Prayer in Stone

In preparation for a presentation I'll be giving later this week about medieval 'graffiti' in Norfolk, I have been re-visiting Norwich Castle earlier today, in search of some decent photographs for my talk. Here is a really interesting little graffito, that can be found on the wall opposite one of the castle's latrines. Looking at the tooling marks on the ashlar (worked limestone), I would imagine this stone to date from sometime in the 1400s - or thereabouts. Lots of background 'noise'; a flurry of lines and 'scribble' - and there, to the right of the stone, a figure. It appears to be Christ on the cross, head bowed slightly to the right - just as it would have been on a pre-Reformation rood (carved figure of Jesus above the screen demarcating nave from chancel in a church - none of which survived the destruction wrought by the English Reformation[s]). Looking, as I did, with my high-resolution magnifier at the lines in the graffito it is clear that this figure has some real age to it. The lines are fully carbonated - a result, no doubt, of accumulations of smoke from prisoners fires burning low-grade charcoal in an attempt to stay warm. The whole 'feel' of this one is medieval. It stands short of five feet (in old money) from the floor level. Assuming this, then, to have been carved at a chest height, the person who conceived it (from brain to wall) was of diminutive stature. 

We will never be able to reconstruct the thoughts of that person. If it were not for this 'whisper' of their presence, they would be just one of a legion of 'invisible' people who have passed through this space during its 900 years of existence. If I am correct, and the stone does indeed date from the fifteenth century, and the graffito is pre-Reformation, then it is most likely carved by someone who was a prisoner in what was, by then, the county gaol. We know that graffiti tends to proliferate during times of social tension - war, famine, plague -, so it seems psychological coherent to conjecture that a prisoner facing possible execution might seek to leave a permanent mark - but not any old mark. Was this perhaps a form of devotion; a prayer in stone? Regardless of any interpretation, it does remind us that others - as alive and 'contemporary' in their day as we are in ours - once stood here. 

Rigorous handling of the evidence is vital if we are to gain a better understanding of the past. However, for me, to stretch one's historical imagination and explore a sense of wonder at the strangely familiar presence of those who have passed before us is important too. History isn't just written on parchment, paper or velum - that's for sure. 

For further information about medieval graffiti in Norfolk, click on the following link:
Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey

~ Colin Howey ~