Cathedral (from G. Smith, Chronological History of Canterbury Cathedral (1883), endpaper)

1.6     The west tower at St Mary, Minster in Thanet, Kent

1.7     Double-height newel stone in the spiral stair at Minster

1.8     Wood ladder in the tower at St Mary the Virgin, High Halden, Kent

1.9     Hard-wearing grey stone in the chancel vice at St Leonard, Hythe, Kent

1.10   Re-used Roman tile in the vice barrel-vault at Reculver, Kent

1.11   Spiral stair incorporating re-used Roman tile in St Botolph’s Priory, Colchester, Essex

1.12   Re-used masonry in the north-east transept vice at Rochester Cathedral

1.13   Coursed flint and rubble stairwell at Reculver, Kent

1.14   Caen stone ashlar stairwell at Minster-in-Thanet abbey, Kent

1.15   Joggled ashlar stairwell at St Mary’s Guildhall, Coventry, Warwickshire

1.16   Tympanum over entrance to tower stair at St Margaret at Cliffe, Kent

1.17   Tympanum over entrance to tower stair at St Clement, Sandwich, Kent

1.18   Typical staircase vestibule forms (author)

1.19   Rood stair at St Peter and Paul, Lynsted, Kent

1.20   Step and newel proportioned as 4:1 in the Cheker vice at Canterbury Cathedral

1.21   Spiral stair step angles and ratios (author)

1.22   Left-handed vice at Reculver, Kent

1.23   Re-used Romanesque door in the ‘Lapidarium’ vice at Rochester Cathedral

1.24   Door to the south Corona vice at Canterbury Cathedral

1.25   Dragon door-pull and escutcheon in the Corona stair

1.26   Internal door in vice by St Anselm’s chapel at Canterbury Cathedral

1.27   Newel post and landing beam in the Chillenden Chambers vice at Canterbury Cathedral

1.28   Curved landing beam at the top of the vice by St Anselm’s chapel, Canterbury Cathedral

1.29   Upper chamber above south-east side-chapel at Winchester Cathedral

1.30   Clerestory passage (top) and triforium gallery (middle) in the choir at Hexham Abbey, Northumberland

1.31   Bridge gallery in the Romanesque north transept at Winchester Cathedral

1.32   Wall-passage in the ruined north transept at Dryburgh Abbey, Borders

1.33   Nave and west end opening at Jedburgh Abbey, Borders

1.34   Prior Bolton’s Oriel at St Bartholomew’s Priory, Smithfield, London

1.35   Night Stair in the south transept at Hexham Abbey, Northumberland

1.36   Doorway and later medieval mezzanine floor at Horton Priory, Kent

1.37   The so-called ‘Norman Staircase’ to the Aula Nova at Canterbury Cathedral

1.38   Rood screen and loft of c. 1480 (with later overpainting) at St Mary, Attleborough, Norfolk

1.39   Rood stair entrance in the Gostwick chapel at St Lawrence, Willington, Bedfordshire

1.40   Plan of St Mary, Rye, by A Richardson, from Sussex Archaeological Collections Vol. 50 (1907), Pl. 1, facing p. 20 (Reproduced with the kind permission of the Sussex Archaeological Society)

1.41   High-level doorway in the west tower at All Saints, Cople, Bedfordshire

1.42   Porch upper storey at Weymouth Priory, Norfolk

2.1     East wall of the tower at St Mary, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire

2.2     Detail of the fifteenth-century vault in All Saints’ chapel, Canterbury Cathedral

2.3     The north porch upper chamber at St Peter and Paul, Salle, Norfolk

2.4     Metalwork fittings on the staircase door to the north porch chamber at Salle

2.5     The porch chamber at St Mary, Northill, Bedfordshire

2.6     The chapel wing at Old Soar Manor, Kent

2.7     The upper chapel at Old Soar

2.8     Cross-shaped window in the chancel at St John the Baptist, Newcastle

2.9     Interior of the upper chapel on top of Roche Rock, Cornwall

2.10   The ruined fifteenth-century hermitage near Hythe, Kent

2.11   The throne attributed to Charlemagne in the gallery at Aachen Cathedral, Germany

2.12   The ‘watching loft’ at St Frideswide’s Priory, (now Cathedral), Oxford

2.13   The exterior relic gallery at Aachen Cathedral, Germany

2.14   The balcony by the chapel of St Chad’s Head at Lichfield Cathedral

3.1     The Trinity chapel aluris at Canterbury Cathedral

3.2     The south triforium and clerestory at St Leonard, Hythe, illuminated by wax candles

3.3     Drawing of a rood screen and loft at St Andrew, Canterbury from the cover of early churchwardens’ accounts for St Andrew, Canterbury (Canterbury, Cathedral Archives, U3-5/4/1. Reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury)

3.4     Medieval bell in the tower at St Dunstan, Canterbury

3.5     An organ being played by a rabbit and a hare in the fourteenth-century Macclesfield Psalter (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum MS 1-2005, fol. 15r. Reproduced by kind permission of the Fitzwilliam Museum)

3.6     Plainchant painted on the medieval lectern at St Mary and Helen, Ranworth, Norfolk

3.7     A funeral service in a Flemish Book of Hours of c. 1480, showing lights, curtains and flags in the vault (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 223, fol. 106v. Reproduced by kind permission of the Bodleian Library)

3.8     The ‘heaven hole’ in the vault at St Gangolf, Trier, Germany

3.9     The ‘Entry To Jerusalem’ scene in the fifteenth-century East Window at Great Malvern Priory, Worcestershire (Choir, East Window, panels 1:8a and 9a. National Monuments Record, conservation photograph BB55/02253 taken around 1943. Reproduced by permission of English Heritage)

3.10   Upper doorway in the south porch at All Saints, Wraxall, Somerset (photo: Geoffrey Phillips)

3.11   The narrow porch stair at Wraxall (photo: Geoffrey Phillips)

4.1     Mass-dial on the south wall of the chancel at St Peter, Bywell, Northumberland

4.2     Medieval clock in the west wall of the north transept at Wells Cathedral

4.3     Mid-sixteenth century clock mechanism (with later modifications) in the central tower at St Mary, Rye, Sussex

4.4     Interior of the twelfth-century Treasury at Canterbury Cathedral

4.5     Grated window in the so-called ‘Sanctuary chamber’ at Hexham Abbey, Northumberland

4.6     Porch chamber at St Mary, Saffron Walden, Essex

4.7     Tile pavement in the chamber above the chapter house at Lichfield Cathedral

4.8     Reconstructed medieval book-cupboard in the library at Canterbury Cathedral

4.9     Medieval chest at St John’s Hospital, Northgate, Canterbury

4.10   The cloister at Wells Cathedral

4.11   The later medieval presbytery at Melrose Abbey, Borders

5.1     Entrance to the first-floor refectory in the south claustral range at Cleeve Abbey, Somerset

5.2     The refectory at Bushmead Priory, Bedfordshire

5.3     Upper-level fireplace of c. 1500 at Bushmead, with later blockings

5.4     The East range upper storey at Cleeve Abbey, Somerset

5.5     Interior of the east range at Cleeve

5.6     The elaborately-carved fireplace in the Great Chamber, first floor of the Abbot’s Lodging at Muchelney Abbey, Somerset

5.7     Fourteenth-century domestic conversion of the Crossing at Denny Abbey, Cambridgeshire

5.8     The Canterbury Cathedral Dissolution Inventory of c. 1540, mentioning the chamber over the gate (CCA-Add. MS. 33, f.2.v. Reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury)

5.9     First-floor partitions in the monastic reredorter at Muchelney Abbey

5.10   The fifteenth-century necessarium in the Franciscan friary at Quin, County Clare, Ireland

5.11   The north porch at Wells Cathedral

5.12   Carving of a window in the Decorated Gothic style on the top step of the north Corona staircase, Canterbury Cathedral

5.13   Treadwheel in the ‘Bell Harry’ tower at Canterbury Cathedral

5.14   The St Gall Plan of c. 820 (Switzerland, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex Sangallensis 1092. Reproduced by kind permission of the Library of St-Gall)

5.15   Detail of spiral stair and caption from the St Gall Plan

5.16   Exterior parapet at Lincoln Cathedral

5.17   The triforium at Durham Cathedral, drawn by R. W. Billings, Architectural illustrations and description of the cathedral church at Durham (London, 1843), Pl. 43

5.18   Dovecote of c. 1540 in the Tudor manorial complex at Willington, Bedfordshire

5.19   Upper-storey dovecote over the Norman chancel at St John, Elkstone, Gloucestershire

5.20   Detail of the blocked entrance at Elkstone

5.21   Late medieval gallery in the thirteenth-century north transept at Boxgrove Priory, Sussex

6.1     Bodiam Castle, Sussex

6.2     ‘Murder holes’ above the entrance to Bodiam Castle

6.3     Discharge chutes built into the medieval city gateway at Aachen, Germany

6.4     The Irish Round Tower at Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland

6.5     Tring Tile no. 3, illustrating the imprisonment of a child in a tower and his release in a miracle performed by the young Jesus. (Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum)

6.6     The towers of Durham Cathedral

7.1     Diagram: One form, many functions

7.2     Diagram: One function, many different forms

7.3     Diagram: Overlapping forms and functions

7.4     The presbytery at Tynemouth Priory, Northumberland

7.5     Quatrefoil opening below the fan-vault in the fifteenth-century Lady Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral

7.6     The round-arched recess in the north nave wall at Bolton Priory, Yorkshire

7.7     Spiral stair in the north transept at North Creake Abbey, Norfolk

7.8     Interior of the Rochester Cathedral Lapidarium

7.9     The Rochester Cathedral Indulgence Chamber

7.10   Sketch plan of the ‘Old Bakery’ chamber, Canterbury Cathedral (author)

7.11   Inserted door in the ‘Old Bakery’ stair

7.12   Tile pavement in the ‘Old Bakery’ chamber

7.13   View from the grating by the ‘Old Bakery’ chamber

7.14   Interior of St Mary of Charity, Faversham, Kent

7.15   Interior of the upper chamber showing blocked doorway, roof scar and timber-framing

7.16   Spiral stair to the upper chamber

7.17   Windows in the former Romanesque aisle

8.1     Ruined late medieval tower house spiral stair at Limerick, Co. Limerick, Ireland

8.2     The transepts and presbytery at Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire

8.3     The ‘Merry Maidens’, a prehistoric stone circle near St Buryan, Cornwall

Medieval Masons in Upper Spaces I: Newel stones at Hythe, Kent; Hythe masons’ marks (not to scale); Craft hands in the Hythe newel stones, showing blocks by Mason A (red), B (blue) and C (green)

Medieval Masons in Upper Spaces II: The west tower and left-hand jamb of the top stair window at of St Mary, Kenardington, Kent

Three High-Level Access Routes I: Binham Priory, Norfolk

The Romanesque nave at Binham

Remains of spiral stair in the north transept

The West Front

West window interior and ledge

Three High-Level Access Routes II: Boxgrove Priory, Sussex

The north clerestory passage

Spiral stair in the south aisle

Stair in south clerestory passage

East window ledge and stair to north

Three High-Level Access Routes III: St Leonard, Hythe, Kent

Exterior of the chancel

Conical cap of the stair turret

The spiral stair

South triforium gallery

Abbreviations

Introduction

In the Middle Ages, the Church was the wealthiest and most innovative creative force in contemporary culture. At the cutting edge of artistic patronage, it oversaw the creation of vast cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches which have left an enduring architectural legacy down to the present day. Many aspects of these buildings are now better understood than ever before, such as their design aesthetics, patronage, and artistic models. Yet, to this day, one aspect of their design and function remains deeply mysterious: the exciting but enigmatic aspect of access to their ‘upper spaces’. Upper levels were integral to medieval design. Cathedral and monastic buildings were typically built with galleries and high-level wall-passages in the main church, and upper chambers in cloisters and over gatehouses. Many of the most iconic ecclesiastical buildings such as the sixth-century church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, feature galleries prominently in their elevations (see Fig. IN.1), while the remains of stairs and high-level passageways are readily visible in monastic ruins such as Dryburgh Abbey in the Scottish Borders (Fig. IN.2). Almost every parish church had permanent access to a tower or rood loft (Fig. IN.3), and some also to an upper room over a porch.

While the existence of these upper spaces is well-known, their practical purposes remain tantalisingly obscure. Indeed, historians, archaeologists, and their antiquarian forebears have been speculating about the functions of these spaces since at least the eighteenth century. The main problem is an acute lack of evidence. Of the handful of written sources which have come down to us, most relate to great buildings rather than to ones of lesser status, and even these documents seldom mention their upper stories. Many sources refer to buildings which no longer exist, while paradoxically most surviving architecture is left undocumented. The abbey at Kingswood, Gloucestershire provides a good example of the problems facing us. The sole remnants of the abbey consist of an elaborately-vaulted gatehouse in the fourteenth-century Decorated Gothic style, together with the remains of its two sixteenth-century attached side-wings (see Fig. IN.4). The gatehouse has an upper storey, but there are no records of how it was used, when, why, or by whom. The abbey’s Lady Chapel survived into the eighteenth century, but its site, together with the church and the rest of the abbey buildings, has now disappeared. Whether any of these buildings contained stairs, galleries or upper chambers is now completely unknown. Unless an inventory mentioning them is found, or they happen to be described in a contemporary source, all records of how the abbey’s upper spaces functioned will have vanished beyond recovery. As many scholars will know, such a case is by no means unique.

Fig. IN.1 Gallery in the sixth-century basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy

Fig. IN.2 Spiral stair in the north-east angle of the presbytery at Dryburgh Abbey, Borders

Fig. IN.3 Rood stair in the north aisle at St Peter & Paul, Lynsted, Kent

Fig. IN.4 The fourteenth-century gatehouse at Kingswood Abbey, Gloucestershire

Fig. IN.5 St Michael, Bishop’s Cleeve, Gloucestershire

Today, nearly five centuries after the Reformation, the practical purposes of these areas are largely lost in the mists of time. Literally shrouded in cobwebs and dust, many ecclesiastical upper spaces have effectively been left behind by the modern world. Some medieval stairs are yet to have mains lighting or even glazing installed, and the last published research into many major parish churches pre-dates World War I. Today, often locked and inaccessible, these distant galleries and upper spaces are usually assumed to be of minor interest and limited historical significance. This book sets out to challenge these and other unfounded assumptions by presenting the evidence for the many different practical ways in which these upper spaces functioned. We will see how these areas were integral to ecclesiastical life, and had uses both intended and unintended, by ecclesiastics and lay people, for purposes which were colourful and dramatic.

Early Investigation

By the dawn of modern investigations into medieval architecture in the mid-eighteenth century, the original uses of ecclesiastical upper spaces had been long-forgotten. However, the fact that they existed but had no ready explanation resulted in much speculation about what they were for. One commentator was the eighteenth-century antiquary Peter Collinson, who noted the general confusion surrounding the functions of Irish Round Towers in the first issue of the scholarly journal Archaeologia in 1770:

Various and uncertain have been the conjectures of the time of building, and use of the tall round slender Irish Towers. The application of their scanty dimensions hath puzzled our modern antiquaries…¹

Scholars were quick to supply their own hypotheses where firm evidence was lacking. For instance, in a visit by the Archaeological Institute in 1860 to the church at Bishop’s Cleeve, Gloucestershire (Fig. IN.5), it was noted that a Mr Parker (probably John Henry Parker, the well-known nineteenth-century architectural historian)

called especial attention to the chamber over the porch, which he said was a very peculiar specimen of the residence of a recluse. He must have been, he thought, a recluse of some importance, otherwise the expense of making a way to his chamber would not have been incurred. This passage is made from the west end of the church over part of the south aisle, and has fan-tracery vaulting under it…²

The idea that upper spaces were used by anchorites and recluses was one of the most enduring and widespread upper-storey hypotheses of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Another popular idea at the time was the widely-imagined use of upper spaces to house prisons. In 1748, an anonymous visitor to St Nicholas, Salthouse, Norfolk, noted

Within the steeple under the belfry is a very strong room with two doors called ‘Hell’, which probably was made use of as a dungeon, Hereticks’ prison or a Purgatory… it is now only a lumber room.

One of the most hotly-contested antiquarian discussions surrounded the purposes of the so-called ‘Old Bakery’ chamber over St Anselm’s chapel at Canterbury Cathedral. The antiquary William Gostling investigated this chamber and enclosure around 1774, which he described in his book as follows:

A newel staircase here leads to a room over this chapel, a closet of which has a window looking into the choir with an iron grate. This has been shown as the place where John II, King of France was confined, when taken prisoner and brought into England by Edward the Black Prince. The story is too ridiculous for confutation; but that the place has been used as a prison may very well be believed… It has a chimney and an oven… There is a door into a platform where they might have fresh air and a pleasant prospect of the country….³

However, not everyone was convinced. A Mr ‘W&D’, writing in the Gentleman’s Magazine the following year, argued that penitents would have no need of an oven, since food was to be restricted to prisoners under the terms of Lanfranc’s monastic Constitutions. Instead, he suggested, the making of bread by the sacrist

…was done in some room within the church, or in one adjoining to it; and my opinion with respect to the former use of the oven now under our review will, I imagine, be readily concluded…⁴

In 1777, however, Gostling returned the riposte in the second edition of his Walk, in a special appendix entitled Of the Room over St Anselm’s Chapel.⁵ Brushing aside his critic’s suggestion as ‘an unfortunate conjecture’, he argued that the case was by no means proven for the room being used for baking, due to ‘that one circumstance of its having an oven in it, which is no proof at all’.⁶ Writing that the room was ‘so solitary as to have no communication with other upper works of the church’, he re-asserted that

they within the grate must appear as prisoners… I must say that I find nothing in this letter to work any change in my opinion of this room being designed for a prison; a prison for ecclesiastical offenders…⁷

Unfortunately, both scholars had confused the medieval with the post-medieval history of the room. It is to the post-medieval period that the ovens belong, as they incorporate re-used late medieval masonry. They were probably created for use by glaziers making repairs to the cathedral in the late seventeenth century, while the grating was almost certainly used by the Shrine Wardens in the late medieval period (see Chapter 7). Prison hypotheses persisted well into the nineteenth century. Charles G. Addison, in his 1842 History of the Knights Templar, described how a small stair in the Temple Church, London, led to ‘a dreary place of solitary confinement’, setting the tone for what follows:

In this miserable cell were confined the refractory and disobedient brethren of the Temple, and those who were enjoined severe penance with solitary confinement. Its dark secrets have long since been buried in the silence of the tomb, but one sad tale of misery and horror, probably connected with it, has been brought to light…⁸

Disappointingly, there is no reason to believe this upper room was used as a prison either, although it neatly illustrates the Victorian obsession with horror stories, crime and punishment. Other contemporaries regarded upper spaces as having connotations of domination. Writing about the nave clerestory passage at St Mary, Rye in 1847, J. Borrowman speculated whether ‘as described in the Antiquary, it was meant to enable the superior priest to walk round and secrete himself here and there to watch the proceedings of his subordinates’: almost a proto-Marxist reading of its function in terms of unequal power relations.⁹ As in the cases above, no original documentary evidence was ever brought forward to substantiate the claims. Even when original evidence was available, some commentators reacted negatively to its existence. Writing in their book Roodscreens and Roodlofts in 1909, Bond and Camm expressed their dismay at finding documentary evidence for the installation of a pew in an early sixteenth-century London rood loft for ‘young maidens’:

It certainly comes as a shock to find evidence of the invasion of the roodloft itself by pews… that a place set apart for uses so sacred could thus be employed seems to point to a great degeneracy of custom and a loss of the older ideals of reverence in the worship of the period…¹⁰

Such emotive language assumes a de facto segregation of sacred and secular, which tells us little about medieval practice, but much about Bond and Camm’s Edwardian world-view, where the roles of adult and child, high and low social status, male and female, were assumed to occupy sharply polarised physical and cognitive domains. Such perspectives may also have been coloured by Tractarian anxieties about defining ecclesiastical sanctity and difference in the modern world.¹¹

By way of contrast, recent scholars have often avoided making any definitive statements about function at all, frequently claiming that nothing certain can be known about these spaces (a distinctly postmodern stance, but one also curiously reminiscent of the old antiquarian outlook). For instance, the modern architectural historian Roger Stalley poses the tantalising question:

In Normandy and England… clerestory passages are one of the most exciting features of English Romanesque… offering exhilarating vistas for those fortunate enough to experience them. What purpose was served by these semi-secret passages high in the walls of the church?¹²

On one level, Stalley is absolutely right to express uncertainty here: the uses of these spaces are indeed mysterious, and we need to approach the question cautiously. However, we risk falling into the fresh trap that some scholars may claim that there is nothing to know, and therefore no real question to be answered. In their effort to distance themselves from the bombastic over-confidence of their Victorian forebears, many contemporary scholars have gone to the opposite extreme of expressing doubt and ignorance. Some might even go so far as to suggest that the study of upper spaces constitutes an ‘antiquarian’ activity in the pejorative sense of the word. This is precisely the problem. Knowledge about function has arguably remained trapped in an eighteenth-century time-warp of vague hypothesis informed by empty supposition precisely because historians have failed to engage critically with the available evidence. As the architectural historian Eric Fernie pointed out in a recent address to the Society of Antiquaries, the term ‘antiquarian’ is often used to denote limited knowledge and lack of scholarly engagement with a topic. Instead, he argues, antiquarian scholars were true innovators in their field because they asked new questions and searched through original sources to find answers. Many modern commentators, he continues, have been far too content to rely on others’ untested second-hand assumptions, and so, ironically, it is they who may be more ‘antiquarian’ in their outlook than the scholars of old!

As a result, the current state of knowledge is in some confusion. Sometimes, the same evidence has even been used to propose different functions for the same space. Many modern hypotheses urgently need re-thinking, such as J. G. Davies’ assertion that tower balconies were used for discharging missiles against attackers; precisely why a typical parish church in mainland Britain would be under siege in the fifteenth century, let alone the implications for the roof underneath, are not discussed.¹³ Likewise, another commentator has put forward the strange suggestion that the large spiral stairs in the west front at Durham Cathedral were purposefully designed for the rapid movement of troops, not because there is any written evidence for it, but merely because the entrance vestibule bears a superficial resemblance to a contemporary stair at Castle Rising Castle, Norfolk: a surprisingly inconsequential argument for such a bold assertion.¹⁴ Other scholars have taken their lead from recent social-scientific theorists who interpret architectural space in terms of power and status. While such analyses can generate some interesting insights, they often feel like an uncomfortable imposition of twentieth-century theories onto medieval material.¹⁵ Perhaps due to the many pitfalls inherent in the subject, many architectural historians have chosen to avoid the knotty question of function altogether, being content to provide a detailed physical description of the fabric, but without explaining why these upper spaces were required in the first place.

Later uses of upper spaces

Medieval upper spaces had a long history of different uses beyond the Reformation down to the present day, and it is useful to survey those briefly here. A favourite early modern use for parish church porch chambers was for educational purposes. John Evelyn, the renowned seventeenth-century diarist and co-founder of the Royal Society, proudly recalled that as a small boy he was educated in the porch chamber at Wotton, Surrey, while at Tunstall, Lancashire (the model for Brocklebridge