Ring the changes: the cult of Saint Edward the Confessor in Kent

Abstract

Since the discovery of a monumental wall painting of Saint Edward the Confessor enacting the so-called Legend of the Ring on the south wall of the Thomas Becket Chapel, Saint Mary's Church, Faversham, Kent in 1851, little has been done to evaluate its style and composition, nor its meaning for the patron, Robert Dod and his community. Depicting the most famous of Saint Edward's miracles and dating to c. 1307, this Gothic painting depicts King Edward presenting his royal ring to Saint John the Evangelist who is disguised as a pilgrim. The pictorial use of this miracle was somewhat "commonplace" amongst the radius of Westminster Abbey and the court of King Henry III. However, because of scant evidence otherwise, scholarship has often determined that this image, and Edward's cult, was confined to Henry's court and Westminster Abbey, and/or that interest in Saint Edward waned after Henry's death in 1272, albeit with a brief revival during the reign of Richard II. This fourteenth century painting in a parish church in Kent, therefore, challenges these assumptions and has presented an opportunity to shed new light on the cult of Saint Edward the Confessor. In 1874 another monumental painting was discovered in the same chapel: That of a life-sized martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket that was coeval to Saint Edward's and positioned directly opposite it. This is a seemingly "unusual" pairing: A saint king opposite an archbishop murdered by royal knights allegedly on the orders of Henry II. Evidence is presented here for the first time to show that the cults of Saint Edward and Becket were commingled in Kent with a focus on Canterbury Cathedral, Saint Mary's Church, Faversham and the Maison Dieu at Ospringe. Structured across five chapters, this thesis aims to offer fresh perspectives on the enduring popularity of the cult of Saint Edward the Confessor - highlighting East Kent as an additional cult centre - while also exploring its intersections with the cult of Saint Thomas Becket and contributing to broader understandings of the cult of saints