The Rule of the Tudors 1485 - 1603

Stories of the saints' holy lives, their spectacular torments and their miracles were told in the Golden Legend, translated by England's first printer, William Caxton, in 1483, and reprinted often. Particular
saints were believed to have particular powers: St Sebastian, because of his many wounds, protected
against plague; St Barbara, killed by her angry father, protected against thunder and lightning and
sudden death (she was the special patron of soldiers and gunpowder makers). As figures of transcendant power, saints could be angered and must be placated. Yet the tenor of the devotion to
them was not fear, but love. At one time the saints had lived, as their votaries did now, on earth;
'Wherefore', wrote John Mirk, 'they have compassion of us'. The devout looked upon them as heavenly
friends. One woman left money to edify the image of St John the Evangelist, 'whom I have ever
worshipped and loved'. Everyone venerated the Virgin, but from among so many, many saints each
Catholic chose one specially to honour; a patron saint. Thomas More's was St Thomas the Apostle,
doubting Thomas, who did not believe until he saw the wounds of the resurrected Christ. Although honouring one saint privately, the faithful should honour them all; the Church enjoined them to do
so on the feast of All Saints. Saints were venerated through their images and at their shrines. Miracles were performed at shrines to reveal divine power to the faithful. In 1482, in Ireland, a figure of the
Holy Cross removed itself to the shores of the lake Baile-an-Chuillin, 'and many wonders and miracles
were wrought by it'. A miracle occurred in Cheapside in July 1507 when a girl was run over by a
cart and lay lifeless; reviving, she said that the image of Our Lady at Barking had lifted up the cart.
Pilgrims travelled to see St Cuthbert at Durham, St Thomas Becket at Canterbury and Our Lady at
Walsingham and Ipswich. At the tomb of St John of Bridlington little silver ships were left as votive
offerings by merchants who sought protection for their ships at sea. Wax and silver models of afflicted parts of the body - legs, hearts, hands, breasts - were presented at shrines in expectation of or thanksgiving for cures. Images of saints - painted pictures and carved statues, gilded and adorned -
looked down protectively from altars, screens, walls and windows in every church. The saints were
instantly recognizable by their symbols: St Anthony had his pig, St Barbara her tower, and St Catherine her wheel. The holy was served by art, often works of numinous beauty, paid and cared
for by parishioners. Images were dressed in gowns and wore little silver shoes which the faithful
kissed. In public streets and private houses there were images to be daily reverenced. The rich had
paintings and tapestries depicting saints' lives; the poor, little wooden crucifixes and single-sheet
woodcuts: rich or poor, the object of the devotion was the same. Communion with the saints
through contemplation of their images was, for late medieval Christians, central to the experience
of the holy. Art might excite people to devotion more readily than words. For the illiterate, images
were 'poor men's books'. Like sacraments, images represented higher spiritual truths. Believers
gazing upon an image of the Virgin saw, in their mind's eye, more than a statue; they saw Our Lady
herself and found an intimate exchange. Defending images, Thomas More insisted that the simplest,
most credulous believers could distinguish between the image and the saint it represented, just as
they could tell the difference between a real rabbit and a painted one. Yet there was a danger that
images might be considered holy and worshipped for themselves; that the believer would serve the
image rather than the image the believer; that people would seek in them what should be sought
from God alone. More himself had written wryly to his friend Desiderius Erasmus of the London
women who prayed to the image of the Vigin of the Tower and imagined fondly that it smiled back
at them. The quintessential image of popular devotion was the rood, the figure of Christ crucified.
High above th congregation in every church, between the people and the priest, was the great rood
of Christ, with the Virgin and St John the Evangelist at either hand, to move the people to remembrance of the Passion as the priest celebrated the Mass. Some roods inspired particular devotion. In 1503 German de la Pole commended Sir Robert Plumpton to the 'blessed Rood of Radburn, who save you in His blessed keeping'. With the advent of printing, images were made
widely available as objects of devotion and prayer: the Image of Pity - Christ on the Cross as the
Man of Sorrows - or of Our Lady of Pity - the Virgin at the foot of the Cross with her Son in her
arms, surrounded by the instruments of the Passion. Some of these images promised devout beholders
indulgences of release from tens of thousands of years of purgatorial suffering. To contemplate the
Image of Pity, or a picture of the five wounds of Christ, who to think not only of divine love but of
divine judgement. At the Last Judgement, so it was believed, Christ would show His wounds: to the
saved as promise of redemption and to the damned in reproach. Banners of the five wounds were
carried on pilgrimage and became rallying standards for rebellions.