hosted by the Society of Antiquaries, BAA, and CRSBI
AFTERLIVES: REUSING THE PAST
A Day of Short Papers to Celebrate the Life of Jill Franklin
Society Of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House Piccadilly London W1J 0BE United Kingdom
30 April 2024
Places are free to students, but students must first register by sending an email to: conferences@thebaa.org
To purchase tickets (£15), go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-day-of-short-papers-to-celebrate-the-life-of-jill-franklin-tickets-859591169327
10.00-10.30 – Registration and Coffee
SESSION 1: 10.30-12.30
Bob Allies, Something in the air: the poetics and pragmatics of the pre-existing
A reflection on how, over the course of the last forty years, an appreciation of the potential of the pre-existing has consistently informed and shaped the work of our practice, together with some observations on the extent to which the climate emergency is now provoking a fundamental shift in the architectural profession’s attitude towards the recycling of materials and the reuse of buildings.
Eric Fernie, Enlarging English Medieval Great Churches
A common feature of English medieval great churches, especially cathedrals built in the Norman period, is the later rebuilding and enlarging of their eastern parts, with examples ranging from Canterbury to Ely and York. The purpose of the paper is to ask what this tells us about the financial resources needed to pay for the work, whether there was an increase in the power of the patrons or because of a wider increase in the size of the economy.
Nicola Coldstream, A village that moved: the early adventures of Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire
A late Romanesque capital built into an eighteenth-century gateway is among the few surviving remains of the early village site of Ascott-under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire. This paper discusses the original location of the capital and considers reasons why the village was moved.
John McNeill, A Norman Doric Cloister in the Aeolian Islands
The abbey of San Bartolommeo on Lipari was founded before 1088 by Roger I, count of Sicily, occupying an ancient Greek walled enclosure above the most important harbour in the Aeolian islands. Despite its replacement in the 16th century, the monastic church can be shown to have been aisleless and cruciform. To its south is the residue of a cloister made up, for the most part, of cut-down Doric columns and capitals. Usually dated to the 1130s, when its abbot was granted the title of bishop and San Bartolommeo became a monastic cathedral, the cloister seems more likely to date from the late 11th century, and to have formed a part of the original monastic complex. As a spolia curiosity off the north coast of Sicily, it is without rival.
David Robinson, The Augustinian Canons in the Twelfth Century: Reflections on an Architectural Identity
Our friend and much-missed colleague, Jill Franklin, devoted considerable energy to the occurrence and meaning of the aisleless cruciform church in Romanesque Europe. Jill’s interest in this particular form of building began in earnest with her contextual study of the Augustinian cathedral priory at Carlisle, delivered at the BAA annual conference held in that city in 2001. From there, Jill went on to write a number of extremely thought-provoking papers considering the twelfth-century churches of the Augustinian canons in general. Indeed, for many years, and almost single-handedly, Jill sought to give the early canons something of an architectural voice. This paper will offer a review of Jill’s important findings, assessing her contribution in a marginally wider overview of Augustinian architecture in England and Wales.
Questions/Discussion
12.30 – 1.30 – Lunch
SESSION 2: 1.30 – 3.15
Richard Halsey and Sandy Heslop, The Church of All Saints, West Acre (Norfolk)
The parish church of All Saints West Acre stands immediately east of the ruins of the gatehouse of the adjacent Augustinian priory of St Mary, suppressed at the Dissolution. Existing discussions of its architecture imply that All Saints is a medieval building restored or upgraded in the post-Reformation period. We propose instead that it is a new building of c.1637 constructed at the behest of Sir Edward Barkham in large part out of fragments of moulded stones, freestone rubble and flint taken from the demolished priory, the site of which he owned. Indeed, it is likely to have been designed deliberately to reuse available features. Its Laudian date (Laud was archbishop 1633-45) suggests the possibility that it deliberately harks back to pre-Reformation parish worship located within an aisle of the destroyed monastic church.
Christopher Wilson, Salvage from a Mighty Wreck: A Clearstorey Window from Vale Royal Abbey, Cheshire
Not hitherto recognised as an instance of the post-Suppression salvage of monastic fabric is some incongruously ambitious stonework incorporated into the exterior of the parish church of c. 1500 at Northwich, 4 km from the site of Vale Royal Abbey. Begun in 1277 by Edward I, Vale Royal’s church was by far the largest built for the Cistercian Order in England, and work surged ahead until 1290, when Edward suddenly withdrew his support. In 1353 a new chapter opened under the patronage of Edward Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester (the Black Prince). In June 1359 he and the abbey contracted with a master mason for a French-style circuit of chapels whose plan was partly uncovered by excavation in 1958. Two years later a hurricane blew down the entire central vessel of the nave. What happened after the completion of the radiating chapels has always been unclear, but the evidence of the Northwich stonework indicates that the choir was completed in fine style. The only documented fact about the choir, generated by the famous heraldic dispute between Sir Robert Grosvenor and the Scropes of Masham, is that the Grosvenor arms decorated its interior. Joining up the available dots outlines a collaborative project due to the Prince of Wales (and, from 1363, of Aquitaine) and the Cheshire gentry comrades who played a major role in the dramatic expansion of English territory in south-west France during the 1350s.
Ron Baxter, The Early Days of the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture
Officially the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture began in 1988 when George Zarnecki and Neil Stratford approached the British Academy and asked for a grant to start up a project to record all the stone sculpture produced between 1066 and 1200. In fact, George had clearly been thinking about it for several years, and contacted Jill Franklin much earlier than this, as a kind of pilot study. This talk will give a brief history of the early days of the Corpus with special reference to Jill’s work in Norfolk.
Richard Plant, Anglo-Saxon Roods in Romanesque Contexts
The survival of pre-Conquest sculpture as part of the fabric of later churches in England is peculiar. Apart from attesting the long-standing tradition of stone sculpture in the Atlantic Islands the re-setting of images of the Crucifixion in later walling raises a number of questions about how they would have been understood and used by later viewers. This paper will look at the instance in Langford in Oxfordshire, and especially at Romsey in Hampshire, where the reused crucifix is placed next to the entrance from the cloister into the church, suggesting a particular devotional focus on this earlier image.
Stephen Heywood, 'Let's Pretend!' The decoration of the north transept and the reused throne at Norwich Cathedral
Jill worked on the architectural sculpture of Norwich Cathedral and successfully analysed the meaning and place of the extraordinarily accomplished sculpture. This short paper touches on the earlier or at least less skilled sculpture and the deliberate archaising in reusing forms believed to be indicative of pre conquest date and the believed actual re use of St Felix’s throne recovered from Elmham which achieved relic status.
Questions/Discussion
3.15 – 3.45 – Tea
SESSION 3: 3.45 – 5.00
Lindy Grant, ‘Lapides pretiosi omnes muri tui’: Abbot Suger, buried capitals, and the laying of foundation stones
Recent excavations under the north-west tower at the Abbey of Saint-Denis have brought to light a set of capitals used as rubble in the foundations, adding to the capitals already extracted and now in the town museum. They are figural and narrative, if rustic in handling. Where were these capitals from, and by how long do they predate Suger’s new west front? I will suggest that they have parallels with work in Norman contexts in the late 11th century, including the figured archivolt panels from Montivilliers, so brilliantly discussed by Jill in her paper for the British Archaeological Association Rouen Conference. But how should we read the burial of these capitals in Suger’s west front: as rejection of old-fashioned sculpture, or as precious stones providing a solid foundation – that the house of the lord should be ‘bene fundata…supra firmam petram’, as the liturgy for the consecration of an altar has it? And how widespread were liturgical ceremonies for the laying of foundation stones? Suger appears to have invented his own to lay the foundation stones of his new choir in 1140.
Agata Gomølka, Idolising stone: the case of the Konin pillar
The Roadside Pillar of Konin (Greater Poland) is one of the most original monuments of the Romanesque period. An inscription on the pillar proclaims its date, states it function, and names its patron. The pillar was one of the final commissions of the formidable royal fixer and castellan Piotr Włostowic (d. 1153). Piotr’s life and deeds, along with his extensive patronage of buildings and furnishings, were widely celebrated by contemporaries. The Konin pillar is the only surviving secular monument associated with Włostowic. Yet what is it? Is it a reused pagan monolith? This has been the consensus among most scholars. Or is it something else? Is it a tribute to a very tradition of spolia? This paper will seek to offer some answers.
Tessa Garton and Rose Walker, Andalusi ivories and metalwork re-imagined in the North for female saints
The re-use of Islamic ivory caskets decorated with courtly imagery as containers for the relics of Christian saints in northern Spain has been interpreted both as triumphalist and as a recognition of the aesthetic qualities of Islamic culture. The re-use of similar imagery on capitals in the sanctuaries of Romanesque churches suggests the assimilation and re-interpretation of this imagery for a Christian context. Likewise, metal objects were sometimes repurposed as reliquaries. Within church treasuries, as at Oviedo, they could even inspire the revival of a cult.
Paul Williamson, Late Antique ivory carvings, their reuse and afterlife
The ivory carvings of Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine period owe their survival to reuse and transformation. Some secular carvings - including several consular diptychs - were incorporated into Christian settings such as reliquaries and pulpits, while others provided the raw materials for recarving in the Carolingian and later periods. This paper will explore the phenomenon of ivory reuse with a selection of case studies, some well-known, others less so.
Questions/Discussion
5.00 – Drinks