St.Mary Magdalene, Campsall
Further to my post last Thursday, here, in addition to some pictures of Campsall church, and as promised, is the inscription I referred to.
I have taken the text from J.E. Morris The West Riding of Yorkshire 2nd edn (rev) (Methuen's Little Guides, 1923) p.147
The rood screen [which is, I think, later fifteenth century*] has the following inscription at the head of the dado and below the openings, being transcribed by Morris on 15 July 1909:
Lat fal downe thyn ne, & lift up thy hart:
Behold thy Maker on yond cros al to to[rn]
Remember his Wondis that for the did smart,
Gotyn withowut syn, and on a Virgin bor[n],
All His hed percid with a crown of thorne.
Alas! man, thy hart oght to brast in too.
Bewar of the Deuyl whan he blawis his hor[n],
And prai thi gode aungel conne the.
Behold thy Maker on yond cros al to to[rn]
Remember his Wondis that for the did smart,
Gotyn withowut syn, and on a Virgin bor[n],
All His hed percid with a crown of thorne.
Alas! man, thy hart oght to brast in too.
Bewar of the Deuyl whan he blawis his hor[n],
And prai thi gode aungel conne the.
Morris says he transcribed with care, but added the punctuation. The letters in [ ] are absent, not merely illegible. In one case (hor) he noted the usual mark of abbreviation: a superscript - above the o. I think that defeats me as a blogger.
An early twentieth century view of the church interior showing the screen
With reference to the Devil's horn - according to Joseph Hunter - History of South Yorkshire, (2 vols 1828-31), ii, 468, the Devil was often represented with a horn in the middles ages, and he gives a quotation from the "Shepherd's Kalendar", first published 1579, but the same idea is found as late as the prologue to "Grim, the Collier of Croydon" (?c.1662)
But has enough at home to do with Marion:
Whom he so little pleases, she in scorn
Does teach his devilship to wind the horn
Whom he so little pleases, she in scorn
Does teach his devilship to wind the horn
I have a feeling that this quotation from "Grim" may be more obscene than Morris realised - but that may say more about me! The Devil's horn is, of course, the anti-type of the trumpet of the Archangel Gabriel.
Now the real interest of this inscription at Campsall is two fold.
Firstly it must have been painted to make it legible - today it looks like a piece of decorative carving, given its cramped setting and black letter form. So here is further proof of the use of colour in medieval church decoration.
Secondly it assumes a reasonable degree of literacy from the average worshipper in this West Riding church in the late middle ages as they kneel before the rood screen, with the Rood above.
The Campsall screen is, to my mind, a wonderful illustration of the points Eamon Duffy made in The Stripping of the Altars, and why, with all due respect to Professor Duffy, whom I greatly admire and respect, I was in no way surprised, unlike so many other historians, by the evidence he adduced for late medieval popular piety in rural as well as urban England.
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