Art and Drama on a Late Medieval Rood Screen

Book excerpt: With little scholarly attention having been given to the late medieval iconography that features on rood screens in the southwest of England, the significance of the figures painted at Berry Pomeroy has long been underappreciated. The unlocking of their meaning by the author has led to the discovery of a unique iconographic program. The gestures adopted by many of these figures belong to a common visual culture in the art and drama of the medieval church. The iconography, which reflects a Gothic Mannerist style of the early sixteenth century, displays a marked theatricality giving expression to the mysteries of the faith in the form of a drama. The narrative recorded has notable similarities to that found in a dramatic trilogy which was once performed in Cornwall called the Ordinalia. This book makes an important contribution to scholarship in the genre of mysticism in art and to our understanding of popular devotional practices on the eve of the Reformation.