Centrally placed over the south door, and with a second figure, of a completely different doll-like form and simple style, set immediately above it (Ill. 63).

John Throsby, continuator of Thoroton's county history, visited Papplewick when the church, apart from the late fourteenth-century tower, was being rebuilt in 1795 and when also the churchyard was extended (Borthwick Institute, CD 48; Archbishop's Registers 38, 299v–300v). He reported that this panel, as well as the second figure, had been found in pulling down the earlier church fabric. He illustrated both with simple line drawings (Throsby 1790b, facing 287, 288; Throsby 1972). This stone was evidently loose when drawn (Ill. 62), and had already been cut down from a larger original item, which indicates an earlier round of reuse. When it was set in its present location is uncertain. It was there by the 1880s (Riley 1884, 27) and routinely identified as St James with his pilgrim staff — reflecting the church's dedication — in a stream of local antiquarian literature (Walkerdine and Buxton 1907; Guilford 1910/1927, 155; Firth 1916, 212; Gill 1917), but it was not noticed by Cox (1912a, 162–3), whose visiting and note-taking for his Nottinghamshire county guide went back intermittently to the 1870s. Nevertheless it may be reasonable to assume that the panel was thus distinctively located as part of the principal rebuilding of 1795. The contemporary porch sheltering it acts as a display space for an especially notable group of later medieval incised grave-covers, two of them to officers of Sherwood Forest, within which Papplewick and adjacent Newstead lay in the medieval period. However the second sculpted figure was only latterly moved to its present location from one 'high up on the inner side of the archway' (Butler, L. 1952, 26).

St James

Good. There is some obvious surface damage, including a chip out of the lower stem of the cross and (apparently) damage to the upper right side of the figure's head, as compared to the completeness shown in Throsby's drawing; but the incised detail of the garments and the more moulded features of the face are well preserved.

A (broad): The panel is flat, and a fragment of slightly raised undecorated surface in its upper left corner, defined by a shallowly curving edge, perhaps indicates the edge of a significant element of the original design in that direction. The sculpture has been created by removing the stone surface to form a figure in considerable relief; the tooling marks from this process are everywhere visible on the reserved surface. There are no residual traces of painting. The seated male figure is carved in two distinctive ways: the head and distinguishing appurtenances are carved boldly in the round, whereas the torso and lower body, with the garments, are defined in minimum relief with detailing picked out by incised lines.

The figure is seated on a bench of authority or judgement. It is posed frontally in respect of its lower body and head, but the upper body is twisted to turn three-quarters left, with the figure's left shoulder and left arm forward and prominent whereas the right shoulder is not depicted, or scarcely so. The head is inclined slightly left and the eyes look left also, adding to the impression that there is some focus or activity in that direction. The face is very prominent, with strongly marked features. The eyes stand out: staring, almond-shaped and with drilled pupils. The straight nose continues into well-marked, raised eyebrows, which return below the eyes. The cheeks are clearly modelled. There is a small raised chin — apparently not a beard but with similar goatee effect — with a slightly down-curved, slit mouth. Most distinctively, the hair is depicted in a ribbed fashion, swept back to left and right and with something that looks like a circular, patterned medallion or diadem between. It is topped with a blank hairless area or ridge, perhaps representing a tonsure or (less plausibly) a halo. As lit from the left (Ills. 65, 67), there appears to be a fillet that falls down the right side of the face, perhaps continuing the undecorated capping of the hair and suggesting some form of headgear. Both ears are indicated by modelling.

The figure's lower right arm emerges over the right knee. The end of the sleeve of the garment is shown, with an edging. The hand is fully detailed with fingers and thumb differentiated. It grasps a tau cross, the foot of which touches the ground and the inner end of its cross-member or head touches the figure's right cheek. The left arm bends down inside the left knee and up across the chest. The left hand grasps the two shafts of a set of tools with elaborated heads; they look like keys or latch-lifters. From the figure's left wrist hangs a maniple with spade-shaped twin ends, the tasselling of which is indicated by simply incised decoration.

The folds of the drapery of the figure's clothing, both on the chest and over the knees and as it hangs to the ground, are mainly indicated by simple, incised patterning on a flat rather than moulded surface, but the lively multiple form of the lower edging of these folds is picked out in low relief. Feet with down-pointing toes protrude below the straight line of the garment's lowest hem.

The bench is entirely undecorated. A raised ridge rising from behind the left knee and curving slightly towards the broken edge of the stone is also undecorated. It is unclear what it represents: perhaps it is a misunderstood bolster-like cushion.

B and D (narrow): Broken and certainly re-cut for setting in this location

C (broad): Built in

E (top): Broken and probably re-cut for setting in this location

F (bottom): Perhaps an original surface

The local antiquarian and guidebook tradition consistently identifies this figure as St James with his pilgrim staff, matching the church's modern dedication (Walkerdine and Buxton 1907; Firth 1916, 212; Gill 1917; Guilford 1927, 155; Butler 1952), with the additional implication that its function was originally as a plaque above the entrance doorway to the church, identifying its patron and protector, as it has latterly been. Perhaps surprisingly for such a stylish piece, there seems to have been no previous systematic academic assessment either of this identification or of the panel's likely date. Although Riley thought of it as of 'Saxon' date (Riley 1884, 27), more modern received opinion, expressed in a variety of often derivative forms, has consistently favoured a Norman date (including Pevsner and Williamson 1979, 288), even as late as the later twelfth century. This is implied by the statement that it is 'the only remaining relic of the church Henry II gave the Canons and Priory of Newstead ... and from the carving of this it is reasonable to suppose that Papplewick church was then first built or that alterations had been made in it' (Walkerdine and Buxton 1907, 64: Newstead was a royal foundation of c. 1170). Only Butler, followed by the church guide, has conjectured an earlier, perhaps pre-Conquest date, largely perhaps by contrast with the second, more obviously Romanesque Papplewick figure (1952, 26; http://www.papplewick.org/local/St_Jinfo.html [accessed 1.9.2006]: 'The one immediately above the door is late Saxon or early Norman ...').

There is as yet no recording or evaluation of this sculpture within the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, so we approach it systematically and afresh, through consideration successively of its iconography, style and context, in order to try to reach a well-founded assessment.

Iconography

The popular identification of this figure with St James appears a modern affectation. The church was certainly dedicated to St James at the date of its rebuilding at the end of the eighteenth century (Borthwick Institute, CD 48), but as both Guilford and Butler report, there is evidence in wills in the York diocesan registry and in the dedicatory name on the one surviving pre-Reformation bell in the Papplewick tower that the early dedication was to St Helen (Guilford 1927, 155; Butler 1952, 26). Also, there is actually nothing in the figure's attributes to identify him as St James: his popular 'pilgrim's staff' is more accurately described as a tau cross, with which St James has no distinctive link. Furthermore, the account of the piece's discovery makes it clear that this was unlikely, in its original state, to have been an item featuring this single figure; it has been purposefully rendered into that form for its post-1795 location and use.

Similarly, drawing a comparison with the small figure within the northern capital array of the early Romanesque chancel arch at Calverton (Calverton 10 in Appendix B, p. 207) has the virtue of proximity, but does not address the detailing of each sculpture. The Calverton figure is undoubted seated, in a frontal pose with draperies modeled over the knees, but the long-shafted cross he holds lies sloping across the body and over his left shoulder. The other distinctive details seen at Papplewick are absent at Calverton and the latter figure is conventionally identified as St Wilfrid, dedicatee of Calverton church, as bishop of York (Pevsner and Williamson 1979, 89.

Any robust assessment of the Papplewick figure's identity needs to consider its depicted attributes more carefully. Those attributes are most obviously: a tau cross in his right hand, massive keys or latch-lifters held by his left hand in a 'sloping arms' position on his left shoulder, the diademed head-dress, the seat of authority, and the maniple.

It is difficult to avoid the presumption that a figure whose principal accoutrement or attribute is a set of keys depicts St Peter. Peter's status as the most powerful saint of the medieval Latin church was founded, not least in the popular and lay imagination, on his role as gatekeeper of heaven, directly appointed by Christ (Matthew 16:19). Keys held easily with bits aloft feature as his identifying attribute when Peter is depicted in all pre-Conquest Insular media, from the end of the seventh century on the wooden coffin of St Cuthbert through to manuscript portrayal in the tenth and eleventh centuries (Kitzinger 1956; Temple 1976, fig. 58, ills. 84, 232, 243, 244, 247–8, 294–5; and generally Higgitt 1989). Normally held in the right hand, often with a book in the left, they could be deployed in the left hand where balance or action dictated, as in the well-known images of the New Minster Liber vitae (Temple 1976, ills. 244, 247–8). For an arrangement with keys held in the 'sloping arms' manner over St Peter's left shoulder, as at Papplewick, we seem to have to look to post-Conquest depictions: for example, seated in the Last Judgement in the wall-painting cycle at Kempley, Gloucestershire (Tristram 1944, pl. 67) or standing in the so-called 'Littlemore Anselm' (Bodleian MS D.2.6, f. 169r; Pächt 1956, fig. 18b). This pose is also found with secular scenes and objects defining authority in the immediate post-Conquest era, such as Solomon on the capital from Westminster Abbey (Zarnecki 1953, fig. 1) or Herod (Michel 1950, fig. 55). What precisely it is that 'an elder of the Apocalypse' holds in this manner in a Romanesque wall-painting at Maureillas, Pyrenees-Orientales (Michel 1950, fig. 28) is not clear. A basic identification with St Peter seems secure for Papplewick, then, and seems all the more certain from the prominent way the key attribute is held diagonally across his left shoulder, which is pushed forward towards the viewer.

A seated depiction of St Peter on a bench or throne of authority is perhaps unusual, however. And other details, especially the maniple, the tau cross and the unusual coiffeur or head-gear — all of which is very carefully depicted — vie for attention and explanation.

The Papplewick St Peter is clearly depicted as a seated figure, on a four-square bench-like throne. The additional ridge to the right of the saint's knee may just possibly represent the rigid top of the thick cushion, which is often rendered in art at an angle caused by its compression by the enthroned figure. We may set aside as a relevant parallel the reconstructed figure of the seated St Peter on the silver cover of Cuthbert's portable altar, which modern scholarship views as a conjecture beyond the available surviving evidence (Radford 1956, 330–2; Coatsworth 1989, 297; Higgitt 1989, 280–1). There are nevertheless plenty of seated figures in pre-Conquest art; with knees thrust forward and out, and draperies forming a patterned cascade, they are usually evangelists and their accoutrements are quills and knives and books. Rouen MS Y.6 of c. 1020 has a seated St Peter at f. 132v (Alexander 1970, pl. 30c). BL Cotton Titus D XXVI — a Winchester MS dating from c. 1023–35 (Temple 1976, cat. 77 esp. fig. 243) — has an enthroned St Peter at f. 19v. Both are in a hierarchically frontal pose, with keys held upright in the right hand and a book resting on his left knee under the left hand. There is no sign of a maniple, just a tonsured hair style, and no cross or crozier.

The tau-cross form was used in England both before and after the Norman Conquest, and a French tau-cross head of the twelfth century in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London features on its underside two ecclesiastics, one with a crozier of single volute form, the other a tau-cross staff, showing their contemporary existence (Beckwith 1972, cat. 60). Only from the beginning of the thirteenth century does the single volute form of crozier come to dominate. A number of splendidly decorated examples of English tau-cross heads in walrus ivory were produced through the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Beckwith 1972, cat. 29 from Alcester, Warwickshire, of the early eleventh century; cat. 30 from Cologne; cat. 91 [Victoria and Albert Museum] c. 1140; cat. 92 [British Museum] mid twelfth century; cat. 97 from Moutiers-Tarantaise, mid twelfth century; a further example was found in excavations at Battle Abbey). A tau-cross staff has no specific place in the iconography of St Peter; but, because of its Old Testament occurrences (it was, in medieval imagery, the sign with which Aaron marked the doors of Israelites houses, Exodus 12.1; ... and the foreheads of the righteous of Jerusalem, Ezekiel 9.4), the tau was recognisably a symbol of salvation and of righteousness, and thus particularly suitable for marking high ecclesiastical office and to serve as one form of the pastoral staff conferred on bishops at their consecration. Here, then, it emphasises Peter's role as Bishop of Rome.

The clearly depicted maniple, with its splayed and tassled terminal, reinforces that facet of the figure. It may indicate that a fuller set of ecclesiastical vestments was originally depicted in paint. Even in itself it represents the priestly role of the saint. Two early tenth-century maniples form part of the complex collection that makes up the relics of St Cuthbert (Freyhan 1956). On maniple I, two popes and their two deacons are represented in their priestly garments. Each priest holds the maniple in one hand, while the other is raised in blessing or other action (ibid., pls. XXXIII–IV). Maniples also occur in pre-Conquest manuscripts at the end of tenth century and then in the second and third quarters of the eleventh. In some cases, they denote bishops in performance of episcopal duties. An example — in fact featuring two maniples — is found in the drawing usually described as 'Bishop and acolyte' in Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale MS A.27 (Temple 1976, cat. 90 especially fig. 256). It shows two standing figures; the larger on the right holds a maniple over his left hand, the smaller on the left wears mass vestments including a chasuble and holds a book in both hands with a maniple dangling below. It is a scene of instruction or commissioning. This, too, is a Wessex manuscript of the second quarter of the eleventh century. It is a pontifical — 'the Lanalet Pontifical' (Doble 1937) — and so is concerned with church procedures, including excommunication. A second illustration in the same manuscript represents the dedication of a church, undertaken by a bishop with the support of a group of ecclesiastics and another of laymen. The bishop here also wears a maniple (Rice 1952, pl. 70a). The scene recalls f. 118b in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold, which shows a bishop in mass vestments including chasuble and maniple pronouncing a blessing — perhaps (as has been suggested) actually St Æthelwold at the dedication of the cathedral in Winchester in 980 (Wormald 1959, pl. 8). In other cases, a maniple identifies a saint in his priestly function. For example, St Gregory appears in bishop's vestments and with a crozier in Bodleian MS Tanner 3 (Temple 1976, cat. 89 especially fig. 298) or St Stephen as deacon in the Hereford Troper (Ohlgren 1986, photo 38). Both are manuscripts of the mid eleventh century. This may be the point of the bishop — with a maniple over his left wrist, crozier in left and blessing with his right — in the wall-paintings at Kempley, Gloucestershire (Tristram 1944, pl. 65).

The hair and/or head-gear of the Papplewick figure is perhaps its most distinctive aspect. At first sight, it might appear in some way to represent a so-called Roman tonsure, featuring a shaven crown of the head and a lower circle of hair that is sometimes taken as intentionally evoking Christ's crown of thorns. The detail of the early depiction of St Peter on Cuthbert's coffin is usually read in that way. John Higgitt has provided a useful recent review of this tonsure, emphasising that it may have had a special significance as a partisan image in the context of the late seventh-century dispute in the Insular Church about following the Roman way (Higgitt 1989). At Papplewick, however, the circlet of erstwhile hair has a large jewel at its centre and is better understood as the ornamental band or diadem adopted by the popes as their ceremonial and non-liturgical headgear and symbol of their non-ecclesiastical power. It was evidently added to an existing traditional head-covering in the form of a helmet-like cap made of white material, sometimes called phrygium — which suggest a likeness to a classical Phrygian cap — and became the first stage and lowest tier of the full-blown, highly-wrought papal tiara that gradually evolved as the ceremonial head-gear of the latter-day papacy (Braun 1912). Interpretation of the strange, prominent bare zone on the top of St Peter's head on the Papplewick sculpture as this plain cap — rather than a halo or the normally small shaven crown of the head — is more plausible and in keeping with a diadem forming its fringe. What seems to be the trace of a lappet hanging down the left-hand side of the face (see Description above) perhaps adds another detail characteristic of papal head-gear. In Anglo-Saxon sculpture, the occurrence of a cap-like head-covering at Crofton and (less certainly) Collingham, both Yorkshire WR, has certainly been taken to mark the figure as a bishop (Coatsworth 2008, 117–19, 125–6, ills. 167, 183). It is said that the earliest depiction of the single-tier papal diadem in this form as a jewelled circlet occurs in the later ninth and tenth centuries, in the coins of Sergius II, 844–7, and Benedict VII, 974–83 (Grierson and Blackburn 1986, pl. 48 no. 1040; pl. 50 nos. 1082–4). The tiara developed a second and then a third tier of ornamental circlet only in the thirteenth and then fourteenth centuries (Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 22 part 1, sub 'Tiara'). This ensemble of hat and diadem, if correctly interpreted, adds a distinctive layer to the sculpture's meaning in identifying Peter's status as first pope and symbolic representative of the papacy.

So these piecemeal parallels begin to suggest that the iconography of the Papplewick panel may have something to do with St Peter, but specifically in his functions as a priest, bishop and pope. It is in post-Conquest manuscripts that one finds the most convincing analogues for its combination of features and meanings. A relevant image may be that found in a copy of the Liber Floridus of Lambert of St-Omer (Ghent, Centrale Bibliotheek van de Rijksuniversiteit, Cod. 1125 (92); Cahn 1996, cat. 96 especially fig. 239); it dates before 1121, probably 1120, and was produced at St-Omer. It depicts St Peter encapsulated within an architectural image of the city of Rome. The saint is portrayed as Bishop of Rome, seated on a cushioned, bench-like throne; he wears episcopal vestments and a mitre with 'tabs' or fillets curving from it to either side of his head. In his right hand he holds a cross of processional type that reaches down to the floor, in his left keys, which rest on a book on his left knee. The image is front-facing and hieratic. There is an even closer parallel to the panel and its full range of features, and especially for the clear depiction of Peter as saint and bishop, in English work of the twelfth century. A miniature in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vit. 23–8 (Kauffmann 1975, cat. 77 especially fig. 218) depicts the seated figure of St Peter on a bench-like throne. He turns half left to address the smaller standing figure of a bishop, similarly tonsured and in mass vestments. The saint holds a large pair of keys in his left hand in the same 'sloping arms' position resting on his left shoulder as at Papplewick. A maniple hangs from his left wrist and stands out against the lighter tone of the undergarments over his left knee. His right hand extends just above the horizontal to grasp the upper shaft of a crozier, with a knopped and crooked head. In contrast to the closed grip of the Papplewick panel, two of the saint's fingers also extend in a gesture of blessing. The smaller figure answering St Peter, in a three-quarter pose and with vestments including a maniple, grasps the shaft lower down with his left hand. A manus Dei, entering the panel scene top left, blesses the transaction.

The latter miniature's iconography matches that of the Papplewick panel in most of its salient details, and especially in the prominence of the keys and the maniple, which are critical to the scenario and subject matter. It suggests that the tau cross of the panel is in fact a crozier in that form. A comparable example is the manuscript of Bede's Life of Cuthbert of c. 1100–20 (Oxford, University College, MS 165; Kauffmann 1975, cat. 26): it depicts Cuthbert prophesying, leaning on an episcopal crozier of tau form (Pächt 1962, fig. 3). The Madrid manuscript is English and of the mid twelfth century. It perhaps originated in the cathedral priory at Winchester. Its provenance before the eighteenth century in Spain is unknown, and perhaps it might have got there following the Dissolution of English monasteries in the sixteenth century. The miniature represents the legitimate commissioning of a bishop by St Peter and the authority of Rome, sanctioned by God. It illustrates a copy of St Anselm's Prayers and Meditations and specifically the prayer, Oratio episcopi vel abbatis ad Sanctum sub cuius nomine regitur ecclesia (prayer of a bishop or abbot to the Saint under whose name a church or community is governed). This was designed to be adapted to individual or institutional circumstances. For example, in a Bodleian manuscript copy of Anselm's Prayers and Meditations of c. 1150 — dubbed by Pächt (1956) the 'Littlemore Anselm' — the same prayer is also illustrated by a composition featuring St Peter. Though generally of similar iconographic type, it shows a standing saint, not as bishop but as patron saint of the order of White Canons, for one of whose houses it was evidently produced (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D.2.6; Kauffmann 1975, cat. 75; Pächt and Alexander 1972, iii, no. 154, pl. 16) of c. 1150. It may be significant that Pächt argues (1956) that a lost English original lay behind the several extant versions of this popular work, which was equipped with illustrations during the lifetime of the author, i.e. before 1109. Sometimes this original provides the pattern for surviving illustrations, sometimes there is an innovation.

Higgitt (1989) has developed the argument that there was a distinctive English and pre-Conquest type of depiction of St Peter beardless. Papplewick as sculpture seems to be beardless, though a beard might quite readily have been added superficially in paint. And anyway, Higgitt acknowledges that a beardless Peter continues to be deployed in England through the twelfth century, citing sculptural examples at Wentworth (Cambridgeshire), Daglingworth (Gloucestershire), Stoneleigh (Warwickshire) and Malmesbury (Wiltshire). Contrariwise, as Higgitt emphasises, it was the later Middle Ages rather than the pre- Conquest period, that saw Peter's papal role identified through appropriate vestments and attributes, and it is a fourteenth-century Nottingham alabaster that he cites by way of illustration of this (ibid., 283– 4; Alexander and Binski 1987, 511–12 — from Flawford). The standard, less elaborate posture for St Peter continues into the twelfth century and later in a variety of media, including sculpture — in parish churches, as on tympana at Handborough, Oxfordshire or Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire (Keyser 1927, figs. 133, 139), or more stylishly at Malmesbury, Wiltshire (ibid., fig. 124) — or in painting (Wormald 1973, fig. 35; Tristram 1944, supplementary plate 7).

Style

Unstated style-critical considerations have lain behind the little that has been written about this panel at Papplewick, in assessing it and the figure set in the wall immediately above it both as 'Norman'; unstated style-critical considerations have also lain behind a move to draw a contrast between this sculpture and its re-set neighbour, and to assess Papplewick 1 as the earlier. There is a contrast and it is emphasised by their juxtaposition. The second figure, perhaps an angel, is doll-like, modelled in the round and with the folds of its clothing rendered as patterned rolls (Ill. 63). By contrast much of our panel is flat; the throne, figure and accoutrements are given depth by reserving/ lowering the background by several millimetres; the garments of the lower part of the saint's figure in particular have drapery indicated by incised lines on a flat surface. But actually, the contrast lies as much within the panel as between it and its neighbour. The upper part of the figure and its defining attributes of keys and crozier are produced quite markedly in three-dimensions; the facial features are strongly modelled; the strip of hair — recte papal diadem — is depicted as a pattern of rolls. This internal contrast might, in traditional style-critical analysis, be attributed to the use of two different models: one, for the upper half, a standing or walking figure, the other, for the lower half, a seated figure. If the contrast is understood, rather, as one of emphasis on key features, it might be likened to the figural panel at Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, where the head is sculpted but the remainder of a figure is believed to have been supplied in plaster or paint, or to the sequence of figural panels at Daglingworth, Gloucestershire, which seem to want completion through painted details, or especially to the damaged crucifixion at Walkern, Hertfordshire, where the head is in high relief whereas — below the waist — Christ's garments are indicated by incised lines cut into a flat surface (Everson and Stocker 1999, 101–2 with references; Bryant with Hare 2012, 155–9; Tweddle et al. 1995, 240–1 — see Ill. 185). The contrasting sculptural technique of the Walkern panel offers a particularly relevant comparison and seems to be eleventh-century. The procedure, seen in Papplewick 1, of cutting away the background to leave the carving on a level with a frame or surround is a marked feature, too, of the Daglingworth pieces. Calling it an 'intaglio' technique, Clapham long ago opined that it differentiated those pieces from any main-stream twelfth-century sculpture in a Romanesque idiom (Clapham 1951, 194–5). The overall effect perhaps finds some similarity — in a different medium — to those pre-Conquest manuscripts in the tradition of the Benedictional of St Æthelwold, where highly coloured and finished principal features contrast with details drawn in outline only. Indeed, the arrangement of the knees and lower drapery find closer analogies in manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh centuries, and with origins going back to sculptural forms such as Dewsbury 1, Yorkshire (Temple 1976; Coatsworth 2008, 129–32, ill. 190). But those are strictly front-facing hierarchical figures, whereas Papplewick's St Peter is twisted from the waist up to a three-quarters view. Presumably too, in its original form, the lower draperies of the Papplewick panel may have been worked up with paint to produce patterned effects akin to those found in the St Alban's Psalter of c. 1120–30 (Pächt et al. 1960; Kauffmann 1975, no. 29). A further relevant comparison, exhibiting both a twisted, seated position and a strong contrast between a fine detailing of the upper torso and head — including defining accoutrements — and the reduction of the lower torso and draperies to a patterned effect, is encountered in the array of Twelve Apostles in the chancel wall paintings at Kempley, Gloucestershire, where so much of the early twelfth-century painting reproduces sculptural details and effects. The contrast is especially strongly developed in the figure next to St Peter on the north side (English Heritage: St Mary's Church, Kempley – Virtual Tour' [accessed 22.8.2012]). As it is, there is little in the incised decoration at Papplewick at all reminiscent of the lively windblown draperies of the pre-Conquest tradition dependent on Winchester, and in particular the lower edge of the garments is finished off as a straight horizontal.

The head at Papplewick is extraordinary. No doubt one might look back to early icons and textiles originating in the eastern Mediterranean or Coptic traditions for the ultimate inspiration for such an emphatic focus on the eyes. A recent stone sculptural find at the Pictish monastery at Portmahomack on the Tarbat peninsula of eastern Scotland depicts the head of 'a holy man' and demonstrates the persistent effectiveness of a focus on the eyes in conveying religious intensity (Carver 2008, pl. 6a). The 'faces with large staring eyes (Anglo-Saxon rather than Norman)' are picked out as striking features of the Romanesque crossing capitals of Southwell Minster, dating from the second decade of the twelfth century, by Nikolaus Pevsner (1951, 162–3; see Kelly, F. 1998). In some ways, the facial type at Papplewick is in the tradition of the Bury Bible or mature Romanesque work like the wall paintings of St Gregory's Chapel at Canterbury (e.g. Tristram 1944, pl. 15), rather than that of the St Alban's Psalter with its fully profiled heads (Pächt et al. 1960). With prominent eyes and strongly marked eyebrows dominating, it achieves something of the monumental feel and impact of the image of the scribe Eadwine in the mid-century Eadwine Psalter (Kauffmann 1975, cat. 75 especially fig. 187). Just as this intensity in Eadwine's portrayal may signify his divine inspiration, so at Papplewick there may be apocalyptic intent in the image of St Peter. 'Oculi autem eius sicut flamma ignis', the eyes of the rider on the white horse in Revelation — a type of Christ and suitable model for his principal earthly representative — were his key feature.[1] Style and significance combine, then, to remarkable effect.

Context

The foregoing discussion perhaps lays out two divergent options: one — laying emphasis on selected stylistic aspects of the panel — might favour a late pre-Conquest date for this fine artwork, the other — taking a wider view of the range of iconographic and stylistic evidence — an early twelfth-century date, though pre-dating the development in England of classically derived Romanesque figure sculpture.

A context for the distinctive emphasis we see at Papplewick on St Peter as bishop and pope might just lie in the link between Nottinghamshire and York in ecclesiastical administration, which was established in the mid tenth century (see Chapter III, p. 33), and the latter's patronage by St Peter, though we have seen little other evidence of the acknowledgement of that link in our sculptural corpus, and there is little sign of it in the post-Conquest centuries either.

There is perhaps more contextual support for the alternative, early post-Conquest assessment. From its broken state when found, the Papplewick sculpture evidently comes from a larger original composition. The fact, too, that its protagonist, St Peter, seems to be looking at or engaging with something off to left suggests that also. The most likely type of flat historiated panel of which it could have formed part is no doubt a tympanum. In its turn, that also points to a post-Conquest date for this piece (Keyser 1927). That, too, is the inference probably to be derived from the sculpture's overt focus on St Peter in the distinctive role as bishop and pope. Depiction of St Peter as bishop of Rome had a particular relevance in early post-Conquest England generally, in the context of the church settlement and the Hildebrandine reforms promoted by Lanfranc and his successor at Canterbury, Anselm. In the context of the career of Anselm himself and what he stood for, it had a special edge because of his dispute with Henry I about the legitimate consecration of prelates, and his ultimate success in promoting the papal case (Southern 1963). With the marked popularity of Anselm's writings, which saw copies of his Prayers and Meditations given to monastic friends and to ladies of noble birth including Adelaide, daughter of William I, and Mathilda, duchess of Tuscany, the early twelfth century was an era when the iconography we see in the Papplewick panel was particularly current, as the parallels noted above have shown.

But why should such a relatively nuanced and specific and purposeful depiction occur in an apparent backwater like Papplewick? What was distinctive about Papplewick in the high Middle Ages was its relationship to the Augustinian priory of Newstead, founded by the direct initiative of King Henry II within the historic bounds of Sherwood Forest. Papplewick church was part of Newstead's primary endowment; it was held by the canons right through to the Dissolution, and as an appropriated possession situated right on the doorstep of the priory is likely to have been serviced by the canons themselves (Cox 1912b; Thompson 1919). After the Dissolution, the advowson was held by the canons' secular successors, the Byron family of Newstead. The story that the king was inspired to his foundation by an encounter with Eustace, the hermit of Papplewick, while he was out hunting may in itself be a common topos. But it may additionally indicate that there was a significant — though administratively unimportant — ecclesiastical foundation here at Papplewick before the later twelfth century; just the sort of pre-existing entity that the Augustinians frequently chose to make the focus of their foundations and evidently one of sufficient pretension to acquire a stylish piece of early sculpture. That sculpture, on our assessment, combines somewhat archaic stylistic features with a papocentric iconography perfectly suited to the era of Lanfranc and Anselm in years leading up to and around 1100. Might it even be the case that the place-name, through a false but persistently attractive popular etymology, played a part in the choice and deployment of this specific imagery? Gover et al. (1940, 130–1) derived the first element from OE papol(stan) 'pebble'; but many twelfth-century forms of the name omit the 'l' and, for example, Butler continued to promote popular derivations from OE papil 'priest or hermit' or a personal name Pap(p)a (1952).

Eleventh century, probably final third

Throsby 1790b, facing 287, 288; Riley 1884, 27; Walkerdine and Buxton 1907, 64; Guilford 1910, 155; Firth 1916, 212; Gill 1917; Guilford 1927, 155; Mee 1938, 233; Pevsner 1951, 148; Butler, L. 1952, 26, illus.; Throsby 1972, ii, facing 287, 288; Pevsner and Williamson 1979, 288; Cocke 1989, 52

[1] 'And I saw heaven opened: and behold a white horse. And he that sat on him was called faithful and true: and with justice doth he judge and fight. And his eyes were as a flame of fire: and on his head were many diadems. And he had a name written, which no man knoweth but himself.' Revelation 19:11–12.