Anglo-Saxon Towers of Lordship by Michael G. Shapland;

Author:Michael G. Shapland; [Shapland, Michael G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192537232
Publisher: OUP Premium
Published: 2018-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

Lordly Tower-naves as Manorial Churches

The lordly tower-naves were all private chapels rather than congregational churches, in view of their very limited capacity. Significantly, the majority were wholly integrated into their suggested manorial curiae, and so are unlikely to have even been accessible for public worship (Figure 3.42). This is thought to have been exceptional in the Anglo-Saxon period,79 and is testament to their high-status associations, strengthening their interpretation as the ‘reserved architecture’ of the late Anglo-Saxon elite. Together with long ranges, aisled halls, latrines, and timber towers, tower-naves can therefore be counted as part of the specialization and diversification of building types at Anglo-Saxon residences during the tenth and eleventh centuries, as architecture became used as an expression of social status.80 Central to the identity and function of these tower-naves was their role as chapels.

Christianity was used across early medieval Europe to legitimize the social position of the aristocratic elites, central to which was the possession of a church.81 When ideology has physical form it can be codified and controlled, the more so if the physical form is one unavailable to the population at large, thus conveying exclusivity and high status.82 The rise of proprietary churches in Anglo-Saxon England during the tenth and eleventh centuries would have been a most potent physical manifestation of the Christian basis of aristocratic power, as well as being a defining marker of rank.83 This is neatly illustrated by the Promotion Law (see above), which lists the possession of a church as one of the requirements of thegnly status. The clearest manifestation of this ideology is the close spatial relationship between church and manor house in the late Anglo-Saxon period. As noted above, whilst the actual integration of the church into the confines of the manorial residence was unusual, tower-nave churches are a significant exception. The construction of so elaborate and conspicuous a building form as a tower to contain one of these proprietary churches would have further emphasized their message of legitimization and status. ‘Legitimization’ and ‘status’ are relatively broad terms, however, for buildings as obviously meaningful and eloquent as lordly tower-nave churches. I will therefore spend the following section thinking more deeply about the more nuanced messages that their architecture may have been intended to convey.

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