Seeable signs

The Seven Sacraments first appear in medieval painting and sculpture in Europe in the fourteenth century; by the mid fifteenth century their representation had become widespread. In this interdisciplinary study Ann Eljenholm Nichols analyses the iconography of the sacraments, looking principally at English work (in particular the imaged baptismal fonts in East Anglia, which are the single best corpus of extant seven-sacrament art), but prefacing her study with a comprehensive survey of all known European work, some of which has never before been published. Nichols argues that before 1450 there existed an international iconography of the sacraments, shaped in part by central issues in canon law, but that thereafter English work diverges so radically it is necessary to speak of a distinctive insular iconography. An explanation for that difference may be found in the peculiar religious climate created by the Lollard rejection of the sacramental system, a rejection vigorously pursued in East Anglia. There, the traditional church's search for a means to counter-attack, and to offer the faithful something other than the list of sacraments provided in catechetical literature, found expression in the theological character of font iconography - making the sacred signs seeable. Ann Eljenholm Nichols's careful use of literary evidence - theological, didactic and liturgical - to illuminate the rich representation of the seven sacraments in illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, stone carving, wall paintings and bench ends makes an important contribution to the cultural and social history of medieval England.