Twelfth-Century Sculptural Finds at Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Thomas Becket - Image 1

Price loading...

Oxbow Books Twelfth-Century Sculptural Finds at Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Thomas Becket

Name: Twelfth-Century Sculptural Finds at Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Thomas Becket
Brand: Oxbow Books

Religious Buildings

Price History & Forecast

No Price Data Available

Price history will appear here once data is collected from Amazon.

Price Distribution

No price data available for histogram

Description

This study reconstructs twelfth-century sculptural and architectural finds, found during the restoration of the Perpendicular Great Cloister of Christ Church, Canterbury, as architectural screens constructed around 1173. It proposes that the screens provided monastic privacy and controlled pilgrimage to the Altar of the Sword's Point in the Martyrdom, the site of Archbishop Thomas Becket's murder in 1170. Excavations in the 1990s discovered evidence of a twelfth-century tunnel leading to the Martyrdom under the crossing of the western transept. Construction would have required rebuilding the crossing stairs and the screens flanking the crossing. The roundels, portraying lions, devils, a 'pagan', Jews, and a personification of the synagogue, are reconstructed on the south side of the crossing as a screening wall framing the entrance to this tunnel. The quatrefoils with images of Old Testament prophets are reconstructed as a rood screen on the west side of the crossing. In the Martyrdom, a screen is proposed with perhaps the earliest known sculptural representation of Thomas Becket. The rood screen, located behind the Altar of the Holy Cross, would have provided a visual focus during Mass, monastic processions, and sermons, especially during Christmas and Holy Week. The row of prophets, pointing upwards at the Rood, would have functioned as the visual equivalent of the dialogue of the ‘Ordo prophetarum’ that predicted the Messiah as proof to Jews and other unbelievers of Christian redemption. The roundels, just around the corner on the south screening wall, can be interpreted as representing the unbelieving Other and forces of evil warning pilgrims to seek penance at the altar of the newly canonized St Thomas. In addition to this new interpretation, a catalog raisonné and an account of the discovery of the finds offers material for future research that has been unavailable to previous studies. All the finds were photographed by the author as the restoration progressed;16 pieces of which have since been lost, making some of the unpublished photographs essential evidence of the archaeological record.

Product Specifications

Brand: Oxbow Books
Format: hardcover
ASIN: 178925230X
Category: Books > Subjects > Arts & Photography > Architecture > Types of Architecture > Religious Buildings
Domain: Amazon UK
Release Date: 25 May 2019
Listed Since: 14 December 2018

Barcode

No barcode data available

Oxbow Books Twelfth-Century Sculptural Finds at Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Thomas Becket

Price History & Forecast

No Price Data Available

Price Distribution

Description

Product Specifications

Barcode

Similar Products You Might Like

The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c.1170-c.1220

The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries (Sanctity in Global Perspective)

Tributes to Jonathan J.G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts, Art & Architecture

The Passion and Miracles of St. Thomas Becket by Benedict of Peterborough (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

Great Cloister: A Lost Canterbury Tale: A History of the Canterbury Cloister, Constructed 1408-14, with Some Account of the Donors and their Coats of Arms

Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Art, Material Culture, Language and Literature of the Early Medieval World

Romanesque Saints, Shrines, and Pilgrimage (The British Archaeological Association Romanesque Transactions)

Routledge - Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century

At the Great Crossroads: Prehistoric, Roman and Medieval Discoveries on the Isle of Thanet 1994-1995 (CAT Occasional Paper)

The Restoration of the Church of England: Canterbury Diocese and the Archbishop’s Peculiars: 27 (Church of England Record Society)

Early Medieval Kent, 800-1220 (Kent History Project)

Sculpture romane du Poitou: Le temps des chefs-d'oeuvre

The Cosmatesque Mosaics of Westminster Abbey: The Pavements and Royal Tombs: History, Archaeology, Architecture and Conservation

Routledge - Saving the Souls of Medieval London - St Pauls

Religious Conflict at Canterbury Cathedral in the Late Twelfth Century: The Dispute between the Monks and the Archbishops, 1184-1200 (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

History, Hagiography and Biblical Exegesis: Essays on Bede, Adomnán and Thomas Becket: 1078 (Variorum Collected Studies)

Excavations at Dryslwyn Castle 1980-1995 (The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monographs)

Haughmond Abbey: Excavation of a 12th-century cloister in its historical and landscape context (English Heritage)

Tomb and Temple: Re-imagining the Sacred Buildings of Jerusalem: 13 (Boydell Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture)

The Forum of Trajan in Rome: A Study of the Monuments: 31 (California Studies in the History of Art)

Casting the Parthenon Sculptures from the Eighteenth Century to the Digital Age

Michelangelo and the English Martyrs

Living Opposite to the Hospital of St John: Excavations in Medieval Northampton 2014

The Gregorian Mission to Kent in Bede's Ecclesiastical History: Methodology and Sources