A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



A most remarkable instance of a subject exhibited by a series of single 

 figures may be seen on the chancel screen at Barton Turf. Nine out of the 

 twelve panels are filled by single figures representing one of the divisions 

 of the heavenly host, as, Powers, Virtues, Dominations, Seraphim, Cherubim, 

 Principalities, Thrones, Archangels, and Angels. Two of the figures in this 

 series are of special interest as they are in full armour, which, although it 

 shows a mixture of early and late forms, places the date of the paintings, 

 judging by the later forms displayed, between 1480 and 1490. The subject 

 of the Heavenly Hierarchy is of extreme rarity, and this example is, as far 

 as can be ascertained, the only one of the kind to be found in Norfolk.^ 



Putting aside the Apostles, Prophets, and the representation of the 

 Heavenly Hierarchy just named, and coming to individuals, as opposed to 

 classes, between sixty and seventy different saints as single figures have 

 been counted on the panels of the Norfolk screens. 



These may be divided into local and other English saints, saints of dis- 

 tinctly foreign origin, saints whose worship was common throughout Chris- 

 tendom, and some few personages to whom devotion was paid, but who 

 could scarcely be said to have attained to the dignity of sainthood. The local 

 saints and those associated with eastern England rank first for mention. 

 St. Walstan may very well head the list, as his shrine in the church of his 

 native village, Bawburgh, was a place of some resort. He was called the 

 patron of field labourers, in fact, of all engaged in agriculture, and his 

 remarkable legend records powers possessed by him which might be attri- 

 buted rather to some pagan divinity than to a Christian saint.* St. Withburga, 

 again, was peculiarly associated with Norfolk. She was the virgin daughter 

 of Anna, King of the East Angles, and is said to have founded a convent in 

 the woods of Dereham, where she and her nuns, so the story goes, were 

 miraculously supported in a time of scarcity by the milk of two does, who 

 came of their own accord from the adjacent forest. She lay entombed at 

 Dereham until the year 1106, when the monks of Ely committed the pious 

 theft, as it was called, of carrying off her remains in order to enshrine them 

 beside those of her more famous sister St. Etheldreda, also often figured on 

 the screen panels, in the great monastery of the Fenland.' Another saint, 

 intimately associated with Norwich, whose effigy is to be seen on various 

 screens, and whose martyrdom is pictured upon that at Loddon, was 

 St. William, the boy saint of whom the legend ran that he was crucified by 

 the Jews in mockery of the Christian religion, and buried in a wood on 

 the borders of Mousehold, the heath which bounds the city on the north- 

 east. The body was, it is said, miraculously discovered, and afterwards 

 enshrined in the cathedral church, the offerings at the shrine bringing profit 

 and reputation to the Benedictine monastery of which that church formed 

 part. It may be remembered that a similar boy martyr had his shrine in the 

 Minster of Lincoln. 



Representations may be occasionally seen of a saint known in Essex, 

 St. Osyth, daughter of Freewald, a Mercian king, and virgin spouse of 



* tiorj. Arch. (1852), iii. The same subject is to be found, however, on the screen at the end of the 

 north aisle of Southwold church, Suffolk. 



2 Blomefield, Hist. ofNorf., ii. 387. 



* St. Withburga with her does is to be seen on the screen at North Burlingham. 



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