Only a small and unrepresentative sample of monastic murals survives from late medieval England. However, this diverse corpus does retain a discernible character. Not only do monastic murals often depict subjects which are distinct from those found in the much larger number of surviving parochial paintings, but they appear to exhibit a certain ‘bookishness’ in their content and particularly their combination of text and image. Patterns of survival may have served to emphasise this aspect of monastic imagery. However, this tendency is interesting given the prominence of the production and study of books in monastic culture. This paper will seek to illuminate the forms which this bookishness might take. It will illustrate some of these in relation to the surviving murals, and focus, in particular, on the recently discovered fragments of an Apocalypse cycle from the priory at Coventry. The identification of a complex series of scenes from the Book of Revelation in the chapter house of a Benedictine priory reopens previous debates about the significance of the later cycle at Westminster. This paper will suggest that the monastic practice of lectio divina particularly associated with the Benedictine Order, together with the experience of monastic life and the liturgical elements outlined in the Rule of St Benedict, may deepen our understanding of the intention behind these two outstanding schemes of later fourteenth-century monastic wall painting.

The Dissolution has had an incalculable impact on our understanding of the visual culture of monasteries in medieval England. Problems of interpretation arise not only from the sheer quantity of material lost through deliberate iconoclasm, greed and neglect, but also from the ways in which the processes of dissolution have distorted what remains. This is evident in both the type of monastic foundations whose fabric has tended to survive intact and the nature and function of the individual buildings of a monastic precinct most likely to be preserved.

The mural paintings which are the focus of this chapter were a ubiquitous form of decoration in medieval England. Parish churches, public buildings and dwellings from royal palaces to humble cottages had painted walls.