Factors Behind the Production of the Guthlac Roll (British Museum Harley Roll Y.6)

Forgery, Invention and Propaganda: Factors behind the Production of the Guthlac Roll (British Museum Harley Roll Y.6) Kimberly Kelly The Guthlac Roll, a scroll illustrating scenes from the rows of outline drawings depicting scenes from the First life of St. Guthlac (co. 674-714) ofCrowlan<!, was created in Book of Samuel, chapters I-VI. These drawings were exe England during the first two decades of the thirteenth cuted in ink and have been dated by George Warner ca. century. Most of the scenes chosen for illustration were 1300. According to Warner, these drawings are in no way · taken from the eighth-<:entury life of this saint, wrinen by related to the scenes of Guthlac's life. At least one piece of a scribe named Felix. As a result of this dependence, vellum is now missing from the Roll, leaving five pieces similarities between the text anil the Roll abound, but intact. The missing piece probably contained scenes of significant differences also exist. These divergences provide Guthlac's childhood and youth, including half of what is tantalizing clues to the factors and motivations behind the now the first roundel. As the pieces of veUum are all of production of the Guthlac Roll. different lengths, it is impossible to determine the length of The main purpose of this study will be to place the the missing section or the number of scenes it may have production of the Guthlac Roll within the context of local, contained. Furthermore, some type of introductory mate national and international events by focusing on the differ rial may have prefaced the scenes of Guthlac's life on other ences between Felix's text and the Roll and seeking to pieces of vellum now lost from the Roll. The extant scenes explain these differences. On the local level, the Guthlac consist of tinted outline drawings in ink with some use of Roll represents a response to a series of land disputes in pale green and yeUow washes. Each roundel contains one Lincolnshire that plagued Guthlac's abbey of Crowland or more brief inscriptions that serve to identify major during much of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These figures and to explain the action being depicted. land disputes eventually attracted royal involvement, there The Guthlac Roll has been dated co. 1210 4 and is an by entangling the Abbey in the politics of the Plantagenet outstanding English example of the Style 1200.' Based on royal house. Further influence from the Plantagenets may stylistic evidence, Nigel Morgan has postulated the exist be seen in possible allusions to King Richard's participation ence of an early thirteenth-<:entury school centered in the in the Third Crusade. The increasing popularity of pilgrim area around the town of Lincoln. This hypothesis suggests age and pilgrimage-related art provided much of the impe• that the Cambridge Bestiary (Cambridge Univer.;ity Lib., tus for the Roll's production, as propaganda for Guthlac MS li.4.26) and a copy of Henry of Huntingdon's Historia and his shrine. The style of the Roll itself was part of the Anglorum (Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery MS 793) were spread of an international movement, the Style 1200, from made by the same artist as the Guthlac Roll,• which was the Continent to England. almost certainly commissioned for use at Crowland Abbey This discussion concentrates on the economic and his in Lincolnshire.' Morgan dates the Bestiary ca. 1200-10, vir torical aspects of the Roll, and will involve the examination tually contemporary with the Guthlac Roll. A sixteenth of three themes. 1 The first theme concerns the status of century inscription on folio 73 of the Cambridge Bestiary Crowland Abbey and is a product of the turbulent history reads, "Jacobus Thomas Herison Thys ys ye abbaye of of the Abbey during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as Rev.... ," 8 which one scholar has identified as the abbey of successive abbots altempted to safeguard the future of the Revesby in Lincolnshire. Morgan cites -stylistic similarities Abbey. These concerns must be viewed as the primary fac between the Roll and the north rose window of Lincoln tor behind the production of the Roll. The second theme Cathedral as further evidence of a Lincolnshire school. concerns Guthlac as a soldier of Christ. Pilgrimage, as an The existence of the Guthlac Roll and the Cambridge increasingly important form of popular piety, is the third Bestiary, both executed in a distinctive and yet refined theme and links the first two. As we shall see, each of these style,• strongly suggests that Lincolnshire was the location themes, indeed, the entire Roll. has two goals in common of an innovative artistic center during the early thirteenth one, to provide fo r the security of the Abbey's land through century. The execution of both secular and ecclesiastical the promotion of a spurious history and two, to provide for works indicates that this center was nourishing and was the future prosperity of the Abbey through the promotion able, through the artistic patronage of both the aristocracy of Guthlac and his relics. and the Church, to support a wide _range of artistic subject The Guthlac Roll (British Museum Harley Roll Y.6) is matter. As we shall see later when discussing the history of a scroll containi11g eighteen scenes from the life of Saint Crowland Abbey, this artistic flowering coincided with the Guthlac of Crowland.1 (Please see Appendix A for a rule of an extremely active abbot who presided over an complete description of the eighteen scenes including relc ambitious cultural expansion at Crowland. ,-ant quotations from Felix ·s text and a brief statement of While its stylistic importance may be rooted in its con• the differences between each scene and the text.) The Roll tribution to the development of an indigenous Lincolnshire measures 9' x 6½• and was made by pasting together pieces school, the Roll has yet to be discussed within the historical of vellum, all of different lengths.' The scenes, executed in context of Lincolnshire or Crowland Abbey.'O Discussions the fo rm of roundels, mca1ure 6" in diameter and are con of the Roll have centered on its original purpose, with the tiguous to one another. On the back of the Roll are two most popular theory identifying it as a study for stained I glass.11 To my knowledge, no one has assened that the Roll commander to a soldier of Christ has begun. The warrior/ itself was intended as a finished product, although the high leader who had existed the night before has been replaced quality, fine details and use of tinting seen in the Roll could by a follower of Christ. How will he be chosen to serve his be used to suppon this point. For the purposes of this new master? paper, I have assumed that the Roll is a finished work. A Guthlac's mission is to become a soldier of Christ, a brief summary of Guthlac's life and the major differences miles Christi, not only in the best tradition of St. Anthony18 between Felix's text and the Roll follow as an introduction but also in the tradition of the Crusaders who, during the to the discussion of the three central themes. past two centuries (from 1096), had fought to liberate the Guthlac, a Mereian of royal descent, successfully led a Holy Land. Although many other scenes from Guthlac's band of warriors for nine years until he decided, at the age life on Crowland could have been depicted, the patrons of of twenty-four, to trade his pursuit of eanhly glory for S?ir the Roll apparently chose to emphasize Guthlac as a itual glory. He received the tonsure at Repton Abbey and, warrior in his contest with demons (Figures 7-9). This battle after two years of instruction in the spiritual life, retreated with demons is continued in the two scenes of healing to the island of Crowland to become an ascetic. Guthlac (Figures IO and 18} in which a retainer of Prinoe Aethelbald underwent a series of temptations and trials with demons and a man being cured at Guthlac's shrine are possessed by and thereafter exhibited powers of healing and the ability to demons. foresee the future. He became a close advisor to the exiled The emphasis on Guthlac as a miles Christi may be Mercian Prince Aethelbald.12 explained, in part, by the impact of the Third Crusade on Guthlac was considered a saint during his own lifetime Western Europe and on England in particular. Richard I, and his reputation attracted many visitors to Crowland, Coeur de Lion, led the Plantagenet royal house and its including Prince Acthclbald. The popularity of Guthlac's vassals into the Holy Land in a futile attempt to regain cult after his death was probably enhanced by his close ties Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels.19 Richard's com to the ruling elite of Mercia. The first version of Guthlac's bination of military prowess and Christian service was life was written by a scribe named Felix, probably between extraordinary and represented a culmination of the miles 730 and 740, for the king of East Anglia." This Ufe Christi ideal.20 became the source fo r most of the later writings concerning Crowland had a special connection to Richard and his Guthlac.14 coun through their newly appointed abbot Henry Long Most of the scenes on the Guthlac Roll arc based on champ (abbot 1191-1236), who was a brother of Richard's Felix's text." For the most pan, the anist merely elaborated chanoellor William Longchamp and was appointed abbot upon Felix's textual descriptions by including additional of Crowland at William's request.21 Henry's connection to figures in a majority of the scenes and by constructing an one of the King's closest advisors may have influenced his elaborate, ever changing misc-en-scene as a backdrop for decision to cast Guthlac in the mold of the Christian soldier, the events that occur on Crowland.

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