Cathedral tribune gallery (in bridge chapel)

Found built into a wall at the east end of the Bishop's Palace garden (now King's School). It was still in the wall in the 1930s (Dobson 1933, 271, pl. III, fig. 12). In 1954 the Palace became King's School, and in 1952, as part of the preparations for this change, the carving was removed from the wall and placed in Gloucester Cathedral Chapter House (Rice 1952b, 98).

St Peter and The Holy and Indivisible Trinity

Badly damaged and cut-back.

(based in part on notes by Steve Bagshaw)

Panel carved on both faces. It is broken away at both sides. The top and bottom (faces E and F) of the stone have been cut down to flat horizontal surfaces for reuse. The front face (A) bears a much defaced portrait bust of Christ in a roundel, with a bird at his right shoulder (see below). The surviving carving is 4.5–5 cm (1.8–2 in) deep at its maximum depth. No tool-marks are visible on the remaining areas of carving, possibly due to weathering during the time when it was set in the garden wall. The mutilation of the carved detail was done with a blade 3 cm (1.2 in) in width. The back face (C) carries the remains of enmeshed tendrils and leaves, cut back by a claw-toothed tool at least 7 cm (2.8 in) in width and with at least 14 teeth. The maximum depth of the carving is now only 0.5 cm (0.2 in). No tool-marks are visible on the smooth 'background' areas. Two setting-out lines have been incised vertically and horizontally on face C; these align with the edges of the socket in face E (see below) and cut through the claw tooling. The top corners of face C are pink, due to calcination as a result of burning. Mortar still adhering to the tendrils on this face is fine, white and powdery with charcoal fragments up to 1 mm in size. Just below the centre point of the carving is an area, approx 10 cm (3.9 in) diameter, of a modern hard, grey Portland cement-type mortar. On the upper edge is a similarly sized patch of grey Portland-type mortar with a socket-hole 1 cm square. The top face (E) is covered with fine, striated, regular diagonal tool-marks that are probably Romanesque, and this offers an indication as to when the panel was first cut down in size. The bottom face (F) carries plain widely spaced axe-marks 6–8 cm (2.4–3.1 in) in length.

A (broad): The front face is dominated by the figure of Christ carved in high-relief and set within a roundel. The roundel carries a Carolingian motif that Clapham identified as the caulicula, a type of voluted crocket (Clapham 1930, 131). Although the figure itself is extensively damaged and literally de-faced, enough detail remains to make a partial description possible. The figure is swathed in a cloak or loose over-garment, the folds of which are hard and sharp. His left arm is bent across the chest and the left hand survives, if only in outline. Above the left cuff is a flat inward-sloping area that may be the remains of a book held up in the left hand and angled slightly to the left. There are slight traces of what could be the outer edge of the right hand and forearm, raised vertically presumably in blessing. The face has a narrow chin with no sign of a beard. One side of the figure's slightly bulbous right eye survives, and there are prominent eyebrows and large ears. It has been suggested that the figure is wearing a hooded cloak, but what looks at first glance like a hood is in fact long, braided hair that is parted in the centre and tucked behind the ears. Rising behind the figure's head and resting on the shoulders is a large halo with a deeply recessed background inside a raised outer ring. The halo is cruciferous, and the arms of the cross have wedge-shaped terminals that slope upwards from beside the head to stand proud by c. 1 cm (0.4 in) above the front face of the halo's outer ring, perhaps to accentuate the physical presence of the cross. The top of the halo, together with the top of the roundel, have been cut off just above the crown of the head. To the right of the figure's right shoulder there is a well-carved bird with the hooked beak of a bird of prey. This is probably an eagle. To the left of the figure, rising from the shoulder beside the halo, there is a vertical feature enhanced by a rough incised line. This could be the outer edge of a long garment or a wing, the last remains of a second flanking 'supporter' (like the eagle). However, this part of the stone is covered with later mortar and it is difficult to be sure. The remains of what is probably a second roundel, ornamented with large domed pellets, survive below and to right of the main roundel, but the outer border of this second roundel broadens towards the bottom of the stone, so it is possible that this is the remains of a 'ribbon' scroll or something similar that widened or bifurcated below the Christ roundel. Above and to the left of the Christ roundel a small part of the 'backing' panel survives. Across the top of this area there is a curving, almost horizontal moulding which may be a small portion of a frame or perhaps part of the arm of a supporting figure.

C (broad): The photograph of this face (Ill. 253) is upside down and should be turned through 180 degrees to correspond to the following description.

Three, or perhaps four, broad, curving tendrils are drawn into a focal point just above the centre of the stone where they meet tip-to-tip as berry or grape clusters. This focal point corresponds quite closely to the centre line of the design on face A, and is an indication that the carving on both faces is probably contemporary. Below the focal point a curving side-shoot ends in a 'bud' that rises from an opposed pair of serrated leaves. Similar buds and paired serrated leaves terminate further side-shoots to the left and right of the central point. Spreading across two-thirds of the upper right-hand part of this face there is a large, raised area from which most of the detail has been cut away but across which it is still possible to trace fragments of further curves. This area may be the last remains of a larger element enmeshed in the tangle of tendrils, perhaps a creature or a figure.

There seems little reason to doubt that, unlike the somewhat similar panel from Sompting, Sussex (Tweddle et al. 1995, 176–7, nos. 10 and 11, ills. 175–7), the carving on both faces of this double-sided panel should be treated as contemporary. In which case this must be part of a screen with Christ on the front face, presumably set at high level (perhaps in or on an epistyle supported by columns), and a large scale, possibly inhabited, tangled tree-scroll on the reverse.

The bust of Christ is enclosed within a roundel decorated with what Talbot Rice called guilloche and Clapham described more specifically as caulicula (see above), a decorative motif that was common in Italy from the early eighth century, and for which Clapham could find only one possible parallel in this country on a capital at Hexham (Rice 1952a, 95; id. 1952b, 100; Clapham 1930, 131). This is presumably the seventh- to eighth-century impost fragment Hexham 32 (Cramp 1984, 189, pl. 184.1003). Talbot Rice believed that the iconography was of Byzantine inspiration and agreed with Clapham that the border is of a popular Carolingian type. He suggested that the carving was executed by an English master who was making use of a Byzantine ivory for his model (Rice 1952a, 95; id. 1952b, 99). An early ninth-century panel probably from northern Italy and carved on elephant ivory (now in the National Museum in Ravenna) offers an exact parallel for the Gloucester figure. The panel is 113 mm square and exhibits close links with the Carolingian Court School and to early Christian works. This is one of four surviving panels (now dispersed among the collections in Ravenna and in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a private collection in Florence) from a diptych which seems to have had six panels originally, three on each side. The other surviving panels are of three of the Evangelists and it is thought that in the original arrangement the Evangelists were in the four corners with Christ centre right and a lost Virgin probably centre left. The figure of Christ is half length and set in a roundel. He wears a loose over-garment, and his hair, parted in the middle, flows down over his shoulders. The terminals of the cross on Christ's halo are wedge-shaped. Christ's left arm is folded across his body. He holds a book in his left hand and his right hand is raised in blessing. In the background, on either side of the head, there is a painted golden inscription IC XC — Jesus Christ (Williamson 1999, 749–50, X.31). In a similar image, part of an illustration depicting the Ascension, on the verso of folio 1 from a ninth-century Irish manuscript (now in Turin), the half-length figure of Christ is enclosed in a roundel that is supported by four angels, with two more angels in close attendance inside the roundel to the right and left of Christ (Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Cod. O. IV. 20: Alexander 1978, 80–1, cat. 61, ill. 279).

The paired serrated leaves with central buds on face C can be found on a mid eighth- or ninth-century cross-shaft from Hexham, Northumberland (Cramp 1984, 177, no. 3, pls. 174–5), and on two eighth- or ninth-century shaft fragments from Wensley, in northern Yorkshire (Lang 2001, 221–2, nos. 1 and 2, ills. 858–66). Locally a late eighth- to early ninth-century cross-shaft from Gloucester, Tanners' Hall 1, has serrated leaves in the plant-scrolls on two faces and a classically inspired figure on face A (Ills. 365–70).

Previously a date in the first half of the tenth century has been proposed for the Gloucester Cathedral carving (Rice 1952a, 95; id. 1952b, 100; Verey 1970b, 221–2; Verey and Brooks 2002, 413), but the English and continental parallels adduced above, in particular the Carolingian-inspired decoration, would tend to support a date in the late eighth or more probably the ninth century.

The findspot was within the precinct of the medieval abbey, which became Gloucester Cathedral in 1541; the Bishop's Palace succeeded the abbot's lodging on the same site. It thus seems likely that this piece comes from Gloucester's old minster. The old minster is a shadowy entity for much of its history and is known mainly from rather problematic materials assembled in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The old minster seems to have been established in the late seventh century and would seem to have been a double minster at the outset (Finberg 1972, 153–66); a series of benefactions of eighth- and ninth-century date is also recorded. The most reliably attested benefaction is a bequest under the terms of the testament of Æthelric, a document of 804 preserved at Worcester (Sawyer 1968, no. 1187). Little is known of the foundation during the late ninth and tenth centuries, but at some stage, probably before 1022, Benedictine monks were introduced. A major rebuilding or refurbishment under the auspices of Bishop Ealdred of Worcester was completed in 1058 (Hare 1993; id. 1999, 33–4).

Ninth century

Keyser 1912; Clapham 1930, 131; Dobson 1933, 271, pl. III, fig. 12; Rice 1952a, 95; Rice 1952b, 98–100, pl. XV; Verey 1970b, 221–2; King 1992, 133, fig. 4; Verey and Brooks 2002, 413