Siena - part 1. The lost voices of the crypt.

I landed at Pisa airport, Italy, in the late morning, in the very last days of January 2020. Miles to the north of me a few hundred people had begun to cough their guts out, and a few medics had begun to become concerned at a strange new disease that appeared to be spreading quite rapidly - and killing people. I didn't know any of this at the time. None of us did. And it would be weeks before I understood that I had just walked in to a biological war-zone. I was happy just to be in northern Italy, despite it being the depths of winter, and with the prospect of some seriously interesting archaeology in front of me.

A few hours and a slow train ride later I had left the coast and headed inland, up through the Tuscan hills to the medieval city of Siena. If this were a travel blog it's at this point I'd start getting all overly descriptive; telling you about the picturesque medieval buildings, the wonderful plazas, fine restaurants, and beautiful accommodation. I'd wax lyrical about the famous 'Palio' - a twice annual horserace that verges upon the insane - the stunning museums and galleries, and undoubtedly mention that the entire city centre is a Unesco World Heritage Site. I would tell tales of late night wanderings through narrow medieval streets, overhung by balconies. Balconies from which, only two months later, the locked-down residents would nightly serenade their own beloved and Covid besieged city. I'd also undoubtedly include an implausible and amusing anecdote concerning a local, or a lavish description of a meal in some hidden-away gem of an eatery. However, this isn't a travel blog, so I won't.

So we will skip all of that. You can go and look for yourself someday I hope. I was heading instead for one of the most intriguing medieval buildings in a city. A place packed full of medieval wonders. The cathedral, or Duomo - a masterpiece of Italian Romanesque/Gothic architecture that dominates its own quarter within the city.

The guidebooks will all tell you that the sumptuous façade of the Duomo was completed about the year 1380. However, as with all these things, that is a bit of a simplification. Like just about every cathedral or great church ever built the Duomo was a constantly evolving building. Changes in fashion and the requirements and aspirations of the population mean that these structures were never the static artefacts that would, if it were true, make an architectural historians life just a little too easy. Instead they grow, they shift, they alter, and they evolve. And as they evolve little pieces of space, small fragments of a specific moment, become fossilised in the architecture.

There are few religious buildings that demonstrate this more clearly than the Duomo. In the late fourteenth century there were plans to expand this already impressively large structure, with the creation of a massive eastern transept. If completed it would have made the Duomo the largest basilica of its time. However, as is so common with big building projects, the ambitions of the locals were larger than their pockets were deep, and the lack of funds in the wake of the Black Death and local conflict brought a halt to the construction. Only the outer two arcades were built, leaving a massive area of the plaza enclosed by the outline of a building that never was. A phantom structure whose soaring empty arches scream thwarted ambition, and now a useful place to park your car.

Despite the many and varied wonders of the Duomo - and I could ramble on for many hours about those (buy a guidebook if you are interested) - I was there to look at the graffiti. I know. Boringly predictable. The Duomo is covered in ancient graffiti, both inside and out. Deeply cut inscriptions and coats of arms sit alongside sketched lines of music, and vibrant little caricatures of knights on horseback. On the outside can be found carved a rare ROTAS square, and pelta designs just litter the stonework. Indeed, there are probably more pelta designs on that one building than have so far been recorded in the whole of the UK. And the graffiti covers all periods, from the ancient to the very recent, from visitors of all ages to the site - some of whom were far more welcome than others.

In terms of medieval graffiti the real value of Siena isn't inside the main building itself, but rather beneath it, in an area described today as a crypt, but originally a series of chapels. The crypt is actually a relatively new discovery, only being found by archaeologists in 1999, and not opened to the public until 2003. It is believed that it was first built in the second half of the thirteenth century, but was subject to extensive changes and alterations associated with the enlargement of the cathedral in about 1317, before finally falling completely out of use at around 1355. The main body of the crypt was then filled with sand and sealed - as it remained until 1999.

When excavated the walls of the crypt were found to be covered in wall paintings, which have been tentatively dated to the 1280s. And what stunning wall paintings they are! Having been in use for only a few decades before being filled with sand, the crypt paintings are in an incredible state of preservation. The colours really are almost as bright as the day they were painted. There really is nothing like it in the UK. And from my perspective what is really special about the crypt is the fact that those same wall paintings are absolutely covered in graffiti. Hundreds of examples of graffiti. And that makes the crypt very, very special indeed.

The graffiti in the crypt represents one of the handful of examples of graffiti having been created in a sealed and securely dated context. Any graffiti cut through those paintings HAS to have been created between the 1280s - when the paintings were made - and the 1350s - when the crypt was sealed and filled with sand. It is unquestionably medieval graffiti. It cannot be anything else. So, whilst it may not be from the UK, it does give an indication of the subject, scale, and quantity of graffiti that was being created within a highly regulated religious environment during a very short and precisely defined period in the later Middle Ages.

The most obvious feature of the graffiti in the undercroft is just how visible it is. Cut through the medieval pigments to reveal the pale plaster beneath, it stands out white against the bright colours of the religious scenes on the walls. It is obvious to anyone who walks into the room. The biblical scenes and their borders, lovely though they may be, are covered in graffiti. There really is no getting away from the implications of this.

The most obvious thing is that the graffiti is still there. Still very visible. It hasn't been painted over, and no attempt has been made to cover it in any way. Coupled with the fact that a vast amount of the graffiti there is religious or devotional in nature, it all rather confirms the concept that these inscriptions were not only tolerated, but were accepted and acceptable. A physical manifestation of the piety displayed by those who visited these spaces. It also gives a clear indication of how the walls of our own English parish churches would have once looked. No naughty choirboys creating graffiti in dark corners - but masses of highly visible inscriptions literally leaping out at you as you entered the church.

There were other insights too. The way in which many of the numerous heraldic inscriptions utilised the coloured borders of the paintings, adding pigment and a colour scheme to heraldry that we normally only encounter in the UK as bare and empty outlines. Carefully placed on boundaries between pigments, the little shields allow the walls to take on the form of a crude Roll of Arms. Can this too then be translated to English church walls, where the medieval pigment has long since been lost? Can we in fact use the graffiti to outline and identify these areas of lost pigment? A reversal of the usual trend.

Perhaps most importantly the graffiti in the crypt is a sealed little moment in time. A fragment of the past - a few brief decades of peoples hopes, dreams, and fears - that have been fossilised in the graffiti. They didn't leave their names, so we will never know who they were. We will never know if they were knight or priest, cleric or commoner. We will never know if they went on to have long and happy lives, or died weeping and alone in the agony of a plague year. But what they have left us is what they deemed important enough to leave behind them. What they cared about most - whether it be a prayer, an echoing fragment of music, or just the briefest of outlines that tell us the most important message of all - 'once upon a time I was real - I lived, I loved, I made this mark - and I was here...'

'Witch marks' are just SO last decade... now carpenters marks are cool.

It's already mid October, Halloween is just around the corner, plague doctor masks are outselling just about every other costume on the internet, and my inbox is filling up once again. No, that isn't a euphemism. Stop smirking.

At this time of year the subject line of most of the emails is pretty much guaranteed to read 'witch marks', or some variant upon it. The tabloid media wanting images or, more usually, emails from the public wanting to know if the strange markings they have found on their house are indeed 'witch marks'. Firstly, I have to state that all the emails are welcome - unless they are from the Daily Mail obviously. They can go and do one. I try to reply to all the messages - eventually - and give an indication of the meaning of the markings they've discovered. At the very least it may heighten their interest in, and understanding of, their own house. They may look at it in a different light, and think about the generations who have called it home for centuries before they were born.

However, the replies always begin the same way.

"Many thanks for the message and attached images ('and apologies for the delay in reply to you' - optional depending upon how busy a month it has been). We tend not to use the term 'witch mark' these days, as it is both misleading and factually incorrect. The term itself was invented by a journalist only a couple of decades ago, and is sadly one we don't seem to be able to shake off. An actual 'witch mark' is the marking found upon the body of a witch (third nipple etc), that was thought to be the physical manifestation of their pact with the devil.

The markings in the images you sent are today more usually known as 'apotropaic' marks, or 'ritual protection marks', and in parts of northern Europe they are still called 'holy signs' - which is perhaps an altogether more descriptive name. The marks themselves have no direct links to witches, and were thought to ward off evil spirits and malign influences. Most of them have their origins in the imagery of the medieval church, and can best be thought of as 'anti-witch marks'." This is usually followed by a reading list.

Never let it be said that my replies don't give good value for money...

The thing is, nine times out of ten, the images I get sent aren't ritual protection marks at all. Anything but in fact. On a fairly regular basis I still receive images showing a large, deeply cut, 'broad arrow' design, which still appears to mystify a lot of people. These are usually the easiest to explain, as they are Ordnance Survey Benchmarks - the marks created by the good people of the Ordnance Survey to act as datum point when undertaking map-making surveys. They are usually to be found on permanent structures, such as churches or houses, and are nationwide, so it is easy to understand why people may be curious about them. You can read more about them here - https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/benchmarks/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=493066

However, almost all the other images I get sent (those that are in focus enough to see anything at all) are most usually 'Carpenters Marks'. You can almost feel the disappointment as they read my reply, and I do feel a bit sorry for them sometimes. It's like kicking a puppy. Not ritual, or protective, in any way. However, these marking are - I try and tell them enthusiastically - incredibly useful to a buildings archaeologist! They can tell us just SO MUCH about a building's construction history! In many ways they are EVEN BETTER than ritual protection marks!

They rarely fall for it obviously...

So what exactly are Carpenter's Marks? Well, it is all pretty straightforward really (this is a convenient lie). These are the marks made during the construction process of a timber building. The carpenter's would build their timber frame, and cut all their joints, most usually on the ground in an area sometimes known as a 'framing yard' - just to make sure it all fitted together perfectly. They would then mark each timber and joint with an individual marking - one on each of the timbers that formed the joint - so you would end up with a pair of markings. In this way they could ensure that when it was all taken apart again, and reassembled in its final position, everything ended up where it should be. Joint A to Joint A, joint B to joint B - just like a giant model kit. 

On stone or brick buildings they tend to be confined to the roof structure, or floor frames, but they can also be found on partition walls or similar. On fully timber framed buildings they are likely to be everywhere. They can also take a wide variety of forms, some being scratched, others cut neatly with chisels, and there are no completely set patterns - just some things that are commoner than others. 

Most usually the early examples are loosely based upon Roman numerals - XII, VIII, IX, etc - as these are easily made using a chisel. However, there are a few examples known about where Arabic numerals were used - even quite early on. The markings also often follow a numerical sequence, so you can actually work out which end a house was built from by working from the lower numbers towards the higher ones across the structure.

Having said that, if you go hunting for these marks don't expect to find nice neat Roman numerals all over your roof timbers. When I said they were often 'loosely' based on Roman numerals I really did mean loosely. At a recent survey of a sixteenth century floor frame at Oxburgh hall in Norfolk I recorded a lovely set of carpenter's marks that were set as typical Roman numerals. That is until you came to number nine, which instead of marking as IX (which can be mistaken for XI when viewed upside-down), they had substituted it with a broad arrow marking. Very much a case of 'this way up'.

In a symmetrical building, where the same joints appear on opposite sides of the frame, you will sometimes find that one side displays carpenter's marks in the form of Roman numerals, whilst the opposite side will have the same numerals, but each with an extra little 'tag'. A way of differencing the left from the right of the frame, or the front from the back.

You also quite commonly get examples that are a mixture of lines and circles - the circles being created with a carpenter's raze knife - and these are the ones most likely to get mistaken for ritual protection marks, even by some supposed 'experts'. And then there are the really rare markings. Those marks that appear to be confined to a single building, and have yet to be discovered anywhere else. Returning to Oxburgh hall again, a small number of the surviving medieval rafters of the western range - dating to somewhere between 1437 and 1463 - are marked with a semi-circular punch or moulding chisel. One punch for rafter one, two for rafter two, and so on.

Okay. So not quite as straightforward as I may have suggested a few paragraphs ago, but hopefully you get the idea.

And I wasn't exaggerating when I said that these markings are incredibly useful to a buildings archaeologist. Ritual marks may be a bit of a giggle at Halloween, but carpenter's marks are where the real fun is at. As mentioned above, they can give you a chronology for how a house was actually built - what came first, and how the builders tackled the project. They can even tell you a bit about the carpenters themselves. Are they the same type of mark throughout, or are multiple carpenters working on the project? They can even tell you quite a lot about what has happened since the house was first built. Are the markings all still in situ, and in the right order, or has the structure been altered, re-ordered, or repaired. They are, as you can see, incredibly useful little marks.

So this Halloween, whilst everyone is going on about bloody 'witch marks', spare a thought for the humble carpenter's marks. The marks left by honest craftsmen as their construction blueprints, and their own modest legacy to history.

Of books, book curses, and the wrath of librarians...

Yesterday I was linked in to a conversation on Twitter about some strange and unusual markings that had been found on the front-piece of a sixteenth century book. The symbols were circular, and one was bisected by a number of lines in the form of a star. I was asked if I had come across anything similar, as the markings seemed to be a bit of a puzzle to those studying the work. The answer was 'yes - all the damned time - and I am sure I've written about it somewhere'. It turns out I had started a blog on the subject, but just never got around to finishing it. As usual. So below is a version of that blog post. I have re-written sections of it to tie in with the excellent blog written by Elizabeth DeBold from the Folger library, and hope that the bits and pieces I have found will enhance and add to what she has been looking at. I have, however, left most of the swearing in.

Since I began the graffiti project about a decade ago it quickly became clear that there were certain symbols and motifs that turned up time and time again. To begin with they were most obvious amongst the graffiti, but as the project received more publicity people started emailing and messaging me with their own findings. In many cases they were intrigued that the marks they were coming across in their own fields of research were the same as those that I and the numerous volunteers were coming across etched into buildings. Years later and the photographs keep on coming. However, amongst some of the first people to contact me were book historians and librarians, who had come across these same markings on books in their own care and were somewhat puzzled as to why they were there, and what they meant? At first it was just one or two images of books, but the numbers soon began to increase, and we all soon realised that 'something' was going on.

Bodleian Library, Ms Rawl. 141

These marks are actually far more common on books than we at first realised, and once researchers have started looking for these simple annotations they really are turning up everywhere. Often as an informal drawing on the fly-leaves, sometimes on the covers, and occasionally even hidden amongst the more formal decoration and illumination. Compass drawn motifs, pelta designs, pentangles - multiple variations upon a theme - and occasionally even combinations of symbols.

A selection of typical 'holy signs' or ritual protection marks found on buildings and objects.

These symbols are exactly the same symbols and motifs that we are finding amongst the graffiti on the walls of our historic houses,churches and cathedrals. Not just similar, but the same. It is a language or canon of symbolism that crosses just about every boundary. They can be found upon buildings, upon fonts, upon parish chests, upon beds, upon seals, upon pilgrim badges, upon jewellery, and as we have seen - upon books. They are quite literally universal in pre-reformation and early modern western Europe. To be blunt, they get bloody everywhere.

Bodleian Library, ms 57-2

So the big questions have to be - what do they mean, and what was their supposed function?

All these signs and symbols are part of a group of markings that are often referred to today as 'apotropaic' marks, or 'ritual protection marks', or more commonly misreferred to as 'witch marks'. Put simply, they are markings that are designed to ward off evil, and offer some form of 'protection'. Today a lot of people tend to class these markings as being part of some sort of superstitious practice - often referred to as 'folk magic' or 'folk belief'. However, over the last decade it has become clear that this attitude is generally a massive over simplification, and that the use of these markings and signs was fundamentally embedded within the everyday practices of the medieval church. They are used by all levels of society, including the parish priest, and turn up on a regular basis amongst the formal decoration of the orthodox church. The use of these symbols was no more a 'superstitious' practice than many of the other traditions of the early church, including the blessing of the farmer's plough, or even, dare I say it, the Mass itself.

A lot of these symbols, if not all, have their origins in the pre-Christian period. Take the six petal rosette, for example, also variously known as a 'daisy wheel', 'hexfoil', or 'geometric'. This familiar symbol is the single most common motif recorded amongst the graffiti inscriptions at the Roman site at Pompeii, where it appears to have been regarded as a symbol associated with the sun. It also turns up on Roman altars, particularly in northern Europe, and on Roman grave markers, where it is to be seen alongside a number of other previously identified spiritually significant symbols. However, the early Christian church was a bit handy when it came to appropriating the myths, legends, and symbols of those who came before, and the six petal rosette was quickly swept up by the early Christians. It's associations with the sun and concepts of rebirth and renewal fitted well with the newly developed Christian message, and most particularly with the rite of baptism. As a result it entered the formal imagery of the early church, and in this chilly little island stuck in the north sea, it became the single most common decorative element that has been recorded on twelfth century baptismal fonts.

C12th font, west face, Sculthorpe church, Norfolk

However, as with all these symbols, such a straightforward interpretation is also usually a far too simplistic interpretation. From the twelfth century onwards in England the six petal rosette is also to be found being used as a substitute or replacement for the more traditional cross or crucifix. At churches such as Eaton near Norwich, and Cerne Abbas in Dorset (and possibly Reigate in Surrey, where only the outline survives), the six petal rosette was actually used in place of the traditional equal armed cross as a church consecration cross. Likewise, there are a whole series of medieval grave markers known as cross slabs, that are found predominantly in the north of England, where the central motif of the four armed cross has been directly substituted by the six petal rosette. In these cases it appears that the symbols associations have gone beyond simple links with baptism, to being regarded as a substitute and alternative to the cross or crucifix. In the West Country the six petal rosette motif was traditionally even known as the 'symbol of the Passion', or 'flower of the Passion', again reinforcing the links between the motif and the cross or crucifix. As such, the motif would carry with it exactly the same potent symbolism, and apotropaic function, as the cross itself. The cross is, after all, one of the most powerful and protective of all Christian symbols and the sign of the cross has long been recognised as having a demonstrable apotropaic function across the Christian world. It is therefore logical to assume that symbols that act as alternatives, or substitutes, for the cross can be regarded as having been regarded as having similar, if not identical, functions. In a number of the Baltic states, where these symbols were still widely used until very recent times, they are known as 'holy signs', and are as much a part of lay piety as any other part of the church's teachings and imagery.

Six petal rosette used as a consecration cross, Eaton, Norfolk

And so, as these markings turn up on just about every other type of structure and artefact, I'd be more surprised if they didn't turn up on books as well. And they do, in quite considerable numbers.

Of particular interest are a whole series of medieval Jewish chronicles, where these motifs - and in particular the six petal rosette - form part of the formal decoration. In these manuscripts the motifs are actually formed of micrography (from the Greek, and literally meaning 'small writing'), where the symbols were actually created using text to form their shape. A mix of reading, writing and imagery, where the devotional text forms an image with spiritual associations. A double whammy as it were.

ms-canon-or-91-307r-v2

So as with the Jewish works, these symbols appear to have been added to the books to offer a form of spiritual protection. You marked your books in the same way that you marked your house, the box in which you held your valuables, the bed in which you slept - in the same manner you marked your child with the sign of the cross during baptism. All of these mechanisms were designed to offer an additional level of protection.

ms-oppenheim-add-4-97a

As with all of these symbols it is impossible to argue that the beliefs associated with them in the twelfth century continued unaltered through into the early modern period. Were people inscribing these same marks into sixteenth century books, or seventeenth century buildings, still thinking of these marks as alternatives and substitutes for the cross? Well, it is impossible to be certain in every case, but we do have some very well documented examples where, over time, the meanings and associations of a particular symbol shifts and evolves - an evolution of belief as it were. The example I always use (sorry!) is the pentangle. Today the symbol is largely associated with magic, witchcraft, and even the modern Wiccan movement. However, we know from the fourteenth century poem 'Gawain and the Green Knight' that in the later Middle Ages the symbol was deemed to be a Christian one, representing the 'five wounds of Christ' and the 'sign of Solomon', amongst other things. So, at some point in the centuries between then and now the meaning of that particular symbol has evolved, until it now actually has almost exactly the opposite associations to that which it began with.

I'm not arguing that this is the case with all these symbols. Some indeed are still used by the church to this day, and have overt religious connotations. However, what appears likely from the evidence is that for many of these symbols the direct religious associations diminished, and they evolved into symbols that were simply regarded as being 'protective', or at the most base level, perhaps even just 'lucky'. What is unquestionable though is that they continued to be used. On bloody everything.

C16th/C17th ring with apotropaic decoration.

The reality is that these strange markings shouldn't even really be regarded as particularly unusual in relation to book history. They are there to offer a level of protection to the book, and are simply another aspect of a concept that book historians and librarians are really already very familiar with - the book 'curse'.

Book curses - you've all heard of them right? Book curses? No? Well, we aren't talking about those weird people who display their paperbacks with the spines towards the wall, so that the multiple colour of the books don't interfere with their pale aesthetic. They probably should be cursed, but this is something completely different. These were written curses that were applied to ancient texts, most usually to deter thieves, or to 'encourage' the return of lost, stolen, or borrowed books.  The wording of these curses often invoked God, suggesting some form of divine retribution for those committing crimes against books and librarianship, and some of the medieval examples also contain an image of the cross for enhanced efficacy and potency. However, book curses carry on well into the post-medieval period, with the most recent that I have personally come across being applied to a book published in 1835. The 'curse' contains the name of the book's owner, 'Sarah Jane Webster', and the rhyme 'Steal not this book for fear of shame, for here you see the owners name. And if I catch you by the tail, I'll walk you off to Leicester gaol'. Powerful stuff for anyone that has visited Leicester... You can read more about book curses here.

The similarity between the better known book curses and these symbols is therefore clear. As many of the symbols themselves are alternatives or substitutes for the more traditional cross, carrying with them the apotropaic functions usually associated with the cross or crucifix, they are simply adding a layer of spiritual protection to the book. But unlike a lock or a book clasp, these motifs and symbols offered a protection that actually invoked God in aiding in that protection. And who would want to annoy God? I've seen him on Twitter, and he can be quite testy at times...

Devil's doors: evidence, traditions and superstitions

A new book came out a few months ago that deals with Norfolk folklore - 'This Hollow Land: Aspects of Norfolk Folklore' by a pleasant chap called Peter Tolhurst. It's a fine book, and has already won an award, and everyone with an interest in the subject should immediately go out and buy a copy. Preferably from a local independent bookshop. Except sadly you can't. It has already sold out. See, I told you it was good. There are many reasons that I rate this book, not least that it has medieval graffiti on the front cover, and I even get the odd mention or two, which is always nice. It rather makes you feel that all those hours spent in freezing cold churches haven't been totally in vain. Probably.

However, when I first read the book I was a little taken aback. A little shocked even. I may even admit to being a tiny bit pissed off. You see, the first section of the book deals with the history of studying East Anglian folklore, and gives a nicely concise run through of all the major characters that have written upon the subject over the last few centuries. It charts, in effect, the development of folklore studies in the region. All the big names are there, dealt with chronologically, outlining their triumphs and achievements. Walter Rye, Enid Porter, George Ewart Evans - all the big hitters in local folklore and tradition - and then me. At the end. The last couple of paragraphs.

In truth it is barely a mention, but I will admit to being a bit taken aback. Leaving aside the fact that my name was being mentioned alongside some of the most influential of local writers, which I was slightly in awe of, it was the fact that I was being portrayed as someone who had contributed to the development of folklore. Folklore! Bloody folklore!

An overreaction I know, but the thing is that I have always considered what I do to be archaeology rather than any other more specific area of study. I have nothing against folklorists, but whatever way you look at it, there is still a certain sniffy snobbery amongst mainstream academics against those who study things like folklore. There is a suggestion that it lacks any real and tangible evidence. Even after decades of sterling work by individuals and organisations like the Folklore Society, the attitudes persist, and I suppose that is why I have always argued that all of the graffiti studies sit within the field of archaeology rather than anything else.

It is, in the end, all down to the evidence. Many academic disciplines study, in depth, a single strand of evidence. That strand of evidence is often formed of a mass of material, but it doesn't go beyond its own self limiting boundaries, and when it does it is sometimes a mere nod towards the term 'context'. The study of archaeology however, is the study of the material culture of the past. A material culture that, at least in my interpretation, takes in everything from the graffiti on the walls, to building chronologies, the written records, and the individual artefacts. I will even, at a push, talk to art historians. Archaeology is, in my eyes at least, the study of all forms of evidence - with the potential to draw all forms of conclusions. Even, upon occasion, to realise that different forms of evidence can never actually be reconciled, but with the secondary realisation that those historians that confine themselves to studying a single form of evidence may well be missing a trick or two.

This is quite a difficult concept for some people to apparently embrace. That two sets of evidence can be wholly contradictory, and yet, at the same time, correct. Some years ago I wrote about a tradition of the church that to be buried on the north side of the church was considered to be unfavourable. That the north side of the churchyard, being often in shadow, was thought of as being the less desirable place for your mortal remains to rest. The north door of the church itself, which led out into this unfavourable area, was also known as the Devil's door - for it was here that evil spirits were to be found.

Since writing that piece it has caused some controversy. Several well regarded historians have produced written counter arguments, stating that there simply isn't any evidence that this was the case, one describing the notion that people avoiding being buried on the north side of churchyards was no more than 'Victorian nonsense', and that the archaeology of churchyards 'proved' that this wasn't the case. Their arguments have been well researched, well evidenced, cogent, and broadly correct - and yet, at the same time, have largely missed the point.

My statement about the existence of a 'tradition' that considered the north side of the churchyard to be an 'unlucky' place to be buried is also wholly correct. Such a tradition existed, and existed at least as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century - at which time it was regarded as being an ancient, well known, and widely believed superstition - and this tradition has been often repeated throughout the centuries since then.

The "Exemplary Death of Mr Benjamin Rhodes, Steward to Thomas, Earl of Elgin", a pamphlet published in 1657, tells us that Rhodes himself requested he be buried on the north side of the churchyard in an attempt to 'crosse the received superstition' that burial there was unfavourable. A manuscript from the 1730s, once in the possession of the Bishop of St Asaph, clearly stated that 'None but excommunicated, or persons executed, or very poor, and friendless people are buried on the north side of the churchyard' (National Library of Wales, ms 2576).

Half a century later Gilbert White, writing in 'The Antiquities of Selborne' (1789), bemoans the fact that his parishioners avoid being buried on the north side of the churchyard, leaving the south side cluttered and overflowing. However, White noted that 'two or three families of best repute' had recently taken to being buried upon the less crowded north side, in the hope that 'their example be followed by the rest of the neighbourhood'. In 1801 Richard Colt-Hoare visited the churchyard of Gwyddelwern in Denbighshire, where he observed that 'the custom of not burying on the north side is scrupulously adhered to. On the other sides (sic) the graves are crowded'. The same year the Reverend W. Bingley also visited Wales, where he 'observed that, in most parts of North Wales, the same practice prevails which is common in England, of crowding all the bodies into that part of the church-yard which is south of the church'.

In 1899 the Reverend George Tyack, writing in his 'Lore and Legend of the English Church', claims that the tradition or superstition, call it what you will, was still at large, leaving old churchyards with 'few mounds or memorial stones on the northern side, whilst the southern one may be inconveniently crowded'. George Tyack was indeed a Victorian, but the evidence is very, very clear that the tradition existed, and was common, many centuries earlier.

Exactly why the north side of the churchyard might have gained the reputation, at least by the seventeenth century, of being the least favourable area to be buried in is open to question. However, there are certainly a few more old 'traditions' - many of which are supported by solid documentary evidence - that we might want to consider that do proffer some explanation at least.

As mentioned above, the north side of the churchyard was where those who had died un-baptised were reputedly buried - the still-born and infants who died before baptism. Strictly speaking they should not have been buried in consecrated ground at all, and should have been buried outside the churchyard, condemned as they were to eternal hell (the concept of 'limbo', a neither 'here nor there' state where un-baptised innocents went after death, is a relatively modern concept - invented by a Church that realised that eternal damnation in such cases might be 'hard to sell'). Although archaeology provides enough evidence of female burials that include that of a new born to suggest that such rules were not strictly obeyed, there are documentary references that indicate that the letter of the law was occasionally applied. Writing in the fifteenth century, John Mirk referred to a woman who had died in labour before the child was born, resulting also in the death of the child. Mirk recorded that it was ruled that the mother could be buried in the parish churchyard, but only after the dead child had been removed from her body, so that it could be buried elsewhere - outside the consecrated churchyard. In a similar vein, in 1398 a royal licence was granted to enclose part of the cemetery of Herford cathedral, with one of the supposed reasons for this being that it was to prevent the unlawful and secret burial of un-baptised children within the precinct (Daniell, C., Death and Burial in Medieval England).

However, the pragmatic parochial approach more generally appears to have been to bury them within the churchyard, and often against the northern churchyard wall or enclosure. Similarly, executed criminals and suicides, when not being buried at the local crossroads, face down and with a wooden stake through the heart or mouth, were reputedly interred just outside the northern edge of the churchyard - as close to consecrated ground as possible, without actually being able to enter it. It was only as recently as 1823 that an Act was passed allowing the burial of suicides within the churchyard itself, and then only without formal ceremony, and between the hours of 9pm and midnight. The same treatment was reserved for those formally excommunicated by the church. Like the unbaptised infants they should have been excluded from churchyard burial, but parishes often just turned a blind eye to such practices, as long as they were discrete. The burial register of Low Ham in Somerset recorded that the excommunicate Andreas Symock was buried in 'the northern corner of the churchyard, but by what person or persons I know not'. The author's claim that the burial had been carried out by 'persons unknown' was simply a way of ensuring that those who had buried Symock in consecrated ground would avoid the punishments that the church regulations stipulated they should receive for carrying out such an act.

Therefore, the association between the north side of the cemetery and burials of the condemned and damned may well have led to a reluctance for 'good Christians' to be buried there. This association with evil, misfortune and the dark may well also be the origins of the tradition behind the north door of the church being known as the Devil's door. The tradition is certainly widespread, but it's origins are unclear, despite it having been around for several centuries.

Edric Holmes, writing in 1920, repeated the tradition with reference to churches in Sussex, and certainly believed it to have been an ancient association - as did George Tyack, who repeated it in 1899. Nearly seventy years earlier, in 1832, the church of Carlton-in-Lindrick in Nottinghamshire demolished the whole north wall of the north aisle, in the process destroying the small doorway located near the western end, that was known locally as the 'Devil door'. The whole tradition has been recently examined by Dr Nick Groves, who has written a concise paper upon the use of the north door in the formal functions and activities of the medieval church ( https://www.academia.edu/12109373/Devils_Doors_Revisited ) where he concludes that the tradition is 'a piece of unintelligent post reformation antiquarianism'. Dr Groves also concludes that the tradition most probably had its origins in the fact that the northern side of the church was associated with the devil, and that these northern doors became so tainted by association.

So we have an unquestionable documentary tradition, stretching back over three and a half centuries, that states that being buried on the north side of the churchyard was considered unlucky. There really isn't any denying it. It's there in black and white. However, the counter argument, that what archaeology is available indicates that there is no such bias in the evidence, is also true. There isn't any denying that either. Viewed in isolation the two standpoints, the two strands of evidence, are completely incompatible. Which is why good historians and archaeologists rarely use only one form of evidence. In the same vein we have a tradition of the north door of a church being known as the Devil's door stretching back at least two centuries. It is, I personally believe, and as Dr Groves argues, a post reformation invention. However, it is also a long held tradition, and to try and trace its origins, if at all possible, may well give insights into just how such beliefs come to be established.

'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

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.