[New post] Cherchez la Dame at Woolhope, St George

Jean and I enjoyed a visit to St George's Woolhope recently on that glorious Saturday that was laid on for the Herefordshire Historic Churches Trust annual church-visiting day, "Ride and Stride" (coinciding happily with one of the Heritage Open Days and also Herefordshire's art wek h.Art - you know fols, we could join the dots up here a bit more and get some synergy going...).

The excuse for the visit, as if one was needed, was the opener for the HHCT's new season of Music in Quiet Places with some choristers from the Chapel Royal (with new probationers flanking the main singers and no doubt taking it all in) and an excellent choir from the Cathedral School.

As I wallowed in the music I was also able to look around a bit and as they were near my aisle seat it was the two wall-tablets that mnost caught my eye. The church as we see it is the result of a heavy restoration in 1882-3 by Henry Woodyer, but there is a 12th and 13th-century core (note the capital on the left-hand column in the photo above with its strong chevrons), and two very striking early grave-covers or coffin lids (not I think a pair).

The chap (I think he's a chap ...) on the left with his splendid long hair and missing legs is striking enough, but it is the lady in the right hand tablet who really caught my eye and perhaps dates right back to that era - but just what is she holding? And who is she? the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture annoyingly ignores her, although it does tell us that the manor was given to the cathedral by two siusters Wulviva and Godiva in the 11th century, daughters of Leofric Earl of Mercia - too early I think for the carving, whose headdress looks thirteenth century (though I'm not sure it's "crespine" as some have called it).

And yes, that Godiva is thought to be the Lady of Coventry fame and is also commemorated in a window, while Woolhope is sometimes taken to be "Wulviva's Hope" (a hope being the top of a valley of course, not a wish-list).

But going back to actual figure in frot of us, shears and keys are the most common symbols found on female's grave-covers, so this is a rather remarkable depiction, and unless I have missed something an under-researched one (surprisingly so given the boom in feminist and gender studies). Is she holding a knife or perhaps a pestle in her right hand, with a bowl below it held in her left? If that is a plant lower down, is she preparing some sort of medicine? And what about the motif to her right which looks like a dove in a circle? 'Tis mystery all ... unless some reader of this blog can enlighten us further.