Glossary

A bracket projecting from a wall, usually made stone or timber and used to support a load such as a roof, vault or statue. A vault may 'spring' from a corbel as its base point. Often, medieval corbels are decoratively carved, commonly with angels, human heads, or grotesques, but sometimes with more specific scenes. If a roof has been replaced or raised, it may no longer rest on its original corbels and they will be left functionless high up on the wall.

A corbel table may also be found, this being a row of corbels closely linked and all supporting a parapet, string course, or the eaves of a roof. Corbel tables therefore, as in the former two cases, can sometimes be merely decorative rather than providing the usual structural function.

A bowl-like vessel, often supported by a pedestal or column(s) and used for baptisms, where Holy Water contained in the font is used in order to baptise those new to the Christian faith. Fonts are most often made of stone, but lead fonts can occasionally be found, most of them being Norman. Norman stone fonts are generally round or square, with later medieval fonts favouring an octagonal shape. The faces of font bowls are often decoratively carved, with popular pictorial subjects including the Seven Sacraments or the Apostles, but often it is simpler tracery or quatrefoils that adorns them.

Fonts are generally located near the west end (viz. the door) of a church, symbolic of them being the way by which one is admitted to the Christian Church, and occasionally commandeer their own dedicated space in a building known as a baptistery.

A type of brass alloy, consisting of roughly 2/3rds copper and 1/3rd zinc, with smaller traces of tin, lead, and occasionally iron. The result is an incredibly hard metal, resistant to much damage, and was produced from the later 13th century until the mid-16th century primarily at Cologne. Here it was beaten into sheets called Cullen plates, the name derived from their place of manufacture. This type of brass was imported and used in the creation of monumental brasses, a type of funerary art which would involve engraving brass components and setting them into precisely fitted matrices carved into a ledger stone, usually of Purbeck marble. The brass components were secured with pitch, rivets, or staples, and had centres of engraving in England, Northern France, Flanders, and Northern Germany. The primary centre of production in England was London, with further workshops probably present in important provincial towns such as York, Norwich, and Bristol.

As mentioned, latten is remarkably hard and as such generally defies graffiti in a way which stone does not. However, the material was also valuable and brasses were often recycled into new memorials or torn up and stolen by tinkers who would melt down the latten and sell it, a problem especially prominent at the Reformation, the Civil War and Commonwealth period, as well as throughout the 18th century.

A type of carved decoration to be found projecting from the top of a bench end or choir stall. The name is derived from the Latin puppis, meaning the head or stern of a ship (so nothing to do with the flowers!). Most often, they take the general form of a fleur-de-lys, which may then be ornamented with anything from simple foliage decoration to colourful scenes depicting both religious and secular scenarios and figures, often preserving the basic form of the fleur-de-lys. Whilst many are medieval in date, poppyheads experienced a second wave of fashionability in the 19th century. Sometimes, whilst the actual benches themselves will have been replaced at a later date, the more ancient bench ends and the poppyheads that crown them will have been preserved and reused.

A decorative screen which covers the wall behind an altar. A reredos differs from an altarpiece in its scale; generally the distinction made is that a reredos is integrated into the wall, often rising from the floor rather than resting above the altar. They are often highly decorated with religious imagery, which of course made them a prime target during the Reformation, so surviving medieval reredoses are rare, often being ones with more simple pattern decoration. The majority of reredoses in UK churches will date from the Victorian Restoration, and can comprise stone carvings, wood panels, mosaics, and many more media.

There are some fantastic reredoses to be seen in Oxford college chapels, especially at Magdalen and New, whose chapels have no east windows, allowing the sculpture-filled reredoses to rise floor to ceiling.

A semi-circular or triangular decorative space found above doorways, bounded by the doorway arch and lintel. Having said that they can be triangular, tympana in the UK are rarely to be found after the Norman era, so will almost invariably be semi-circular to fit the prevailing arch style at the time. Whilst they can be plain, a lot of the time they will be filled with the most delightful designs; common scenes include the Agnus Dei, Christ in Majesty, and the Assumption of the Virgin, though simpler Norman designs do often prevail.

Some of my personal recommendations for tympana would be Great Rollright (Oxon), Barfrestone (Kent), Quenington (Glos, two for the price of one!), Ely Cathedral (Cambs) and Malmesbury Abbey (Wilts).