A profound decoration: on the Elizabethan roots of contemporary Anglican iconography
---
This is reinforced by the fact that the defence of imagery was not the preserve of avant garde and Laudian opinion. Most obviously, this was seen in the words of another Supreme Governor, James VI/I:
I am no Iconomachus, I quarrel not the making of Images, either for public decoration, or for men’s private uses: But that they should be worshipped, be prayed to, or any holiness attributed unto them, was never known of the Ancients: and the Scriptures are so directly, vehemently and punctually against it.
Mindful that James’ care for consensus and peace in the Church of England was often (unfairly and for polemical purposes) contrasted with the approach of his son, Charles I, this clear rejection of iconoclasm and acceptance of images has considerable significance. We might also note that it is possible to detect here an echo of Luther: “I have nothing in common with the iconoclasts.” John Donne, the epitome of Jacobean Conformity, echoed the words of James in a sermon which, while condemning “Vae Idololatris,” also condemned iconoclasm:
But Vae Iconoclastis too, woe to such peremptory abhorrers of Pictures, and to such uncharitable condemners of all those who would admit any use of them, as had rather throw down a Church, then let a Picture stand.
Donne insists that the Elizabethan Injunctions were not iconoclastic – not a requirement that all images be removed from churches – but a response to the abuse of particular images:
And though the injunctions of our church, declare the sense of those times, concerning images, yet they are wisely and godly conceived; for the second is, ‘that they shall not extol images’, (which is not, that they shall not set them up) but, (as it followeth) “they shall declare the abuse thereof.” And when in the twenty-third injunction, it is said, that “they shall utterly extinct, and destroy,” (amongst other things) “pictures,” yet it is limited to such “things, and such pictures, as are monuments of feigned miracles.”
He also, interestingly, points to wider Protestant practice regarding images, referring to Lutheran custom: “For a reverent adorning of the place, they may be retained here, as they are in the greatest part of the Reformed Church, and in all that, that is properly Protestant.”
Jacobean Conformity, therefore, not only shared with Laudian opinion an acceptance of the use of images, it also shared the same apologia for imagery. Donne’s interpretation of the Elizabethan Injunctions was also that offered by the Laudian Peter Heylyn in his history of the English Reformation, Ecclesia Restaurata:
the commissioners removed all carved images out of the Church which had been formerly abused to superstition, defacing also all such pictures, paintings, and other monuments as served for the setting forth of feigned miracles.
Heylyn also emphasized that any incidences of wider iconoclasm were contrary to the wishes of Elizabeth and the intention of her Injunctions:
And as it is many times supposed that a thing is never well done if not over done, so happened it in this case also; zeal against superstition had prevailed so far with some ignorant men, that in some places the copes, vestments, altar-cloths, books, banners, sepulchres, and rood-lofts, were burned altogether … some, perverting rather than mistaking her intention in it, guided by covetousness, or overruled by some new fangle in religion, under colour of conforming to this command, defaced all such images of Christ and his Apostles, all paintings which presented any history of the holy Bible, as they found in any windows of their churches or chapels.
This coherence of Jacobean Conformity and Laudian sensibilities suggests that Charles Prior is correct in stating that aspects of Laudianism were “deeply entrenched in Jacobean religious culture.” The perhaps surprising figure of Bishop Joseph Hall can be pointed to in support of this judgment. Hall was robustly anti-Laudian, a doctrinal Calvinist, and one of the English representatives at Dort. In the account he provides, however, of the iconoclasm of the 1640s, we see both an acceptance of images and a rejection of the theological principles of the iconoclasts. Referring to the vandalism inflicted by the iconoclasts on his private chapel, Hall states:
Another while the Sheriff Toftes, and Alderman Linsey, attended with many Zealous Followers, came in to my Chappel to look for Superstitious Pictures, and Reliques of Idolatry, and send for me, to let me know they found those Windows full of Images, which were very offensive, and must be demolished: I told them they were the pictures of some ancient and worthy Bishops, as St. Ambrose, Austin, & c.
The anti-Laudian Hall, a representative at Dort, had – just like avant garde and Laudian figures – stained glass images of the saints in his chapel. What is more, when the iconoclasts moved their vandalism to Norwich Cathedral, Hall’s disgusted record of their actions reveals a material culture in the cathedral which cannot easily be distinguished from Laudian practices:
in a kind of Sacrilegious and profane Procession, all the Organ Pipes, Vestments, both Copes and Surplices, together with the Leaden Cross, which had been newly sawn down from over the Green Yard Pulpit, and the Service Books and Singing Books that could be had, were carried to the Fire in the public Market-Place; a lewd Wretch walking before the Train.
In addition, Hall’s account also reminds us that the violent and extensive campaign of iconoclasm in the 1640s itself points to the widespread acceptance of images in the Jacobean and Caroline Church, inherited from the Elizabethan Settlement.
---
The essay's conclusion both points to this defence and practice of iconography being another expression of a reformed Catholicism shared with the Lutheran Churches of the Northern Kingdoms - echoing an earlier Latin tradition identified by the Orthodox iconographer Peter Brooke - as well as providing the roots for contemporary Anglican iconography (mentioning in a footnote the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln):
---
Such profound decoration, native to the Anglican tradition and standing in continuity with earlier Latin thought, serves the faithful in calling the heart to reverence the mysteries of our redemption. We, after all, are no iconoclasts; we quarrel not the making of images, either for the public decoration of churches, or for private use.
Comments
Post a Comment