T.A. Heslop & Elizabeth A. Mellings 
Art, Faith and Place in East Anglia 
From Prehistory to the Present

An investigation into the manifestations of religious art in East Anglia and how they are connected to and inspired by their locations.


The relationship between religious or spiritual artworks and the locality where such objects are made and used is the central question this volume addresses. While it is a well-known fact that religious artworks, objects and buildings can have a power or agency of their own (iconoclasm, the violent defacement of an object which paradoxically testifies to the fear and loathing it has generated, being an extreme example), the sources of this power are less well understood. It is this problem which the book seeks to begin to remedy, using East Anglia, an area of Britain with an exceptionally long history of religious diversity, as its prism. Case-studies are taken from prehistory right up to the twenty-first century, and from a variety of media, including wall-paintings, church architecture, and stained glass; famous sites examined include Seahenge and Sutton Hoo. Overall, the book shows how profoundly religious artworks are embedded in local communities, belief systems, histories and landscapes.


T.A. Heslop is Professor of Visual Arts, Elizabeth Mellings a Post-doctoral Research Fellow, and Margit Thofner Senior Lecturer, at the School of World Art Studies, University of East Anglia.


Contributors: Margit Thofner, T.A. Heslop, Elizabeth de Bièvre, Daphne Nash Briggs, Adrian Marsden, Timothy Pestell, Matthew Champion, Carole Hill, Elizabeth Rutledge, David King, John Peake, Nicola Whyte, Chris King, Francesca Vanke, Stefan Muthesius, Kate Hesketh-Harvey, Karl Bell, Elizabeth Mellings, Robert Wallis, Trevor Ashwin. Cover artwork: Glowing Embers (Seahenge), 2000. Painting by Susan Laughlin.

Table of Content

Introduction: On Faith, Objects and Locality – T A Heslop and Margit Thofner

But Where is Norfolk? – Elisabeth de Bièvre

Sacred Image and Regional Identity in late-Prehistoric Norfolk – Daphne Nash Briggs

Piety from the Ploughsoil: Religion in Roman Norfolk Through Recent Metal-Detector Finds – Adrian Marsden

Paganism in Early-Anglo-Saxon East Anglia – Timothy Pestell

Devotion, Pestilence and Conflict: The Medieval Wall Paintings of St Mary the Virgin, Lakenheath – Matthew Champion

Here be Dragons: The Cult of St Margaret of Antioch and Strategies for Survival – Carole Hill

The Medieval Jews of Norwich and their Legacy – Elizabeth Rutledge

Late-Medieval Glass-Painting in Norfolk: Developments in Iconography and Craft c.1250-1540 – David King

Graffiti and Devotion in Three Maritime Churches – John Peake

Norfolk Waywide Crosses: Biographies of Landscape and Place – Nicola Whyte

Landscapes of Faith and Politics in Early-Modern Norwich – Chris King

Practice and Belief: Manifestations of Witchcraft, Magic and Paganism in East Anglia from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day – Francesca Vanke

Provinciality and the Victorians: Church Design in Nineteenth-Century East Anglia – Stefan Muthesius

Maharajah Duleep Singh, Elveden and Sikh Pilgrimage – Kate Hesketh-Harvey

Supernatural Folklore and the Popular Imagination: Re-reading Object and Locality in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Norfolk – Karl Bell

Pro Patria Mori: Christian Rallies and War Memorials of early-Twentieth-Century Norfolk – Elizabeth A. Mellings

Pagans in Place, from Stonehenge to Seahenge: ‘Sacred Archaeological Monuments and Artefacts in Britain – Robert J. Wallis

Art, Spirit and Ancient Places in Norfolk – Trevor Ashwin

Sacred Sites and Blessed Objects: Art and Religion in Contemporary Norfolk – Elizabeth A. Mellings

Bibliography

Appendix: A Brief Note on the Maps (with map webpage link) – Trevor Ashwin

Interactive maps and pie-charts

About the author

CHRIS KING is Assistant Professor of Archaeology at the University of Nottingham.