Many Salisbury Museum Volunteers have been busy emptying cupboards and display cases recently, and recording and measuring and packing items away. From weird items in Dr Neighbour’s surgery (What were they used for??!), through a surfeit of ceramics, to all the miscellaneous items retrieved from the Salisbury drains, they have been packed.
I, for one, am now so thoroughly trained in careful handling (both hands, no gloves for ceramics, gloves for metal items…) that last week, when, in a charity shop, I picked up a small pot with a view to buy, the assistant commented on how I was carrying it. She said it was as if it were very precious, and in danger of breaking.
Then, it entered my dreams! I dreamt I was decanting spoons and had to take the temperature of each one. If it was above 30c it had to be packed in a special quarantine box!
But, in truth, what a privilege it has been to have had the opportunity to handle and look closely at so many amazing items. Thank you to the staff for trusting us to do it, especially Megan and Lizzie for their cheerful willingness to be available to answer all our queries. Their excellent organisation and assistance made a difficult task a lot easier and gave us the confidence to get on with it.
From 12 March the ceramics, fashion and Salisbury history galleries will be closed. The Wessex Gallery and temporary exhibition gallery will remain open.
Note that the café will be closed from 11 March 2023 due to the Past Forward redevelopment.
Mixed feelings perhaps…but definitely onward and upward. Good luck to all concerned.
While decanting items from the Drainage Collection, Sally and I discovered a little pocket saw. It is about the size of a penknife but the blade is serrated.
The handle is a beautifully moulded hound, a hunting dog running. You can even see where the maker has moulded the dog’s ribs.
We must have looked in that case hundreds of times but not until we held it had we ever noticed it.
It is dated nineteenth century. It must have been a sad day when lost in a drain in the street.
Thank you Mary, and Sally!
Interestingly, this is reminiscent of ancient Roman folding knives. They were like penknives, the blade folding into the handle. Because the blade would at that time have been of iron, that part of the knife doesn’t always survive, but the copper alloy handles do. They, too were often of hunting dogs. Or in the example below, whole hunting scenes!
And here is an incomplete example recorded here at The Salisbury Museum, placed on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database by one of our Volunteers. Notice, in the photo above and this one below, the iron corrosion – all that remains of the blade.
Three things that appear frequently in the 17th Century churchwardens’ accounts for St Edmunds’ and St Thomas’ are the need to conform with the frequently changing edicts about worship, the plagues, and the expense of the bells!
St Edmunds had become a stronghold of the Protestant Church, frequented as it was by the puritan-leaning cloth workers. They had ‘shown their colours’ decades before when they had pulled down their high altar during the early part of the Reformation but set it up again during the reign of Catholic Queen Mary I. In 1648 it was the only church in Salisbury to ring triumphant bells for a defeat by Oliver Cromwell’s of the Royalist-supporting Scots. Only three years later, in 1651, St Thomas’, perhaps reluctantly, did join in when the Scots, under Charles II, suffered the final defeat of the Civil War. It is probably significant that the churchwardens’ accounts say “Ringing for the Victory at Worcester against the Scots, by the Mayor’s Order”.
At St Thomas’ they had also whitewashed over the King’s Coat of arms in the church at the creation of Cromwell’s Commonwealth, but were able to remove the whitewash a decade or so later at the Restoration. From the churchwardens’ accounts 1660/1: “washing the Kinges Armes and making them cleare 2/6″. And from the previous year :”The pulpit to be removed from the place where it now stands and sett where it last stood adjoining to the quiere and that … Mr J Cabball is desired to see it done some time this week.” This, as the puritan Commonwealth ideals began to slip and high church became acceptable again.
These middle decades of the 17th C were tough times. In 1646, in the middle of civil war, the plague had struck with a vengeance and the churchwardens at Thomas’ were desperate to find room for burials.
Loosely ‘translated’, this transcription of the accounts showed that they were required in December 1645 by the then Mayor to put together a census of the parishioners “by the next Friday”! It doesn’t explain exactly what this was for but it may have been to keep track of matters during the plagues, or to do with requirements for church attendance. But the following month “the scantnes of the burial place in the parish and the multitude of the Inhabitants therein” had them petitioning the Cathedral for space in “the ancient burying place (belonging to the said parish) in the Litten* of the Cathedral Church…”
They were prepared to open up and re-use the graves of dead “lately buryed” but were worried about infection. All this tells a grim tale.
The bells must have been a great worry. They seem to have been extraordinarily expensive to keep in good order and a constant drain on resources. In 1643/4 alone, the following sums were spent:
Bellropes £18 7s 6d; clapper 13s 6d; hanging treble bell 10s; Carpenters 8 days £1 and pieces of timber to strengthen the frame 4s; (more!) bellropes £16 6s 8d; bolt for the great bell 1s 6d; a clamp for a bell 4d; (and yet more!!) bellropes £15 6s 3d; and of course ringing the bells on special occasions, in this case for the visit of the Marquis of Hereford, 4s. The equivalent of that total in purchasing power today might be several tens of thousands of pounds.
Then there was Hocktyde, and the mystery of the Irish, together with the wrecking of the Dissenters’ Meeting House in Castle Street in 1680. No peace…… More on all of this later.
*Litten – an old Saxon word for ‘churchyard’ or ‘burial place’.
Thanks, as always to Newman and Howells ‘Salisbury Past’ (available in the Salisbury Museum bookshop),and, for the accounts, to Churchwardens’ Accounts for St Edmunds and St Thomas, published by the Wiltshire Records Society (in the Salisbury Museum library).
Wool had been an important export from Wiltshire, through Salisbury, since the city was first established. It went abroad from south coast ports, especially Poole and Southampton. When European cloth-making industries declined in the late fourteenth century, English cloth began to be exported too.
Weavers, fullers (or ‘tuckers’ as they were called in the west of England), dyers and drapers occur frequently in the Salisbury documents, and also in deeds concerning properties in Salisbury and in its suburb of Fisherton. Sources show that appearing all over the city and its suburbs, in back gardens and in empty spaces, were ‘racks’, or ‘tenters’ on which cloth was stretched after fulling, or hung out to dry after dyeing. Evidence appears also of fulling-mills in the immediate vicinity of Salisbury, on the Avon and at Ford in Laverstock . By the middle of Edward III’s reign (c 1360) the buyers for the royal wardrobe were dealing in Salisbury cloth from merchants in Salisbury and Winchester and sometimes in London, though we can’t be certain how much of the cloth they bought from them was actually made in Salisbury, since the city was then, as always, a great collecting and distributing centre.
Although export of cloth abroad was important to the growing wealth of Salisbury and the wider area, much of it was sold in London itself. London prostitutes wore blue and yellow hoods made from Salisbury cloth, as indeed, did such ladies around Culver Street in Salisbury. More impressively, perhaps, for the wedding of Henry IV and Joan of Navarre at Winchester (1403), a carpet of Salisbury cloth was laid down all the way from the gate of Winchester Cathedral, along the nave, and through the choir to the high altar, and some, if not all, of this was bought from a Salisbury man.
The clothiers meanwhile, and tailors, and some of the weavers and others becoming wealthy on this trade, increasingly found themselves at odds with the feudal masters of the new city – the Church. Traditionally, these often rural artisans had always been, in law, subservient to the ‘prudhommes’ of the towns. But now they were wealthy, owned property, and were members of highly organised guilds which made them influential too. John Halle and William Swayne were two such, and both were Mayor of Salisbury at times in the 1450s and 60s. They bickered with the Bishop, but also with each other and freedom from Church control only came in the 1600s.
All of this tended to ‘split’ the town into what we might today describe as left- and right-wing factions. The Bishop had influence over the Close, of course, and St Thomas’ Church and the Market area while the artisans and guild members would congregate at St Edmund’s Church in the north-east part of the town. Indeed, most lived and worked in that area also. As noted in an earlier blog, William Woderove, clothier, owned not only his own home in Endless Street, where many of the neighbouring householders there and in Chipper Lane were also weavers, but also a number of shops elsewhere. The weavers had their own hall in Endless Street. Worshipping together in St. Edmund’s, not far from Endless Street, the weavers had their own light in that church, opposite the altar of the Virgin, and their own chantry to which they made offerings so that prayers might be said for the souls of themselves and of their families.
The bubble burst, however. It is not entirely clear why, although ultimately the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries would take the cloth industry away from the south-west almost entirely. It may be that the relevant guilds in Salisbury were simply too slow to adapt, diversify, experiment. Whatever the case, Salisbury slipped rapidly from being England’s fifth city to sixteenth.
Meanwhile, the original St Edmund’s Church proved too small. It, and its college of priests, had been founded in 1269, adequate then, but now, in 1407, a much larger one was built, 176 feet in length (53.5 metres). The tower was built between chancel and nave. It flourished as the wool trade and Salisbury flourished, but after the college was closed by Henry VIII in the 1500s, and after the collapse of the cloth trade in that same century, the upkeep of the enormous church became too much for the newly impoverished congregation. It began to decay. The steeple was removed in 1559. Then, in June 1653, the whole tower collapsed. The congregation of the previous day, quick to show gratitude for divine intervention, declared June 26th should be kept as a day of special thanksgiving “as long as there shall be one stone upon another in St Edmund’s church and an inhabitant alive in St Edmund’s parish”.
Near the base of the tower, now the West end of St Edmund’s Church
Today, the tower stands as rebuilt by special permission of the Commonwealth Parliament after the Civil War. The ‘left-wing’, Puritan, leanings of the people of that parish may have helped secure that permission. The nave, however, was damaged also and there were no funds for that, so the ‘new’ church was severely shortened, much as we see it today.
The ’Coffee and Conversation’ topic earlier this month – ‘A photo adventure with Peter Read’ unearthed something of great interest to me, namely a collection of Medieval Pilgrim’s Badges found in Salisbury’ (Fig 1.)
Fig 1. Medieval pilgrims’ badges found in Salisbury
Among these was one described as ‘Monkey Physician standing on a Fish with Pestle and Mortar adding his own urine. A satire on medical practice’ (Fig 2).
Fig 2. The Monkey Physician
This was of interest to me as the pestle and mortar is one of the tools in trade of the alchemist and early chemists, and used as well as by pharmacists to crush various ingredients.
For some time now I have been researching the alchemist who was said to have inhabited a room above the north porch of St Thomas Church and a plaque near the North Door, recently removed (2019/2020), describes him dashing ‘to escape the noxious fumes of his experiments’. (Fig 3.)
Fig 3.
I have been curious to discover who this alchemist was and when (s)he lived. As I have been unable to find any source for this description, I have subsequently become curious as to who composed it, and from where they obtained their information.
One possible inspiration for this information was a snippet in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal of 18 January 1868 (Fig 4.) which describes a discovery made by the antiquarian, Rev. Edward Duke and written up in his Prolusiones Historicae.This describes five small crucibles which were found plastered over in a niche by the fireplace. Duke speculated that these crucibles were the utensils of an alchemist.
Since then, I have been engaged on a hunt for these crucibles, so far fruitless. I have also hoped that, if this alchemist actually existed, some further artefacts of his trade might perhaps be found. Indeed, I am disappointed that no such artefacts appear to be in the Drainage Collection. Hence my interest in the ‘monkey physician’ badge.
Fig 4. Snippet from Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 1868
Our colleague, Alan Clarke, kindly unearthed the Museum Record for the ‘monkey physician’ badge which is described as a livery badge made of metal/lead, being the head and torso of a monkey physician, made 1400-1429, and found in the River Avon in Salisbury at SU143302. It has the Museum Number SBYWM:1987.200.12.
The Grid Reference of this find places it at the River Avon opposite the Central Health Clinic (just north of Avon Approach).
Alan Clarke kindly directed me to the website of the Henfield Museum where there is an article entitled ‘The Mudlark Treasures of Graham duHeaume’. In this article, the author, Jason Sandy, describes DuHeaume’s extraordinary collection of fluvial treasures from both the River Thames in London and the River Avon in Salisbury and description of ’satirical badges’.
Satirical badges were produced in the Middle Ages, and the article quotes Brian Spencer from his book, ‘Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges’, Boydell Press (2010), in saying that they were produced to show “disapproval of the established order by parodying reality and by poking fun at hypocrisy and human behaviour generally, especially in the upper strata of society”. The medical profession was one of the most common targets of medieval satire and complaint. In the church of St Mary, Bury St Edmunds, a late 15th century roof-boss takes the form of an ape with a urinal, the universal emblem of the medieval physician.
Sandy’s blog goes on to say that, during the 1980s, Graham duHeaume found (in Salisbury) a wonderfully comical 15th century pewter badge depicting an ape standing on a fish and urinating into a mortar that rests on the fish’s head
The ape holds a long-handled pestle which he uses to stir or pound the contents within the mortar. It clearly illustrates what people thought about doctors and their wild concoctions in the 15th century!
The following is verbatim from Sandy’s blog:
“Monkeys were often seen as imitators of man. The famous bishop St Isidore of Seville (c.560–636), sometimes called the ‘last Father of the Latin Church’, claimed that the word simius derived from similitudo, because monkeys mimic what they see. Medieval bestiaries continued the same etymological tradition, suggesting that apes were so called because they ape the behaviour of human beings (1).
Monkey physicians combine satire with a serious moral in the same vein. At one level, they echo the widespread suspicion of ‘Doctours of Physik’, whom poets like Chaucer portrayed as those who ‘loved gold in special’. But this scene is more than satirical. As St Peter told the Jewish priest, only one physician could cure men – Christ. Whilemonkeys might ape physicians who purport to look after physical health, only priests were the true ‘doctors of souls’. Christ alone can cure men of their sins, their spiritual ailments.”
In their book, ‘Men and Apes’ (1966) Desmond and Ramona Morris write:
“The ape’s capacity for imitation gave rise to the odd notion that he deliberately copied human actions in order to convince people that he was really one of them. As a result of this, he became the prototype of the imposter, the fraud, the hypocrite and the flatterer. In particular, he came to represent persons of little worth, or base origin, who pretend to high position’. Further on the Morris’s comment that, ‘ Monkeys burlesquing human actions became very popular in humorous art. Clergy, scholars, doctors and aristocrats were portrayed as apes; so also were peasants, but much less frequently.”
The local Blue Badge Guide David Richards has written to me, saying:
“Salisbury Museum’s three (slightly different) grotesque ape physician badges are very striking. I believe the best interpretive source is Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum’s ‘Medieval Catalogue Part 2: Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges Brian Spencer (1990) Another informative source is the illustrator of the badges, Nicholas Griffiths FSA,“
This alerted me to consult the Medieval Catalogue from which I discovered that the Museum does indeed possess two such badges plus a fragment (head and torso) of a third. (Fig 5.)
Fig 5. Ape physician badges in Salisbury Museum
The first of these is described as ‘An ape, wearing a hood and standing on a fish, pounds the contents of a mortar with an immensely-long pestle, and adds a stream of urine to the concoction from his own over-large penis. Early 15th Century’.
The second, the one we have been considering thus far, is described as, ‘The mortar has handles and the fish a more predatory look. Early 15th Century’. Spencer doesn’t comment on the ‘strap’ that apparently supports the penis against the pestle.
The description of the third, a fragment, says that the face is more ape-like.
Spencer goes on to say that fragments of three other versions have been found at Salisbury (Private Collection) and many more have turned up at London (e.g. London Museum 1940, pl lxxiv, 60; pllxxii, 49, where the creature is wrongly described as a woodwose (2).
Spencer goes on to say that:
“The various components of this grotesque scene, the mortar and pestle, the hood and the fish, are all well-known medieval sexual symbols…. .The constant association of urine with the diagnostic technique of medieval doctors and of the mortar and pestle with the apothecary make it more likely, however, that the ape has taken on the role of a doctor.If his hood can be interpreted as a cowl, then he is very probably burlesquing a monk physician. In that case the back of the slippery fish on which the physician in standing many underline the insecure basis of his remedies.”
This is also on the Blog of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.
A woodwose is the wild man or wild man of the woods; a mythical figure that appears in the artwork and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to Silvanus, the Roman god of the woodlands.
Many thanks to Alan Clarke, David Richards and Stephen Dunn for helpful comments made in the preparation of this article.
And thank you Alan for a fascinating piece on some of our objects!
The planning for the new galleries in the museum progresses as deadlines are anticipated. Today was the second of what will be, for a while, a series of zoom meetings of some of the Volunteers involved in the Research and Interpretation Group which Bridget Telfer is leading as part of her work, curating the new galleries at the museum.
We have seen some of the plans for the new galleries.
Visualisation for Room 3 of the Salisbury Gallery by MetaphorVisualisation for one display case of the Ceramics Gallery by Metaphor
Bridget is now finalising the choice of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of objects which will be displayed. They will be researched and displayed as part of a story which will make them meaning-full to the people of Salisbury and south Wiltshire, many of whom will have connections to the items. At the same time, visitors from far and wide will be encouraged to wonder, enjoy and learn from what the museum can share.
We hope to keep you updated as the work continues.
We’re inviting volunteers to join us for a conversation about the museum’s planned redevelopment project. As key members of the museum team, listening to the views of volunteers is an important part of the development process. These sessions will take place online using Zoom and the museum’s project team will share some proposals for the redisplay of the History of Salisbury galleries
Session dates: • 20 November, 2-3:30pm • 26 November, 6-7:30pm Places are limited and offered on a first come, first served basis. To find out more or to book a place on one of the sessions, please contact Emma
A comment from Alan Crooks, following up on his earlier blog regarding the pavements at Clarendon:
“Having had the benefit of being able to attend a ‘Behind The Scenes Tour’, led by Adrian Green (Director) as we ease out of ‘lockdown’, I was able to ask him about the Laverstock kiln, which I had been unable to locate in the British Museum. He was able to inform me that this is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is one example in which captions accompanying exhibits in the Salisbury Galleries have become outdated.”
…but are now under review!
Thank you Alan
You can see a selection of Laverstock pottery from this item on Pinterest.