English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century. By E. W. TRISTRAM. Edited by Eile Tristram, with a catalogue compiled in collaboration with Monica Bardswell. 10x7 Pp. xii +312, with 64 pages of plates. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955.

This book, largely by the late Professor Tristram or worked up from his notes and posthumously published, continues, in a more modest form, his monumental volumes on the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It must therefore be considered as more in the nature of a memorial volume.
The smaller size, more convenient format, and more reasonable price are a distinct advantage over the other sumptuous but unwieldy and impossibly expensive works, even in spite of the Pilgrim Trust's generous subsidizing of the others.

There is a great need for a general work on English wall paintings for the not too technical reader, a thing which has never been produced except for J. C. Wall's admirable little pocket volume which has been out of print for many years. The scheme of the book consists of a first part devoted to a discussion of fourteenth-century painting in general- its technique, stylistic characteristics, the documentary sources for its subject matter, and individual groups or types of paintings, such as the Westminster atelier, the allegories and moralities and paintings which are described as "of the more "elaborate", and of the "simpler" type'.

This is followed by a second part which includes the catalogue, and seven appendixes and an index most of which could more conveniently have been combined into two or three lists. Then follow sixty-four pages of plates, a fine series; and one is pleased to see that a few photographs of the actual paintings are included, the rest being from Professor Tristram's drawings. That one man should have covered so much ground in the field of wall painting in England is indeed a remarkable achievement and a worthy memorial. It is also something of a condemnation of our lack of interest, appreciation, and knowledge of this national medieval art that hardly anyone else enters the scene until the last twenty or thirty years, and that so few photographic copies or other records exist to supplement or check Professor Tristram's own work. In fact a large number of copies and photographs of paintings do exist elsewhere, but they are not mentioned. This must therefore be treated as a purely personal work. It is easy to criticize the pioneer, or be wise in the light of more up-to-date knowledge. But it must be remembered that it is thanks to Professor Tristram almost solely that appreciation of English medieval wall painting is now firmly established. Not only is his own artistic appreciation shown in this book, but also his wide "background knowledge of the whole setting, so often lacking in the more precise specialist. It is interesting to read that, beyond noticing a decline in quality in humbler paintings after the Black Death of 1349/50, Professor Tristram does not subscribe to the once popular view that the plague caused a complete suspension of activities or a break in tradition. An increase is however noticeable, as he points out, in the morality or warning pictures that are such an interesting and characteristic feature of English wall painting in the fourteenth and also the fifteenth century.

One of his most interesting chapters is in fact that on the Allegories and Moralities. It is surprising to see that he still clings to his interpretation of the 'Tool Pictures' as Christ as Piers Plowman, or at least having a wider interpretation than merely that of a warning against Sabbath-breaking. This may well be so to a limited extent: we know that the first illustration of the Poem of the Three Living and Three Dead, in the Arundel Psalter, became in later wall painting a mere visual memory, pictorial and not descriptive of the French poem which would surely be as unknown to a Cornish peasant as the verse of William Langland. He goes on to say that 'on account of one or two other inscriptions found abroad', it has been assumed that Sabbath-breaking is the only interpretation, and I believe this to be so. Professor Tristram does not mention any place by name where these inscriptions are to be found: but surely the thirteenth/fourteenth century painting of this subject at S. Miniato, Florence, is conclusive. The inscription reads .........

" This site represents the continuing development of what may one day become a comprehensive catalogue. Vast quantities of Medieval Wall Painting have been lost forever, of course, but there is nevertheless more left on English church walls than is generally realised; paintings continue to be uncovered and more still are known to exist under layers of plaster. Some of these will come to light one day; in fact some are already doing so, as at Houghton-on-the-Hill, near Swaffham in Norfolk and Ilketshall St Andrew in Suffolk. "

" The Morality of the Three Living and the Three Dead, commonly known by the title of Les Trois Vifs et Les Trois Morts, appears first in our wall-painting in the early fourteenth century; but, as with the Works of Mercy and Seven Deadly Sins, representations seem to have become general only about 1350. It is doubtful how far the spread of this rather morbid subject was encouraged by a frame of mind which came about through the calamity of the Black Death. The association is one that appears almost too obvious; yet little doubt can be felt that the terrible experiences of that time must have exerted at least some influence upon those who frequented the churches, were responsible in part for their upkeep, and therefore no doubt had had some voice in the matter of painted decoration for them. However, this Morality of the Three Living and Three Dead has not been fully understood. It is not, primarily, a warning that all must die, as it has often been interpreted, but one against Pride, the head and fountain of the Deadly Sins; it therefore includes by inference an insistence upon the virtue of Humility, Pride's opposite, or remedy. This becomes obvious if we study certain features of this Morality. Contrasted with the Three Corpses are, not merely ordinary men, but Kings, and though no example survives in England, St. Macarius the Hermit is often associated with the subject. According to his legend, he not only talked familiarly with such corpses as he happened to come across, but, on enquiring from the devil the reason for the latter's failure to overcome him, received the reply that it was so in virtue of his humility, 'and thy meekness by which I may not prevail against thee'. The close association between the subject of the Trois Vifs and that of the Deadly Sins becomes obvious from a poem such as one on the Sins having the refrain, 'remember man thow art but wormes meat'; 2 that these two subjects are not more often found together in wall-painting, as at Bardwell in Suffolk, is probably due to the accidents of time. Among remedies against Pride, the contemplation of dead men's bones was suggested in medieval times; 3 and in this may doubtless be found the origin of the cadavre, so often seen from the fifteenth century onward on the lower stage of a magnificent tomb, rich with carving and painting. To impress upon an audience the hollowness of earthly vanities, it was not unknown for a preacher suddenly to reveal a skull previously concealed beneath his cloak." Representations of the Three Living and Three Dead have more variety than might be expected from the nature of the Morality they illustrate. They developed equally in England and in France, but it has been suggested that the origin of the 'Dit des trois morts et des trois vifs' may have been English. The early representation found in MS. Arundel 83 has been carefully studied; and it has been noted that the gestures of Kings and Corpses alike, as depicted there, coincide with words assigned to them in accom- panying verses. Thus, the third of the Kings wrings his hands-destreint ses meins'- and the last of the Corpses, both wealthy and powerful in life, is denuded even of worms. In sermons, connected with the fate of the dead, the numerous references to toads and worms find illustration in wall-paintings; at Bardwell and Kentford in Suffolk, for instance. At Bardwell there are also, apparently, newts, and at Peakirk in Northamptonshire, where is found an unusually good and quite early rendering of the subject, newts, lizards, and a variety of creatures of ghastly aspect are skilfully used to pattern the background. Here, the third of the Kings wrings his hands, and the second, clad in richly-embroidered garments rendered by the painter with considerable skill in his brush-work, bears the sword of sovereignty. It is thus easy to connect the figure with the words assigned to it in the poem. 'Trop ay fet de mes voluntez', and the wish expressed for amendment of life as due 'al dieu rei de misericorde'. "

" The Corpses, in wall-painting, are usually stiff and awkard in conception, and seldom show any hint of the imaginative ingenuity in treatment characterizing the miniature referred to above; but the Kings often show considerable power in delineation. To depict skeletons on a large scale, seems understandably to have embarrassed the average painter. At Charlwood, in Surrey, the Kings on horseback formed an unusually spirited group, but this painting is now almost defaced. At Longthorpe Tower the Morality is placed opposite, or almost opposite, the Apostles Matthias and Jude, whose scrolls would originally have borne, as has been noted previously, the words CARNIS RESURRECTIONEM and ET VITAM ETERNAM. The paintings at Charlwood and Longthorpe are among the earliest of this subject. Wensley in Yorkshire, however, has what is not only an example of similar date, but in some ways the most interesting; for there is upon it, running perpendicularly between the Corpses, a very early inscription, taken in essentials, from the verse usually assigned to the second Corpse. This verse is given in English: ‘As we are nove thus sal the be... bewar wyt me.' It is in excellently-designed and executed Lombardic capitals, and there is no division between the words. The normal inscription, in paraphrase, above the Kings, runs: 'I am afeard at what I see, methinketh these be devils three'—and over the Corpses 'I was once fair, but as I am so shalt thou be; for God's love be warned by me'. Around the tomb of the Black Prince, part of the inscription, which he himself chose, runs: "

" TIEL: COME: TU: ES: JE: AUTIEL: FU: TU: SERAS: TIEL: COMe: je: su1: de: LA: MORT: NE: PENSAY: JE: MIE: TANT: COME: J'AVOY: LA: VIE: EN: TERRE: AVOY: GRAND: RICHESSE: DONT: JE: Y: FYS: GRAND: NOBLESSE "

" At Wickhampton, in Norfolk, there is a late version of the subject, with gigantic figures, that in their original condition must have been most impressive. In the foreground, in front of the Corpses, a huntsman with hounds in leash chases a hare or rabbit. This is a feature found now and then in representations of the Morality, and not included either by a whim of the painter, nor for the amusement of the beholder, group as has usually been thought. Unlikely though it may seem at first sight, the intended to convey the warning that the mind should be held by things of the spirit rather than of the flesh, for it is found, in verbal form, for example, in the Ayenbite of Inwyt: 2 "The hare runneth, the greyhound followeth. The holy man runneth as the greyhound. All day his eye is to heaven, and he forgetteth all else, as does the hound with his prey before his eyes.' There has previously been occasion to allude to the hare and the greyhound, in connexion with Gluttony; but, bearing the context in mind, as it is always important to do when 'reading' pictorial symbols, there seems little doubt as to their meaning here. "