Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-m9pkr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T23:27:31.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Wax Images found in Exeter Cathedral

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

Extract

In September 1943, in the course of repair work made necessary by the air raid of May 1942, certain fragments of wax images were found by one of the cathedral masons on the top of the stone screen which surrounds the quire. They were hidden behind the cresting in a wide open joint of the masonry, loosely packed with broken pieces of glass, slaked lime, oyster-shells, and splinters of stone, and over the tomb of Bishop Edmund Lacey (1420–55) (pl. XIX, a). All the fragments of wax are unpainted and all have been cast in a mould; they vary in colour from a dirty pale yellow to a deep terra-cotta; they are very brittle and dry to the touch, without the soft, silky feel of a wax doll.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1949

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 164 note 1 Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement III, p. 74.

page 164 note 2 Rymer's Foedera, vol. x, 1st ed., p. 404.

page 164 note 3 A Catalogue of the Bishops of England, since the First Planting of Christian Religion in this Island, together with a Brief History of their Lives and Memorable Actions, as neere as can be gathered out of Antiquity, by F. G. [Francis Godwin] Subdeane of Exeter. Londini Impensis Geor: Bishop, 1601, p. 335.

page 165 note 1 Letters of John Shillingford Mayor of Exeter (Camden Society, 1871), p. 44.Google Scholar

page 165 note 2 History and Illustrations of Exeter Cathedral, by Britton, John, F.S.A., 1825, p. 43. The original letter was not to be found in the Cathedral Library, January 1948.Google Scholar

page 165 note 3 The Antique Description and Account of the City of Exeter, Brice, Andrew (Exon., 1765), Part II, pp. 130–1.Google Scholar

page 165 note 4 A Catalogue of the Bishops of England … by F.G.…, 1601, p. 335.

page 165 note 5 Acts of Chapter 1521–35, Dean and Chapter MS. no. 3551, p. 49 B.

page 165 note 6 At Glastonbury.

page 165 note 7 Sidbury.

page 165 note 8 Wells Wills, by Weaver, F. (London, 1890), pp. 97–8.Google Scholar

page 165 note 9 Pilgrims' Badge at Exeter, by the late Montague, Colonel, Devon Notes and Queries, vol. xvii,1933 p. 370.Google Scholar

page 166 note 1 The Vision of Piers Plowman, by Langland, William, done into modern English by Professor Skeat (King's Classics, 1905), p. 90.Google Scholar

page 166 note 2 Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement III, 1901, p. 74.Google Scholar

page 166 note 3 The shield of arms is upheld by an S and an L, through which two shovellers have twisted a tasselled girdle which they hold in their bills. The bishop's father was Stephen, his mother Sibella.

page 166 note 4 The Painted Glass of York, by the Rev. Harrison, Canon F. (S.P.C.K., 1927), p. 101.Google Scholar

page 166 note 5 The Canonization of St. Osmund, edited by Malden, A. R. (Sarum, 1901), p. 71.Google Scholar

page 166 note 6 Westminster Abbey Muniments, 24, 512.

page 166 note 7 Some English Shrines, by Whale, Charles (S.P.C.K., 1905), p. 141.Google Scholar

page 167 note 1 So George, one of the cathedral masons, found her.

page 167 note 2 Abstract of Chapter Acts, Reynolds, H. E., 1895, p. 63.Google Scholar

page 167 note 3 ‘… Not to trust in other men's works, or pilgrimages to images or relics….’ Curates ‘were to take down all images which were abused by pilgrimages and to take away all offerings that had been made to them, to suffer no candle to be set before any image, only there might be candles before the Cross, and before the sacrament and about the sepulchre’ (Easter). The Book of Common Prayer with Notes Legal and Historical, by Stephens, Archibald John (Ecclesiastical History Society, London, 1849), Introduction, p. xii.Google Scholar

page 167 note 4 Removing among other things commemoration of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

page 167 note 5 Abstract of Chapter Acts, Reynolds, H. E., 1895, p. 27.Google Scholar

page 167 note 6 The Book of Common Prayer, etc., Introduction, p. xv.

page 167 note 7 Leland's Itinerary, vol. iii, p. 45, quoted by Ralph Barnes, 1847, in Pontificalis of Edmund Lacy Bishop of Exeter, p. xii.

page 167 note 8 Early Tours in Devon and Cornwall, R. Pearse Chope, 1918, p. 74 and n.

page 167 note 9 It was for stealing such a pyx that Bardolph was hanged; see Henry V, Act III, scene vi.

page 168 note 1 Abstracts of Chapter Acts, etc., Reynolds, H. E.,1895, p. 82.Google Scholar

page 168 note 2 The Prayer Book Rising.

page 168 note 3 Harl. MS. 604, f. 59, quoted in Oliver's Lives of the Bishops of Exeter, p. 477.

page 168 note 4 Joan, who after his death married an Archbishop-elect of York (William May). Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxvi, 1891, p. 325.Google Scholar

page 168 note 5 Portia and Nerissa, Merchant of Venice, Act II, scene ix.

page 168 note 6 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxvi, p. 325.

page 168 note 7 Abstract of Chapter Acts, etc., Reynolds, H. E., 1895, p. 52.Google Scholar

page 168 note 8 1797 Plans, Elevations, Sections and Specimens of the Architecture and Ornaments of Exeter Cathedral, by Carter, J., 1797, E5 on Ground Plan.Google Scholar

page 168 note 9 Account of the Ancient Constitution, Discipline and Usages of the Cathedral Church of Exeter’, by Jones, John, Esq., F.S.A., Archaeologia, vol. xviii, p. 385, 1817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 168 note 10 Exeter Cathedral Altar Screens and their History, by Morris, Percy, 1943 Vol. I, p. 17 & pl. 24.Google Scholar