Statue Swap

Two statues flanking the Great West Doors are a statement of the dual patronage of the Cathedral in the mid-twelfth century. Alongside two recesses now with nineteenth-century depictions of bishops above, and a rather adventurous statue within the Lapidarium collection, we can perhaps hazard a guess at the original depictions within the c.1150 West Façade.

Both the tympanum and the two statues were inserted some 10 years after the first creation of the portal. It was once thought the two now faceless statues either side of the Great West Door depicted the biblical Solomon and Sheba. The male figure is crowned, and biblical figures would be fitting with the tympanum above depicting Christ in Majesty. Eventually it was recognised that the female figure’s long braided hair is a characteristic feature of depictions of Anglo-Saxon women at this time.

After the Norman invasion the old Anglo-Saxon cathedral was torn down and the floorplan of the current building established. Although seemingly a brutal statement of the new order, the Normans saw themselves as new rulers over the Anglo-Saxons and their established systems of law and order, rather than replacing Anglo-Saxon society entirely. The Norman King Henry I attended the consecration of the cathedral in 1130. His first queen, Matilda of Scotland, possessed Anglo-Saxon royal blood. Matilda was well regarded after her death and associated with supporting cloisters and infirmaries for leprosies. St Bartholomew’s hospital on the outskirts of Rochester was founded in 1078 for the care of the poor and lepers. This royal patronage reflected the new Norman England, a marriage of Norman control over Anglo-Saxon laws, and Matilda will have reinforced the image of the cathedral as a supporter of the sick.

The two statues higher up the façade flanking the portal were inserted by James L. Pearson in 1888, depicting Bishops Gundulf and John, credited with rebuilding the Early Norman building and the Early Gothic east end, respectively.

The recesses in which the statues were inserted is wider than two arches of the blind arcade in which they sit, so the recesses must have pre-existed Pearson’s statues. So who was depicted in these spaces? Although there has been some confusion with the identity and provenance of a statue that was moved from another location on the west front in the seventeenth-century, it seems probable it depicts either Bishops Paulinus or Ithamar, the two saints with shrines at the Cathedral at this time. Paulinus was a Roman missionary and Ithamar was the first English-born Bishop. These would be the natural choices for statues on the West Façade, an advertisement of the two shrines within.

Would it be stretching conjecture too far to suggest the Norman propaganda of the statues was inserted in c.1160 in such a way as to reflect the dual heritage of the two saints either side; the Roman Paulinus once on the north corresponding to the side of Henry I, and the English-born Ithamar placed on the south above Matilda?

 Jacob Scott
Research Guild