Twas the night before Christmas - when the Devil came to visit...

Twas the night before Christmas...

The depths of Winter. A time of traditions. A time to gather together. A time to join with friends and family. A time to huddle around the flickering flames of an open fire, and tell ghost stories...

So sit back this Christmas Eve, open the Quality Street and a bottle of something, and listen to my simple tale. A story of a dark and stormy night, the curse of the Devil, and the great black demon-hound known as Black Shuck.

You should also be aware that I am trying to fit in all the major clichés before New Year - so this is only going to get worse. You've been warned. However, by now you should at least be trying to work out why there are so few of the 'purple ones' in the average tin of Quality Street, as compared to those very indistinct and tedious fudge thingies, and thanking the Lord that they usually include so few of the coconut ones, that the odd cliché should slip by fairly unnoticed. Now where was I? Ah, yes...

It was a dark and stormy night...

August 4th, 1577. It began with the wind. A Summer breeze that gradually grew in strength as the daylight began to fade. Dark clouds gathered, and the people of the little town of Bungay, nestled in the Waveney valley on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, cast anxious glances to the sky. Lammas was just past, and for many this marked the beginning of the harvest season. A time for gathering in the crops, and long days out in the fields. But now a storm was coming, driven before the wind, and the harvest would be threatened.

The first drops of rain began to fall. Heavy and large as they splattered in to the dry earth, audible as they hammered into the lead and tile of the church roof. The sky was black now, a swirling mass of cloud, bringing darkness to the land long before the late Summer evening was due. And then came the thunder. Great echoing claps of thunder that cracked across the sky, and rolled down the valley above the Summer shrunken river. A storm was coming.

But this was no ordinary storm. This was no Summer blow, over and forgotten about in a few short hours, leaving the world refreshed and bright. This was a storm being driven by the devil. The rain began to pound and pummel the earth, beating down crops, turning to red ruin the soft fruits of the cottage gardens, and shredding the leaves on the trees where they stood. The thunder cracked across the sky, and flashes of bright white only lent greater form to the dark mass of boiling cloud, driven in to crazed patterns by the coiling wind. The devil himself had come to Bungay.

In fear, and fearing for their homes, lives and livelihoods, the good people of Bungay - for there were a few good people amongst them - ran to their place of safety. Through the driving mass of rain, and with the wind now screaming the devil's wrath around them, they made for the church. The great stone-built refuge that would protect them from the weather and the evil that came at them from the sky. And there, in the semi-darkness of an unnatural night, they cowered around guttering candles as the great storm hammered down onto the land. Hammered down on to their church.

The drawn faces of the terrified townspeople raised their eyes upwards, uttering prayers to heaven, and staring hard at the church roof that the devil himself was hammering. And then it came. A great crashing blast of thunder, a blinding light, and the doors of the church burst inwards - letting loose the devil within the church. In the shape of a great black hound, the devil leapt down the nave, crashing through the terrified townspeople, and leaving death and destruction wherever his great black paws touched. With wild mad eyes, the great beast lashed out, and bodies were tossed aside. Blood flowed, and white fire flicked across the heads of the cowering congregation. The church itself shook, the stones tearing themselves apart as the devil caressed them, and the spire came crashing down. Timber splintered, glass shattered, and the people were cast aside as the devil did his work. Death came to Bungay.

"All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and, passing onward to the quire, he many people slew".

By the time the storm began to die away, driving onwards to cause more destruction at Blythburgh in Suffolk, the church of St Mary was a wreck. The spire had gone, driven down through the roof of the nave, and amongst the mass of injured and bewildered people lay two forms that would move no more. The devil had come, and his price had been the lives of a man and boy, both burnt and curled amongst the debris. Their bodies as broken as the church around them. But the devil had left them again, and of the great hell-hound there was no sign. The beast had vanished with the storm, leaving only great burn marks upon the church door, where his claws had bitten into the timbers. The mark of the devil.

Taper burn marks on the door of Bungay church

And there they remain to be seen to this day. The claw marks of the great beast - the devil in animal form - burnt into the timbers of the ancient church door. Great claw marks of darkness, bearing witness to those terrifying events of that tragic night. The devil has left his mark upon the church. A warning to all, and a story that they tell in Bungay to this day, as visitors come to see the devil's paw print on the door of the church.

Except that they’re not, of course. But why let facts stand in the way of a good ghost story? Far more handy to claim some kind of notoriety for your town that is most likely the only interesting thing to have happened there. The marks are, of course, what we today term 'taper burn marks'. Deliberate burns placed upon the fabric of buildings to ward off evil, to protect the building and its inhabitants from harm, created by a light designed to drive out the darkness. Although once thought to have been created accidentally, the result of the careless use of tapers and candles, today they are generally accepted as having been made deliberately - for the most part. Experimental archaeology has also shown that they are actually rather tricky little blighters to create accidentally. The candle must be held against the timber at just the right angle, for just the right length of time, before the charred timber is scraped away, and the flame reapplied. And we are coming across them all over the place, in sometimes quite astonishing numbers. Sites such as Little Morton Hall, Gainsborough Old Hall, Plas Mawr, Knole, Sissinghurst Castle - all boast many hundreds of examples. However, it is of churches and the devil that we speak...

Edingthorpe church, Norfolk.

What seems exceedingly strange to me these days is just why the taper burn marks on the church doors at Bungay and Blythburgh have received quite so much attention? Why these two sites have been singled out, and stories grown up around these particular marks? They are, after all, not really very unusual at all. Now we know what we are looking for, and actually take the time to look, we find that these taper burn marks on church doors are actually commonplace. Sorry Bungay. Sorry Blythburgh. You aren't that special. In fact, if you visit an East Anglian church, and it has any of the original doors still in situ - be it the south door, north door, or even the west doors - then there is roughly a fifty percent chance that, on the back of it you will find taper burn marks. And it isn't just East Anglia, although we may have a higher percentage of surviving medieval doors than elsewhere. The same taper burn marks are found on the back of church doors across the country. There are also very probably a lot more out there we haven't noticed as yet. When we first began recording graffiti inscriptions in English churches a decade ago taper burn marks simply weren't on our radar. We didn't really look for them, and if they were present they were most probably overlooked, so there are almost definitely others out there that we have missed. Perhaps hundreds of marks on the backs of church doors.

So there is the first thing to note. The marks are found on the back of the church door. On the inside of the church. I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule out there, but they are few and far between. Even where the outside face of the door has been protected from weathering, that might eat away at any marks there, no such marks are found. It's only the inside face of the door that has them.

St Edmund's church, Acle, Norfolk.

And then there are the marks themselves. We have now recorded so many that there are certain patterns starting to emerge. Patterns that might be missed when viewing each site in isolation. So, whilst there are sites like Blythburgh and Bungay, where you have multiple burn marks on the back of the doors, these are a little bit unusual (there you go Blythburgh and Bungay, you are still a 'tiny' bit different). The majority of sites where these marks are being recorded tend to only have a single burn mark. A single taper burn - slap bang in the middle of the doorway. Just the one. It doesn't matter whether it's the north, south or west doors, and in the case of Brent Eleigh in Suffolk all three, but it will be just a single applied burn mark in the centre of the reverse of each door. Sometimes the mark is only lightly applied, but just as often it has been burnt and re-burnt, until the distinctive teardrop shape forms a deep hollow in the surface of the wood. In eastern Suffolk Timothy Easton has also noted that the marks are to be found alongside 'peep-holes' through the door. However, these 'peepholes' don't seem particularly common across the region, so in the sixty-plus sites where I have recorded these marks none were near such holes - because there weren't any holes. They are, after all, funny buggers down there in Suffolk.

Take the church at Brent Eleigh for example. A church that's worth a visit for just so many reasons. The medieval wall paintings in the chancel are simply stunning (and covered in early graffiti), the graffiti on the tower arch is a bit special too, as is the very fine parclose screen at the end of the south aisle. The locals are friendly, and very interested in the history of their lovely church, and they are quite used to people rocking up to stare at the walls. The church also appears to have all of its pre-reformation doors still intact - south, north, and at the west end - and all display taper burn marks. They don't quite follow what I have come to think of as the 'typical' pattern, but are still noteworthy. Where the two leaves of the door join you will find deeply burnt marks, extending on to each door. Each door also has a secondary mark applied, right in the centre. The placement appears very deliberate. Very precise.

Medieval wall paintings at Brent Eleigh, Suffolk

So what the actual feck is going on? These aren't quite the same patterns we are seeing in vernacular architecture, where the marks are associated with thresholds, gaps, openings, and vulnerable points such as chimneys and fireplaces. Certainly, in cases such as Brent Eleigh, you can argue that the marks are being placed at vulnerable points - where there may be a gap between the two doors, but at most of the sites this isn't the case. Just a single taper burn mark bang in the middle of the door. Is this offering some form of protection to the door as a whole? Protecting the entrance? Tempting... but probably not.

And the reason I say probably not? Because, as usual, I'm only telling you half the story.

There is another place in churches where we have also begun to regularly come across these taper burn marks. Not just on the doorways, but also on the medieval timber screens that divide areas of the church, one from the other. The rood screens between nave and chancel, and in particular, the parclose screens that divide off areas of the aisles, most usually to create a small chapel within the wider body of the church. And these marks are not to be found on the doorways through these screens, but on the main bodies of the screens themselves. The rails and dados, the panels and mullions. The screens may mark the divisions between areas of the church, and the doors in them mark the thresholds, but the screens are by their very nature permeable. The upper sections a delicately carved lacework of tracery and geometric designs. More air than timber.

So these marks do not add protection to a vulnerable threshold, but rather mark a whole boundary. They delineate a space, and divide the one from the other. The nave from the chancel, the outside from the inside. And this is a pattern we have seen elsewhere. A pattern that has been also noted in some of our vernacular buildings, where the taper burn marks are not gathered around the doorways, but rather spread around a room or space. At Gainsborough Old Hall for example, where the steward's room has a single taper burn mark placed centrally along each section of the four walls, both delineating and protecting a space. Marking out those boundaries.

Because boundaries are dangerous, and thresholds are just one example of a boundary. All boundaries mark the change from one to the other, be it from one space to the next, from inside to outside, or from dark to light. From light to dark. So on this evening in the depths of Winter, as the world shifts across another boundary, and we celebrate both the darkness, and the promise of future light, be wary. Boundaries are dangerous places... and the devil prowls the boundaries.

'Why I love medieval Graffiti' by @jessikart

(This blog-post by @jessikart was first published on the Standard Issue website, and is archived here because it is too funny and insightful to just disappear into the ether as the Standard Issue website is taken down - Ed)

Why I  medieval graffiti

If you want to know what made the medievals tick, says Jess Macdonald, ditch the history books and check out their wildstylin’.

"We all know what archaeology is. It’s Tony Robinson standing in a muddy ditch in Somerset while a bearded man froths orgasmically over a shard of Anglo Saxon pottery, or it’s Harrison Ford suavely dealing with Nazis, Biblical treasures and getting into punch-ups while women of a certain age fan themselves. But not for me…

I have to insert my disclaimer here and say I’m not an archaeologist, a historian, or even someone who’s studied the past in any meaningful way. I’m just a stay-at-home mum (with both children at school, so I think we can tag ‘lazy-arse’ in there too), who happened to fall in love with the archaeology of medieval graffiti.

Yes, it’s a thing. Honest. No, wait, come baaaack! This stuff is fascinating! It’s across the walls of churches and cathedrals all over the UK – and it is mindblowing. Step inside any religious building from the last 800 years and the first thing you’ll see are the monuments to the elite, the rich, the powerful, the top five per cent of medieval society. The tombs, the statues, the stained glass, the plaques.

A ship, seemingly with designs upon becoming a castle.

So what’s missing? Us. The commoners, the plebs, the real people. No sign that anyone like us ever worshipped, was christened, married, buried or even visited. But if you take an LED torch and shine it across the surface of the stone walls… magic happens.

It sort of started for me way back in the mists of time, when I was a slightly podgy 10-year-old on holiday in the village of Salthouse in North Norfolk, where the local church, St Nicholas, is crammed full of graffiti: ships, and names and dates going back hundreds of years.

Where it properly started though, was hearing about the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey on Twitter nearly two years ago. Completely made up of volunteers, it was aiming (still is!) to visit and survey every medieval church in Norfolk (more than 650, the highest concentration anywhere in the world) and accurately record the graffiti found there.

There are names and dates and ships and prayers and music and curses and compass-drawn designs we call demon traps and architectural sketches and wonky faces and absolutely bloody hilariously bad depictions of St George slaying the dragon.

 

A collection of compass drawn designs.

Today, these markings are difficult to see. You have to shine a torch at certain angles to highlight the faintest lines from centuries ago. From what’s been discovered though, we know that at the time they were created, they would have been just as obvious as a spraypainted “Daz shags goats” is on a bus shelter today. At any point, the church authorities could have destroyed them. But they didn’t. Even allowing for the widespread ‘restoration’ the Victorians undertook, in the county of Norfolk alone, more than 28,000 inscriptions have been recorded and we’re only really halfway through the 650+ medieval churches here.

To me, it’s been a complete revelation. To think that graffiti inside a church was once seen as both accepted and acceptable. I can stand right where a stonemason stood, 800 years ago and trace the lines of a design for a window. I don’t understand the slightest thing about the design, obviously, but to think that something so personal, so human is just so there and I can actually touch it, makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck, I feel giddy, I stare and then usually, because I’m such a tragic case, I burst into tears at the wonder of it.

This is one of my personal favourites. A beautiful little rose, only 3cm in size, etched into the wall. Yes, etched into. The reason it looks 3D is entirely down to clever lighting and photography and witchcraft. No, I didn’t take this photo; how did you guess (my tendency to descend into snotbubbling weepery means I’m utterly useless at taking photos, so I leave that to others)?

These little marks matter. For some, it might be the only trace that they have left on the world, their only testament to existence. They were people, just like us, with their own petty little concerns and worries and we know so little about them. We know so little, precisely because they were The Little People, not the great and the good.

 

A collection of faces from those making a small mark on history.

In 500 years, people will look back and wonder why we were so obsessed with Kim Kardashian’s arse, or whether David Cameron really did pork a porker. It might be in the news and widely reported upon but it doesn’t really reflect my life in any way.

Imagine then, if you could leave one lasting mark of your life, perhaps anonymously, perhaps not, that those people could see and have some understanding of your earthly years upon this planet. What would you leave? What would be important enough to you that you would carve it into the stone?

That’s what archaeology is to me. Finding these past lives and trying to understand them (getting flustered over Harrison Ford is optional, but I’ve found it helps)."

@jessikart
http://putupwithrain.blogspot.co.uk

My cult is bigger than your cult: judging the popularity of saints in the Middle Ages

December the 29th was the feast of the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket. Just in case you didn't know. You might not I suppose. It is possible that there are those out there who don't spend their lives dealing with medieval saints and pilgrimage, and therefore might have missed this momentous event. However, if you have an interest in medieval history, and happen to be on social media, then it was pretty difficult to miss. There were medievalists tweeting and posting images of beautiful pilgrim badges, amazing stained glass, and a few rather gory wall paintings, whilst others discussed the location of his shrine at Canterbury cathedral, or the archaeology of cathedrals themselves. It was rather like Christmas day all over again for the average medievalist. However, it left me with something of a question. It was clear that the cult of St Thomas was incredibly popular during the later Middle Ages, with all these works of art, written references, and archaeology telling us so, but how do we judge the popularity of lesser known saints from the period?

So how do you judge exactly how popular a saint was during the Middle Ages? The obvious thing to do was ask the experts, and garner a few opinions from others as to how they would determine the general popularity of a medieval saint? So, in time honoured tradition, I posted the question to twitter. The results were certainly plentiful, and there were a wide variety of answers soon filling my twitter feed. However, it soon became clear that nothing was really very clear at all. That there was no single answer, and that each source of evidence was likely to produce different, and sometimes outright contradictory, results.

One of the first suggestions was that the number of churches dedicated to a particular saint could be deemed a general indicator as to how widespread was the devotion to that particular cult. Churches, unlike works of art or manuscripts, are fairly solid and enduring pieces of evidence. However, it was also pretty clear that, what seemed at face value a fairly straightforward indicator, was anything but clear. In the first instance there is the little known fact that church dedications are nowhere near as stable and unchanging as many people perceive them to be. In short, they changed. South Lopham in Norfolk began life dedicated to St Nicholas, but today stands as St Andrews, Binham Priory is today dedicated to the Holy Cross, but undoubtedly began life as St Mary's. Studies of Norfolk church dedications (we have 650+ surviving medieval churches after all) have suggested as many as 20% of modern church dedications are not the same as the original medieval dedication.

Binham Priory

There are also still churches today where we are a little unclear as to what the original dedication was, or if there even was one. Take Great Witchingham in Norfolk, commonly referred to today as St Mary's - the most common dedication in England. However, it has been argued that the original dedication was to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, a dedication you will find in several guidebooks and websites, whilst others argue, based upon the evidence of the carved porch spandrels, that the original dedication was actually to the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Exactly what it was in the medieval period - we don't know. It has also been a long held belief amongst some scholars that church dedications may have had nothing to do with the veneration of a particular saint, but rather reflect the name-saint of the principal donor, or even the saints day upon which the church was consecrated.

Then there are the saints that we know were popular in the late medieval period, and yet almost never appear as church dedications, or amongst most surviving art works of the period. The most obvious is perhaps St Christopher, whose image was to be found upon the walls of most medieval English churches, and is the most common single saint to be found amongst surviving medieval wall paintings. Reference to these images are also frequently to be found amongst the written records, and yet, despite this near universal popularity, you will find a bare handful of churches dedicated to the saint, and even fewer depictions in the other surviving artworks of the period. For example, you will look in vain for the saint on East Anglian rood screens. The same is true of St Barbara, who is commonly depicted on rood screens and panel paintings, and is amongst the most popular saint depicted on late medieval copper alloy pilgrim badges, and yet has only two known medieval churches dedicated to her - both now lost.

It is also worth remembering that a church dedication represents only a single moment in time. St Remigius for example, has no less than four medieval churches dedicated to him in the county of Norfolk (out of only six in the whole of England), and yet you will hunt in vain through the documentary records and wills, the images on rood screens and wall paintings, for reference to this fifth/sixth century evangelist who reputedly baptised the king of the Franks (or was Bishop of Lincoln, or rector of Hethersett - depending upon which source you choose to believe). If church dedications alone were an indicator of popularity then Remigius can be regarded as being far more popular than St Christopher or St Barbara.

Almost all of the arguments above can also be applied to other strands of evidence, such as the time taken to officially recognise a saint, or precedence of festivals and feasts. This is particularly true when looking at a period when 'unofficial' cults could take a firm hold in a very short space of time, and yet never resulted in the formal acceptance of the potential new saint. Consider for example the popular cults of Richard Caister of Norwich, John Shorne of Long Marston, and king Henry VI. All three of these individuals had popular cults grow up around their memories in the fifteenth century, and yet none of the three were ever formally canonised.

All of these informal cults are exceptionally visible in many of the strands of evidence, with all three attracting pilgrims to their sites, having pilgrim badges created in the honour, and being depicted in stained glass, on rood screens, and in wall paintings. However, you'll find none of them amongst the lists of the festivals and feasts of the medieval church. You'll find no formal and orthodox dedications to their memory. As saints, they do not formally exist, and yet we can see evidence of their popularity on myriad levels. There are almost as many surviving medieval pilgrim badges attributed to Richard Caister of Norwich as there are to St Alban, and Henry VI appears nearly as often on East Anglian rood screens, and amongst references to church statues, as Mary Magdalene.

So where then does that leave us?

One would consider the documentary evidence, particularly at a parish level, to be a fairly solid source of evidence, but even here things are not always as they seem. Take for example the tiny Devon parish of Morebath, whose accounts and records have been subject to detailed study by Eamon Duffy in his excellent book - 'The Voices of Morebath'. On the 30th August 1520 the village welcomed a young and enthusiastic new priest, ChristopherTrychay, who was to remain in the parish for the next fifty-four years. However, the priest brought more than just zeal and enthusiasm with him to his new parish. In his first year it is recorded that he personally paid for the creation and gilding of a statue of St Sidwell, a local saint popular in the Exeter region, that was placed within his new church. Over the coming decades Trychay fostered the cult of the saint in the parish, encouraging gifts and small acts of devotion, bequests and benevolences, so that by the eve of the reformation the cult of St Sidwell in Morebath was almost as prominent as that of the Virgin Mary - with at least two young girls within the parish having been named after Sidwell.

Seen from an outside perspective, the growth of the cult of St Sidwell within the parish would appear to clearly evidence the local growth in popularity of what was clearly a local saint. A superficial examination of the paperwork would support this, and might even lead a historian to ponder how such localised cults become established? However, the deeper research into this particular parish has allowed us to understand that the growth and popularity of this particular cult was actually the direct result of the personal zeal of one particular parish priest; one man whose own devotion to the saint has led to a complete bias of the written evidence. If this was the case in Morebath it raises the question of how often this may well have been the case elsewhere?

It becomes perhaps more complex still if we consider other areas of written evidence. My own research has clearly indicated that even such seemingly straightforward sources such as post-mortem pilgrimage bequests - when an individual left money in their will for others to undertake pilgrimages on their behalf - were more likely to appear within surviving wills from particular locations than from others. In essence, such bequests appear in geographical clusters, suggesting either that those making their wills were influenced by the individuals writing them (scribal influence), or they were simply emulating the actions of others in the same locality - a post-mortem 'keeping up with the Jones'.

And if you think all that is just a bit confusing - it actually gets even worse. Certain saints appear largely in only one strand of evidence, and are almost entirely absent elsewhere. Take for example the late medieval cult of Catherine of Sienna. Jennifer N. Brown has convincingly shown that the saint became incredibly influential in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, particularly amongst literate female followers, with extracts of her writings surviving in numerous sources. However, the saint almost completely fails to make the translation from the written works to being depicted in popular religious art. Despite Catherine's demonstrable importance she appears only on a single retable (the Dartmouth, or Battel Hall, retable), and a rood screen in Devon. A third possible depiction, on the rood screen at Horsham St Faith in Norfolk, now appears more likely to be a depiction of the Virgin as Queen of Heaven - and why anyone ever thought it might be Catherine is something of a mystery.

In complete contrast to Catherine of Sienna is the story of 'Mistress Ridibowne'. She appears on the fifteenth century painted rood screen at Gately in Norfolk, with additional references to pilgrimage bequests in a very small number of Norfolk wills, and the 'possibility' that there was a further image of her at Hackford church - also in Norfolk. The thing is, we have absolutely no idea who she was. Although it has been suggested it might be referring to Christina of Markyate, and it is clear that the cult involved a minor site of pilgrimage, she really is a complete enigma. What is perhaps worse is the fact that she isn't alone. We have references to other bequests and offerings to minor shrines and cults that are just as much of a mystery.

Gateley rood screen figure

So where then does this leave the original question I asked on Twitter? How is it possible to judge the popularity of an individual saint in the medieval period? Well, I think the only true answer is that there is no one clear way; no single strand of evidence that can reflect the reality of late medieval piety, particularly on a parish level. We can say the St Thomas Becket and St Mary were incredibly popular in the later Middle Ages, and judge other cults from relics, pilgrims, and bequests, but once you get down into the nitty gritty of judging actual popularity, no one single strand of evidence will ever tell us more than a single 'version'; a truth that may well be supported by other forms of evidence, or, as we have seen, may well be totally contradicted by them.

There were other suggestions made by those on twitter that I do particularly like. For example, if the number of supposed relics claimed by various churches adds up to more than one whole individual - and I'm thinking of multiple claims to objects such as Aaron's rod, or the foreskin of Christ here - then they were undoubtedly popular. A saint with eight arms, three skulls, and five legs was undoubtedly a sought after individual. Likewise, I see a bright future for the idea of Medieval Saints Top Trumps.

After all, it is only graffiti...

Over the last eight years St Mary's church at Troston in Suffolk has received a fair amount of media attention. Whilst the church was already known for its really quite spectacular medieval wall paintings, much of the new media attention has been focussed upon the regionally significant collection of early graffiti to be found on the walls. Today was the turn of TV presenter and generally sound chap Clive Anderson, who was there to film a short section for a new documentary. You may not all rate him as a presenter, and you may not all find him funny (although his take-down of Piers Morgan to his face still ranks as one of the high points of modern television in my eyes), but you have to admire his courage - for today he was subjected to four hours in a cold church, listening to me rant on about how wonderful the medieval graffiti there really is. And the graffiti at Troston REALLY is that good. It has everything. Animals, people, faces, ships, dates and demons. Lots of demons. It really is rather special.

However, it soon became apparent on today's trip that not everything was well with the Troston graffiti, and that something very serious is taking place at the junction between the tower and nave. These two images show the same wall only two years apart - the image on the left having been taken this morning. The fifteenth and sixteenth century graffiti inscriptions (as well as later examples) are literally crumbling to dust, and flaking from the walls. Having survived for over five centuries something has changed, apparent by the very obvious damp levels rising through the stonework. The result is a mass of mineral salts leaching from the stonework, and some very serious delamination of the stone of the tower arch on the north side.

Luckily the graffiti at Troston is well recorded, and has been previously published - but that is all that will soon be left of this regionally significant collection of medieval and Tudor graffiti. The published record.

The problem of course is that this isn't just happening in Troston church, but at dozens of other sites across the region. These inscriptions are being lost at a fantastic rate. Some are being lost to development, where the church undertakes 'improvements' without first surveying for significant graffiti. Others are lost due to changes in the church environment, often the result of poor maintenance and lack of funds to repairs the churches. Sometimes the losses are just through carelessness.

However, it is wrong to blame the churches and churchwardens. In most cases they are underfunded and over worked - with many churches now looked after by a tiny team drawn from a tiny, and shrinking, congregation. They are largely doing what they can with the resources that they have available to them.

In terms of getting their graffiti recorded, particularly prior to building works or renovations, a lot of churches have never even considered the concept. It simply isn't on their radar. And why would it be? They aren't experts in church archaeology, or buildings surveyors. They are just a bunch of good people doing what they think is best - and they'd be as horrified as anyone else out there if they thought they were doing long term damage to the buildings they so very clearly love. So where then does the blame lie - because it really is finger pointing time. Because I'm fed up with walking into churches to find our history literally falling from the walls. I'm fed up with picking up the fragments of the past from the floor; fragments that didn't have to be there in the first place. I'm fed up with the look of horror on the churchwarden's faces when you have to break it to them that their own parish past is literally slipping through their finders, and that what they now see before their eyes will be lost long before their own grandchildren ever have a chance to see it for themselves.

So where then do the problems lie? Well, if we are honest here, the main problem (and it certainly isn't the only one) lies with the planning process. A lot of people may not realise it, but historic churches don't actually have to follow the traditional planning process. Unlike us mere mortals they don't have to apply for planning permission via the local authority, and follow national planning legislation. Instead, due to an agreement drawn up way back in the mists of time, churches have to submit their plans to their local Diocese Advisory Committee (DAC), who will, if they are satisfied, issue a document known as a 'faculty' (essentially the equivalent of planning consent issued by a local authority). As part of the faculty process the DAC should also issue guidelines and conditions - such as mitigation measures based upon the likelihood of things like medieval wall paintings being present. Unfortunately, even after nearly a decade of ranting on about the importance of historic graffiti, you won't find too many DACs that give any thought, let along conditions, relating to historic graffiti.

Now don't misunderstand me here. We do have some wonderful DACs across the country, full of technical experts who really do their utmost to preserve the historic environment. However, we have some really shockers too. Truly. Horrifyingly corrupt. DACs that include barely any archaeological representation, yet are loaded instead with architects. No doubt they are good architects, with many years experience of working on churches, but these are also the same individuals who are working with local parishes to draw up plans and schemes that are eventually submitted to the DAC for approval. The same DAC that they sit upon. The same DAC that all their architect mates sit upon. You'd be amazed at the percentage of their schemes that get passed and have a faculty issued. Or maybe you wouldn't. Indeed, there are a number of DACs across the country that need completely disbanding - quite possibly with an axe - and being reformed. Preferably with new members who don't have a financial interest in passing their own, or their mates, schemes.

Sadly though it isn't just the DACs that are the problem. The blame also lies slightly higher up the ladder, with those statutory organisations who are meant to be issuing guidelines and advice when dealing with historic fabric. There are guidelines issued for just about everything in the historic environment - the care of wall paintings, care of monuments, care of stained glass, etc, etc. Lots and lots of guidelines. You might think then that, after nearly a decade of me and others banging on about historic graffiti, and half a century after Pritchard published 'English Medieval Graffiti', someone out there might have noticed that we have a rather massive corpus of early and often unique material scattered across the walls of our churches and cathedrals - and that it is at risk. That it is in danger of literally falling from the walls. That some form of guidelines might be in order.

The reality is that historic graffiti, for however many reasons, still isn't seen as a mainstream historic resource. It isn't seen as something worth issuing guidelines for. It isn't seen, by the powers that be, as important. Indeed, it can be argued that it just about the only area of true heritage at risk in the UK that isn't receiving any special attention whatsoever. There is no risk register, no guidance on protection, and certainly no money available for recording or even archiving purposes. If a bat decided to crap on it, that might be a different story, but as it stands any builder, churchwarden, or even architect, can destroy it, or allow it to be destroyed, at will.

Think about that for a moment. If this had been a medieval wall painting that was falling off the wall, or that someone (God forbid) had tried to repaint, then there would be an outcry. There would be guidelines and processes, and quite possibly funding (I did say 'possibly'), to actually do something about it. In this case there isn't even a process. It is, after all, only graffiti.

Getting your kit off in a Nottinghamshire church: why attitudes have to change

So a couple of weeks ago the local mums of East Markham got their kit off. The ladies of the village were to be found hanging around in the fields, wandering through local orchards, and even propping up the bar in the local pub - all in what can best be described as 'a state of undress'. And why were the good ladies of this Nottinghamshire village getting all 'cheeky' in the church? Is this a normal activity for the locals? The answer is that they were putting together a charity naked calendar.

You've all seen the sort of thing, made famous by the blockbuster film 'Calendar Girls'. Where local ladies come together to produce a photographic calendar, largely featuring them and little else (particularly noticeable is the lack of clothing), to raise money for a good cause. It is to be praised. It is to be considered most commendable. A local community coming together to raise money to help good causes. However, what makes this particular calendar so different is that it is designed to raise money for a cause that didn't even exist a month ago.

On the night of October 5th the church of St John the Baptist in East Markham was only one of the latest churches to be targeted by criminals intent on stripping the lead from the roof. Over four tons of lead was stolen that night, netting the thieves approximately £3500 in scrap value - at best. However, their crime has had a far higher cost for the parish itself, with repairs estimated at upwards of £50,000.

Damage to East Markham church roof. Image copyright: Tom Freemantle

Sadly, the villagers of East Markham aren't alone in having suffered at the hands of these vile little shits. This year has been a slightly busier year than average for metal theft from churches. Not massively so, but slightly busier. A quick trawl of the news feeds produced stories about lead theft at the following churches:-

Gamlingay,Houghton ConquestLindsayWilloughby WaterleysSudbury (Derbs)WilsfordSwarbyKelbySt James, BristolSt George Colegate, NorwichBarton upon HumberPewseyMeltonTwyfordTilton on the hillWhitwell (Leic)GlastonBorough on the hillEmpinghamEdith Weston

This isn't a comprehensive list, just what turned up on a quick Google search - it also only covers the LAST SIX MONTHS. The damage has been estimated in the millions of pounds in last six months - and yet the criminal gangs have likely only netted a tiny fraction of that value illegally selling on the lead as scrap. Approximately 5% - 10% of the costs of the damage they cause. Not exactly the most cost effective of criminal enterprises. Let's face it, they'd make far more cash repairing church roofs than stealing the lead from them.

However, it isn't all about the money. Believe it or not, church roofs tend to be fairly fragile objects. They may have elaborately carved angels supporting massive timbers and hemmer-beams, but above that is nothing more than a few thin boards and a sheet of lead. Once the lead is removed the boards, and all the time opened gaps between them, are exposed to the elements - as is everything within the church below. One good downpour can cause further tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage. More importantly, some of the damage can be beyond something that you can put an actual price on. Medieval wall paintings can be literally washed from the walls. Pigments that have survived in the parish church for centuries, with bright images of saints glaring down upon generations of the congregation, can be lost forever in a few good rain storms. Angels weeping real tears as their colours pool on the floor beneath them. And that is not even to mention the early graffiti often to be found on this lead - some of which can date back to the seventeenth century. This is not a victimless crime.

There are ways to protect churches from this crime - or at least limit the likelihood of it taking place. Roof alarms are seen as an effective method. However, even they rely upon someone being able, and willing, to turn out in the middle of the night to answer an alarm, with the potential for meeting a gang of metal thieves at the church. Something of an alarming prospect in itself for many of our more elderly churchwardens. In addition, it isn't much use having an alarm if the nearest company operative charged with answering any alarm call is actually several hours away from the site. And the thieves are getting wise to the alarms these days. A number of alarmed churches have had their rood lead stolen, with the alarm sensors carefully removed before the lead was stripped.

Other methods tend to be only seen as a deterrent that becomes effective only AFTER the lead has been stolen. Things such as CCTV recording, or marking the lead with 'smart water', may both help eventually convict the culprits and recover the stolen lead (which largely cannot be re-used), but they don't stop the crime happening in the first place. All a very sad state of affairs.

You cannot help but feel sorry for these communities, and the massive financial challenges that they suddenly find themselves facing, but to a certain extent many of these crimes are simply ones that should never have taken place.

The current advice being given out by heritage organisations such as Historic England is that if a church suffers a lead theft then the lead roof must be repaired 'like for like'. Where lead was taken, lead must be used to replace the missing roof. To some extent there is a good conservation argument behind this advice. Lead is hard wearing, has a long lifespan, and has been used as a church roofing material for many, many centuries. Conservation principles advise that all replacements should be as close to the original material as possible.

The problem with this approach, reiterated again by Historic England earlier this year, is that you simply make the church a further target for the lead thieves. Not only do you put valuable material back on the roof, but you do so for thieves that are actually experienced in stripping lead from that particular church. You may as well just leave the cash in the church porch. Indeed, it might even be cheaper in the long run. Harpley church in Norfolk, was attacked three times in four years. Icklingham in Suffolk - twice in four years. Dunton Bassett in Leicestershire - three times in five years. The list goes on and on.

The thing is that there are other materials that can be used to cover church roofs - ranging from various types of polymer coating, to cheaper metal alternatives - all of which have about zero scrap value to any potential thieves, and look pretty much like the lead roof that they are replacing. If used to replace a stolen lead roof they simply don't make further attacks worthwhile. There is no cash in it for the scumbag lead thieves. The question has to be, do such alternatives actually deter further theft? The answer is an unequivocal yes. Cowlinge church in Suffolk was attacked by thieves a few years ago, who managed to strip much of the lead from the south aisle roof. After a long debate with the authorities the church managed to secure agreement that the replacement roof would be lead-free, and tens of thousands of pounds was eventually spent repairing the damaged roof. Earlier this year thieves returned once again to this remote church, and again targeted the south aisle roof. They began to remove the roofing material from one corner, but upon discovering it wasn't actually lead, they fled the scene. Admittedly the aisle roof was damaged, but this time only to the tune of a few thousand pounds, rather than the tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage that had been caused previously. Lead-free roofs work.

Medieval Latin text graffiti from Cowlinge church, Suffolk

The problem is that the heritage organisations really don't like these roof coverings being used. Despite looking like a lead roof, they aren't the real thing, and their use reduces the historic aesthetic and significance of the building. A number of organisations and diocese are coming around to realising that the use of lead-free roofing materials does actually provide a long term solution for many churches. However, Historic England are less convinced. Whilst they 'recognise that in certain circumstances following theft like-for-like replacement would not be prudent', they still argue that lead should be retained wherever it is deemed practical.

Well times change, and everyone who spends a good deal of time in churches knows that they too are buildings of change and evolution. They have to be. As most heritage professionals and church archaeologists already accept, these buildings may be a fantastic resource for studying the past, but they also need a future. That future can only really be secured by the communities to which they belong. People like the naked mums of East Markham. And to do that these buildings need people inside their walls, they need facilities to make those people welcome, and most of all, they need a bloody roof.

If you would like to support the East Markham appeal, or buy a calendar of the East Markham mums in the nip, more details can be found here

Archaeology volunteering v.2.0

( Over the last few months I've read an awful lot about volunteering in the archaeological sector. A lot of it has been interesting, but almost all of it has been written from an archaeologists perspective. It has also dealt with what you might call 'traditional' volunteering. Old school volunteering. A type of volunteering that is becoming increasingly far from the norm. A lot of it has, quite rightly, emphasised just how important volunteers are. How we can't do without them. How they add value to projects, and fill the gaps left by funding cuts and deficits. However, what many people don't seem to grasp is that perhaps the single most important thing volunteers can bring to any project is far less tangible. It isn't something easily measurable, and certainly not something that you can put a cash value on. And this elusive benefit is - Advocacy. The enthusiasm to talk about, and promote, the project within social groups that even the best PR machine or social media campaign may find hard to reach. The ability to create the goodwill and enthusiasm to ensure the project is a success - and the success of future projects too. Promoting your projects in unconventional, but far reaching ways. And so I asked some of our volunteers to write short guest blog posts on what THEY value about volunteering. The first is Jess, one of the more vocal volunteers for the NMGS - and I 'may' have edited out some of the swearing...)

Hello, my name is Jess and I’m an alcoholic. Sorry, wrong notes. My name is Jess and I am a volunteer for the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey. If you’re reading this, then you probably already know a fair bit about the survey, and what it’s aiming to achieve, so you can skip to the third paragraph, well done, you’ve saved yourself some time. If you don’t know about it, then read this bit: volunteers for the survey are responsible for an amazing and entirely new corpus of data relating to the understanding of medieval churches, religion, magic, belief, and the lives of the ordinary people in those times. Very simply, volunteers are attempting to go out to each little treasure of Norfolk’s medieval churches, shining light across the walls and recording the centuries old inscriptions left there, both photographically and on basic recording forms, detailing where each inscription is to be found within the churches.

It’s quite an undertaking. Hundreds of thousands of hours spent by people with little or no background in archaeology quietly undertaking a revolution in research and understanding. Hundreds of thousand of hours spent in chilly, damp churches, squinting at peeling lime wash, brushing aside cobwebs, smiling politely at other visitors as who try to nervously ignore the person with their nose pressed to the base of a font, wielding a £3 LED torch.

Yep, that’s what the marvellous, dedicated, and inspiring NMGS volunteers do. Visit churches, take photos, submit surveys. That’s it, that’s what being a volunteer is, no room for anything else, that’s what we contribute. My name is Jess and I’m a volunteer.

Except that I don’t own a camera, can’t take a raking light photo to save my life, and I have not, in my three years of being involved in the project, surveyed one church. I’ve never even made a single entry on a photo record sheet, still less actually held one (I don’t have a printer, which might explain that one). And yet, as far as I’m concerned, I am a volunteer, and I do contribute, in my own way. How? Erm. Well, I just sort of do… stuff. Usually sitting on my living room floor, ancient and creaking laptop on the coffee table in front of me, occasionally on my phone in the pub, sometimes I even do stuff in my fully 3D incarnation at Norwich Cathedral. Yebbut, what do I actually do?

I read, I write. I creatively google things. I enthuse to the point of banging on about medieval graffiti to the point where people start pleading with me to shut up. I spend an entire weekend trawling antique dealer websites to look for furniture that may or may not feature apotropaic markings. I am happily whored out by my mum to give tours of the graffiti at the cathedral to her friends (I always start these tours shy and halting, stumbling over my words, and quivering with nerves. By the end I have to stuff my tongue back into my mouth with both hands and need to be sat on to stop me racing off down the aisle again) I may also sometimes have a hand in being a spectacularly sweary first reader of certain articles, book chapters, etc, and provide my own rather personal form of feedback to the writer. Just be grateful you’re not the recipient of emails headed ‘that powercrazed fuckwit bunny’ or, possibly worse, ‘oh dear…’.

That’s what I do. For free, gratis, nada, nothing other than the promise of lemon drizzle cake that has yet to materialise two and half years later, not that I’m counting or anything, MATTHEW CHAMPION*. So I suppose the obvious question is why? Why have notebooks stuffed with lists of churches, notes in margins, a phone crammed with photos, and a head full of inconsequent ional information that may or may not be of use at some point in the future? Why would someone give up so much of their time to volunteering to a project, to something that is, whilst groundbreaking and important, relatively niche, even allowing for the specialisms of archaeology? We-elll… it’s simple really. I fell in love with medieval graffiti, head over heels, gazing at walls. It just bypassed any pretence at rationality I may gamely attempt, and connected. And when you feel that connection to something, then you want to explain it, you want people to understand, you want to grab people and squeal ‘Look at THAT! Isn’t it mindblowing???’ Essentially, you want to do what you can to help, too. And that’s where volunteering comes in.

I don’t have the skills, knowledge, or talent to be a traditional volunteer. My addition to the database of medieval graffiti is pretty much nil (Except for the DAYS she spent building a Google map of all the currently known graffiti churches in the UK - Ed). I’ve got no previous experience of history, archaeology, research or academia, so there’s no hope of me helping out there, either. But I do contribute in my own idiosyncratic way, I think (bloody hope so, anyway, or all of this is a waste of time). By bringing medieval graffiti to a wider audience who wouldn’t perhaps have heard of it before they read an article I write, or by a chance remark at a parent teacher evening that gets me invited in to talk to schoolchildren. Or perhaps by emailing a photo of an old bed, or getting inventively sweary about a first draft, or gabbling away to strangers in Norwich Castle.
I don’t fit the model of what a community archaeology volunteer should be. And yet, I know my contribution is valued, unconventional as it is. And because it’s valued, because I feel that I am helping, I want to do more, I want to continue to help, I am encouraged to do more. Any project that uses volunteers needs to think of them as individuals, not as one bland, faceless homogenous mass, to not assume that ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to volunteering, and that theories of how to appeal to more people are a relatively superficial way of engaging. Treat volunteers as individuals, play to their strengths, and you’ll end up with a group of fiercely loyal, enthusiastic, passionate people who will do their best to support your work. Oh, and you might end up with me too. Sorry about that.

*(I would point out, in my defence, that since the establishment of this agreement, Norwich cathedral refectory appears to have increasingly limited its production of lemon drizzle cake. Many, many alternatives have been offered. Many of these have involved chocolate in VAST quantities. None have apparently been acceptable. So if anyone knows of a good lemon drizzle cake mail order company - I'd be very grateful... Ed)