Historic Churches 2018

BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 25 TH ANNUAL EDITION 9 or their legends, well known to medieval viewers. Each figure is carved with care and skill allowing small details to be visible, such as buckles and holes on a belt, or the brim of a hat. The figures have an air of quiet stillness about them as they stand on small ledges formed by the ends of the roof posts. Above each full-length figure of an apostle is a half-length figure. These are formed into the curve of the roof structure. They are load-bearing and their shape and position makes them appear larger than the apostles. Shape, size and location are important. Some of these figures are human, some are demonic, some have dual characteristics, some are male, and some are female. No two are the same, but some have similar characteristics: there are two grinning demons, but they are not identical; there are two bourgeois merchant figures, but there are slight differences in their appearance; there are two men of the church, but one is a tonsured cleric and the other a cowled monk; there are two women, but one has a simple head-dress and carries rosary beads and the other has a rich, elaborate horned head-dress, but claws in place of hands. Although only half-length, these figures appear large, somewhat ungainly and somewhat distorted, in comparison with the precise, careful and upright figures of the apostles. What to make of this roof-post scheme? There was an established tradition in East Anglia, particularly in manuscript illumination, for the juxtaposition of sacred and profane, for mixing the heavenly and the earthly. This trend can also be seen in other media in buildings. In the north east window of St Peter’s, Great Walsingham, for example, are images of human heads with grotesque features, the remains of a much larger 14th-century scheme mirroring those found in manuscripts. In the 15th century this type of imagery began to appear on bench ends and on roof friezes. A good example of the latter being on the nave roof at All Saints, Elm, Cambridgeshire and on the north aisle roof of Outwell’s near neighbour, St Peter’s, Upwell. Further, if we take one of the most striking of the figures, that of the woman with the horned head-dress and claws, we can see ‘sister’ figures in the church of St Martin, Fincham, some 15 miles to the west, and in St Mary’s, Mildenhall, some 30 miles to the south. Both places have either direct or indirect familial links to Outwell. At Fincham and Mildenhall, however, the figures do not have the detail of the claws and are not paired with apostles. In Outwell the normal order of things is turned upside down. In the north aisle of St Mary’s, Mildenhall there are roof-post pairings of angels and apostles, but here, true to Durandus’ treatise, the figure of the angel stands higher than the apostle, inclining in a protective manner. In Outwell when seen from the floor of the nave (the view parishioners would have had), Detail of the east window which includes male and female martyrs of the early Church as well as figures of East Anglian saints such as King Edmund and King Oswald (Photo: Mike Dixon) Details of some of the double figures on the roof posts with an apostle on each, and: a merchant (above), a woman with horned headdress and clawed hands (below)