MONT ORGUEIL EXHIBITION SCHEME The history of Mont Orgueil, the castle’s inhabitants and the Island’s medieval history have been brought alive for the 21st century with new exhibits by specialist designers, artists and craftspeople, as the Jersey Heritage Trust Director, Jonathan Carter, explains. THERE MUST BE LITTLE IN THE WAY OF HOPES visualisations and by representing aspects of history for which and despair, ambition and fear, ingenuity and effort that there are few original artefacts to exhibit. In years past, one hasn’t been expressed within the walls of Mont Orgueil solution was to use waxwork tableaux representing historic Castle over eight centuries of occupation. scenes from various periods. These were confined to the So, for the team involved in planning and Keep, where they had a strong, but in some ways adverse, commissioning the Castle’s exhibition scheme, the big impact. Theatrical lighting meant windows were blacked challenge was how to suggest aspects of the different out, and wall-to-ceiling wood and Perspex barriers broke up military, social, political, and natural histories in an the rooms and obscured the fabric of the building itself. imaginative and emotionally engaging way without So the new scheme was planned around a number of concealing or competing with such an architecturally ideas. We would try to use the whole castle, exterior as well important and archaeologically sensitive historic site. as interior spaces. We would avoid adapting the rooms The answer lay in the use of an approach pioneered by themselves in order to house exhibits. We would aim to the Jersey Heritage Trust at the nationally recognised cover a wide range of subjects, telling the stories of the castle Maritime Museum in 1997. Here, the Trust brought from many different viewpoints. And we would encourage together an eclectic and talented mix of designers, artists the involvement of a variety of artists, craftspeople and and craftspeople to consider and interpret technicians working in different media. Jersey’s maritime history. The innovative We drew up an extensive list of interpretation scheme worked well - potential relevant subject areas, and, and won the 1997 Museum of the separately, assembled a range of Year award. visual ideas, often based in But while the challenges of medieval images. Lead artist presenting big histories in Gordon Young helped us small spaces were the same in match subjects and ideas to both locations, there was artists who were invited to one crucial difference – the develop proposals. In some architecture. The Maritime cases these proposals went Museum is set in nowhere and were not warehouses on the New pursued, but in most cases North Quay – ideal gallery wonderful, creative exhibits spaces that allow a vibrant emerged that give life and mix of exhibits and presence to subjects and ideas information in many different for which we have only styles and materials to work with fragmentary historical remains. each other to create a dramatic Of the many exhibits in the overall effect. But at Mont Orgueil, castle developed in this way, the overly dramatic exhibits could compete following six help illustrate the approach with, and potentially damage, the character. we took. Another element the team had to bear in mind in planning the exhibition scheme was Jonathan Carter is Director of the Jersey that the quality of the exhibits at Mont Heritage Trust Orgueil could have a major impact on Tel: 01534 633313 visitors’ understanding by providing strong E-mail: [email protected] THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE 69 The Perfect Knight Owen worked with the Royal inside protective layers and that we One of the biggest challenges in Armouries and recreated in close should “feel” his life within. Horses presenting the history of Mont detail the armour depicted in the and riders are fully aware of each other Orgueil is to get across the violent and tomb carving. He mounted the figure and I wanted to capture that dangerous military aspects of its past. on a horse – an important, expensive connectedness in a sculptural way.’ The figure of Sir Hugh Calveley, and much sought after accessory for a warden from 1376, represents the knight – and intended to capture the romantic image of the medieval structure, quiet power and alertness of knight – the epitome of power in a a well-schooled destrier. The sculpture feudal society and an awe-inspiring was constructed in cold forged steel. sight without doubt. Small sections of metal are beaten by The sculpture of the Perfect hand into a shape matching a Knight is based on the figure of Sir polystyrene maquette and welded Hugh Calveley. One of the most together over a steel framework. famous military commanders of his This immense work took place time, he became Keeper of the over nearly three years. Owen Channel Islands in 1376. Prior to that described the challenge. he had won several campaigns in the ‘Although the research for the Sir Hundred Years War and been awarded Hugh project was fascinating, it was numerous titles, including Admiral of also very daunting. Could my skills as the English Fleet, Captain of Brest a metal worker match those and Seneschal of Calais. fourteenth-century armourers who Owen Cunningham’s sculpture, were at the cutting edge of The Perfect Knight in the Middle Ward which is ten per cent larger than actual technology?’ size, shows a medieval knight’s ‘Once I realised that my role was armour in great detail. Very few suits that of sculptor and not a “would be” have survived from the 14th century armourer, then I relaxed and began to but Owen based the suit, which shows really enjoy the challenge. I decided at the various separate pieces he once that the horse would have to be probably would have worn, on a “alive” and fully part of the piece, not carving on Sir Hugh’s tomb in a plastic support for a suit of armour. The Perfect Knight – work in progress, the polystyrene Cheshire. Also, Sir Hugh himself was a man maquette The Illusion of Witchcraft by described as ‘the stern militant witches ‘under pain of one month’s Mike Woods uncompromising Protestantism of France imprisonment in the castle on bread Between 1562 and 1660 there were at where all who belonged to the “New and water’. least 65 witch trials in Jersey – Religion” thought of themselves as soldiers In the grip of religious paranoia, resulting in at least 33 deaths and engaged in a life and death struggle with elaborate fantasies of diabolic eight banishments. This is an the Devil’. behaviour were imagined. As incredible insight into the religious During this period new laws were Lieutenant Bailiff Philippe Le Geyt fundamentalism that gripped the passed to safeguard the Sabbath. later reflected: ‘How many innocent Island at that time. People were Dancing, playing skittles and people have perished in the flames on incarcerated in the castle, and many gossiping could result in a prison the asserted testimony of supernatural killed, for crimes that were imagined sentence; missing church, swearing circumstances? I cannot say there are by a paranoid community. Mike and drunkenness could result in fines, no witches; but since the difficulty of Woods’s exhibit represents the power while the telling of licentious stories or convicting them has been recognised of that fantasy, and draws on period the singing of lascivious songs meant a in the Island they all seem to have images of witches and demons. fine for everyone present. In 1591 the disappeared as though the evidence of The Island was in the grip of what Royal Court banned diviners from time gone by had been but an G R Balleine in his History of Jersey seeking counsel or advice from illusion.’ 70 THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE The Tree of Succession and Hall, the part of the early castle Wheel of Fortune by Brian Fell building with the highest status. Brian Fell’s Tree of Succession shows The Tree is complemented by a the interlinked fortunes of the French sculpture called the Wheel of and English crowns from 1154 to Fortune, also by Brian. The wheel was 1485. The royal houses of France and a common medieval image and England were closely linked by revealed that even kings and emperors marriage throughout the Middle cannot escape the vicissitudes of fate. Ages, but these complex relationships An illuminated illustration of the provoked significant Anglo-French Wheel formed part of an ancient rivalries and led to the Hundred Years manuscript found in Jersey called the War in which the castle played a part. Romance of the Rose, which dates back Eleanor of Aquitaine is at the base to around 1230 but which was stolen of the tree. She was one of the crucial from St Helier’s public library in links between the two dynasties. She 1955. The manuscript was first married King Louis VII of France photographed in the 1920s but only and then King Henry II of England, in black and white. It was described as first of the Plantagenets. It was their being ‘most delicately drawn and son, King John, who ordered the blazing with scarlets, pinks, blues, greens construction of Mont Orgueil and yellows, besides much gold-leaf in the following the crisis of 1204 and the backgrounds and borders’. loss of mainland Normandy. By The Tree of Succession in the Medieval Hall building and maintaining Mont Orgueil Castle, the kings of England announced to the world that they had political ambitions in this part of north-west Europe. The Tree is made of cold forged steel, but so fine is the detail that the metal seems almost to have been made of plastic.