by Mary Malloy
To her left as she descended was a woodsy patch with bluebells pushing up through the carpet of leaves. To her right, a broad pasture swept down to a farm in the valley below, and a mirror image of fields rose on the other side. Lizzie breathed it all in, thinking that it would be impossible to romanticize the picture to be more idyllic than it was. Even the loamy smells—part earth, part poop—added to the sense that this was the best of nature as Anglo-Saxons envisioned it.
She was inspired to sing the oldest song she knew, “The Twa Corbies,” an ancient English ballad. “Down in yonder green field,” she sang, full voice, “there lies a knight, dead’neath his shield.” A chorus of “baaaas” accompanied her. She stopped singing to listen to the song of the sheep; she had never noticed before that they bleated at different pitches and with differently pulsed bleats. Many of the big ewes in the field had twin lambs, and a pair of them moved along in unison with her.
The distance to Wells by this route was only about three miles and it was still morning when she found herself walking along the north side of the cathedral. Five people stood looking up at the clock on the wall of the building and Lizzie, with that curiosity that always comes from finding people looking upward, joined them. It was just a few minutes to eleven and the small crowd was waiting to watch the clock chime. Lizzie sat on a low stone wall and watched as two armored knights, mounted above the clock face, alternated chopping with their axes eleven times upon a bell.
“Wonderful!” she said.
A man beside her turned and asked if she had seen the clock from inside. “There’s a jousting match!” he said enthusiastically when she told him she hadn’t.
She determined that she must be at the clock inside when it struck noon, and proceeded around to the front of the building. Lizzie was unprepared for the sheer gloriousness of Wells Cathedral. She had known nothing about it before she began working with Alison on their project, and had read about it only as they began the background research. The Weaver captured it in the tapestry, however, and Lizzie would have recognized it from that. Across a vast expanse of grass, the broad west face of the cathedral rose up, covered with medieval stone carvings of angels, saints, bishops, kings, knights and noblemen. It took her breath away. She had read that the statues were originally brightly painted, but the color had worn off over the centuries and they were now a warm brown color.
Inside it was just as wonderful. Dramatic crossed “scissor arches” define the end of the nave, and the near-noon light coming through the medieval stained glass on the overcast day, heightened all the lines and shadows. Lizzie worked her way slowly down the long nave to the transept—where the shorter section of the church crossed the longer. There, at noon, she was ready with a small crowd to witness the chiming of the clock.
There was a sign explaining that the original works of the clock were now ticking away at the Science Museum in London, but its complex representations of the universe and the phases of the moon, and the carved mechanical figures—all dating from the Weaver’s time—was splendidly original. Every fifteen minutes, a door opened in a wooden tower above the clock and four horsemen rode out, two in each direction. One unlucky combatant had been knocked off his horse every quarter of an hour for six hundred years. A carved man sitting in a sentry box above and to the right of the clock banged out the hours on a bell in front of him with two hammers, while simultaneously kicking his heels at two additional bells under his chair.
Lizzie found the effect so wonderful that for the two hours she spent in the Cathedral she returned to the clock every fifteen minutes to see the endless drama played out again. Unlike at Bath, where the Abbey seemed a jumble of additions and renovations, most of the original fabric of Wells Cathedral survived. All the major components were in place before the Weaver made her pilgrimage, though she would have come here not as a pilgrim, but simply as a reverent Catholic and a lover of beauty.
In their research of the place, Lizzie and Alison had discovered that Wells had no significant relics in medieval times, and consequently few pilgrims. A portion of the church was built to hold the relics of a local bishop, but he was never canonized and the reliquary remained empty. Nonetheless, the Weaver had come here—a portion of the interior of the Cathedral was illustrated on the tapestry, and there was a reference in her journal to having made “an offering in honor of my kinsman, Bishop de la Marchia, so recently called to God.”
This was on Lizzie’s mind as she walked the long axis of the nave up one side and then turned and ambled back down the opposite side. There were three tomb chests along the aisle on this side of the church, each with the effigy of a fourteenth-century bishop. Unlike the dramatic effigies she had seen of crusader knights in other churches, the features of these old clerics were mostly worn away. Noses, ears and fingers had long ago been chipped off, as had edges of fabric and anything else that protruded beyond a flat surface, but six centuries of wear had smoothed the rough spots.
Some of these men might actually have been known to the Weaver, Lizzie thought. Certainly these three tombs were here during her lifetime. She walked slowly around them, looking closely at the marks on the surface of each. The carved stone man in the middle lay full length upon his box, his mitred head slightly elevated on a patterned pillow, his now illegible hands folded in prayer. There was a small placard on the column nearest him that identified him as “Bishop de la Marcia.” He was the man for whom the Weaver left a memorial tribute when she visited here; she had called him her “kinsman.”
Lizzie went again to study his face, disappointed that everything in his features that might have resembled the Weaver was worn away. She looked at the lumps in the stone that had represented the shapes of his nose and lips and eyes. His bishop’s mitre had some detail left, and a pattern in the carved fabric could still be slightly distinguished in the pillow under his head, but his face was disappointingly indistinct.
She looked more closely at the pillow. At one time there had been a clear pattern there, carved to represent a woven fabric, and painted to bring out the details. There was at least one leaf still faintly visible, and the curve of a stem or vine that passed beneath it. Lizzie quickly took off her pack and grabbed the photographs of the tapestry. The frieze along the edge had a design of leaves and vines that looked similar, though the pattern on the stone was so worn that she couldn’t be sure if it was the same. She read the entry in the journal again as Alison had transcribed it: “Welles. Here I made an offering in honor of my kinsman, Bishop de la Marchia, so recently called to God.”
In the tapestry, Wells Cathedral was represented by an interior view, a recognizable portion of the nave with the high scissor arches on the left, bounded by a section of the right aisle with the three box-like tombs. Lizzie took the image with the greatest detail from the envelope of pictures, and looked again at the way the three small tombs were illustrated. She took the flexible magnifying lens she had brought for this purpose and looked intently at how the middle tomb was represented in the tapestry. Beneath it was a ribbon identifying “Bishop de la Marchia,” and on the side of the tomb itself, in tiny stitches, was the Weaver’s mark: the “AW” monogram with the flat-topped “A.”
Lizzie took a deep breath and held it. When she and Alison had gone over each of the tapestry pictures they had missed this. She walked around the tomb again, looking carefully at each of the sides of the base, and then came back again to the bishop’s effigy. Running her eyes, and occasionally her fingers, along the vestments, she searched for details that she had not detected on her first casual observance. She slowly scanned each inch of the mitre and the pillow, which had clearly been carved with patterns representing fabric. Moving around the head, she examined every scratch in the stone. On a corner of the pillow, almost under the ear of the effigy, she saw the mark. Blurred by the years, it was nonetheless recognizable as the Weaver’s “AW” monogram.
Reaching out her hand, Lizzie felt the ridge of the letters in the stone with her fingertip. The Weav
er had stood in this exact spot. She had caused this mark to be put here, for what purpose Lizzie did not yet know, but certainly it had been done by her intent.
“Here I made an offering in honor of my kinsman, Bishop de la Marchia, so recently called to God,” Lizzie said softly. Had the Weaver paid for this monument? Had she commissioned a stone carver as she had commissioned the Flemish tapestry weavers?
It occurred to her that Alison should know about this as soon as possible, and she grabbed her bag and hurried out through the front door of the Cathedral, dialing her cell phone as she went.
“Alison,” she said quickly, barely giving her friend time to answer. “I have found something at Wells Cathedral. How soon can you get here?”
“I’m glad you called,” Alison responded, not grasping the urgency in Lizzie’s voice. “I was wondering how you are after your walk yesterday.”
“Fine,” Lizzie said impatiently. “I’m in Wells and I have found something at the Cathedral that you must see right away. Can you come here?”
The conversation went back and forth a few more times before Alison completely comprehended Lizzie’s request. “What have you found?” she asked.
“I would really rather show you than tell you.”
Again there was a back and forth for clarification before Alison agreed that she would come. “I’ll meet you at the Cathedral in one hour,” she said.
Lizzie went back inside to wait. The cathedral did not have permanent pews, but there were folding chairs scattered around and Lizzie took one to the tomb of Bishop de la Marchia and sat beside it. She read that portion of the Weaver’s journal again, though there was nothing about Wells Cathedral beyond that one line about making an offering in honor of her kinsman. Nor did a thorough examination with her magnifying lens find anything else of interest in the tapestry picture of Wells Cathedral. Her curiosity piqued, however, Lizzie moved the lens to the image of the next destination along the route, Glastonbury Abbey.
There again was the mark, in tiny stitches. The intricate illustration of the monastic compound at Glastonbury had another of the Weaver’s monograms—an “AW,” woven almost imperceptibly into the stone of the foundation.
Lizzie was so intently concentrated on the image that she jumped when she felt Alison’s hand on her shoulder.
“I see you have met Bishop de la Marchia,” Alison said. “He is a distant relation of mine.”
It occurred to Lizzie for the first time that Alison might already know about the signature on the tomb, and she hoped she had not dragged her here for nothing. It would be awful to disappoint her when the look on her face showed she was anticipating something wonderful.
“What have you found?” Alison asked.
Lizzie took her by the hand and walked with her around the tomb.
“Look here,” she said, pointing at the monogram.
Alison leaned over, peering under the stone ear of the bishop.
“What is it?” she asked, not seeing it among the other scratches in the surface of the stone.
Stepping back, Lizzie waited for her to recognize the Weaver’s mark. When she did, Alison straightened up and turned to Lizzie.
“Well that’s odd,” she said.
“So you haven’t seen it before?”
“No.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “What do you think it means?”
“My best guess is that she commissioned the monument, and this mark is similar to her marks appearing on the tapestry. She didn’t actually make it, but she probably paid for it.”
“He was her relation,” Alison said, trying to remember everything she knew of Bishop de la Marchia.
“And she says in the journal that she made an offering here in his memory. Couldn’t this be it?”
Alison thought about it and agreed it might be so. “She certainly had plenty of money.”
She was leaning heavily on her cane and Lizzie directed her to the folding chair, then found another for herself and brought it to sit beside her.
“That’s not all,” Lizzie said, handing Alison the relevant photo and the magnifying lens. “In all the times we went over these photos in the last week we never noticed this, but her mark also appears on the image of this tomb on the tapestry.” She pointed it out.
“Ah, I see it. I took that for shading.”
“Me too. It’s funny that we instantly saw the signature when it appeared in expected places, near the bottom or the edge of a panel, but she is using it here for another purpose. We weren’t expecting that and we consequently missed it.”
“What purpose?”
“I think to mark where she made a substantial offering.”
“In the journal she mentions that she made an offering at almost every church along the way. I always just assumed she meant money.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though, if she was commissioning works of art along the way, and those were her offerings?” She pointed out the last vestiges of the fabric pattern in the stone pillow under the bishop’s head. “Don’t you think it is similar to the foliage pattern in the tapestry?”
Alison said she might see it, “but there really isn’t enough left there to be conclusive.”
“Of course,” Lizzie agreed. “And it would have to be pretty distinctive to separate it from a whole range of similar patterns of that period, even if it was easier to read.” She paused, then added that a good conservator might be able to bring out the image in the right kind of photograph. She saw the expression on Alison’s face and smiled. “I have to admit that I like the idea that the Weaver might have done more than just pay for the thing, that she was involved in the design.”
The two women stood and Alison took Lizzie’s arm for support.
“Earlier I was thinking that she must have stood upon this same spot, our friend the Weaver, thinking about her cousin or uncle, or whoever the bishop was to her, and admiring this monument.”
Alison squeezed her arm. “That’s a lovely thought.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I called you to drive down here just to look at two letters scratched into an old piece of stone.”
“Ah, but what letters! I’m very glad you called.”
They walked across the grass in front of the Cathedral to where Alison’s MG was parked on the street. Just across was a restaurant called the Swan and Alison asked Lizzie if she might treat her to lunch.
This was an opportunity for Lizzie to show Alison the similar small monogram that appeared on Glastonbury Abbey in the tapestry and as soon as lunch was ordered she took the photograph out of the envelope.
“Could she have made a similar offering there?” Lizzie asked hopefully. “Maybe she commissioned another work of art as a donation and the placement of the monogram indicates where we might find it.”
Alison looked through the magnifying lens at the picture, and then raised her eyes to look at Lizzie. “Have you ever been to Glastonbury?”
“Not yet.”
“Let’s go there when we are finished,” Alison said. “Before you speculate any more on what you might find there, you need to see it.”
“What about the walk?”
“What route had you determined for today?
Lizzie pulled out the map, “the damned infernal map,” she said, and told Alison that she had, in fact, seen some potential problems in the offing.
“The best thing about the route from Wells to Glastonbury is that it looks to be flat,” she started. “But there are an awful lot of watery patches. Look at these moors,” she said, pointing to places with names like “Queen’s Sedge,” “Splotts” and “Crannel.” “They all seem to be connected and crisscrossed by canals, but there is no way across them but the A39, which is a road that I have already come to hate.”
Alison took the map and folded it up. “Let’s just drive there today,” she said. “I’d like to see Glastonbury with you.”
“You will not get an argument from me,” Lizzie said quickly.
What would have b
een a long walk was a short drive, and by early afternoon the pair was in Glastonbury and approaching the site of what had been a glorious building in the age of Chaucer and the Weaver, but was now a ruin. Very little was left of the walls and any thought Lizzie had of finding evidence here of the Weaver’s visit quickly evaporated.
As they came onto the grounds of the abbey she turned to Alison. “Ah,” she said.
Alison was silent as they stood side by side and looked at the mirroring structures that must have flanked the original door of the abbey. The old stone was white in the afternoon sunlight and an arch in each of the pieces led into a grassy field that had once been the nave of the church.
“You know,” Alison said quietly, “that before the murder of Becket at Canterbury, this was the most important pilgrimage site in England.”
They had talked about Glastonbury several times in the last week as they researched each place along the path, and Lizzie had made a file of important sources. She pulled out the photograph of the tapestry and held it up in front of her.
“You can sort of see this archway in her image,” she said turning it toward Alison, “but the place where she put her monogram is just gone. There is simply no building there anymore.” They looked at the journal, which mentioned another offering, but Glastonbury had been rich with contributions. William of Malmesbury, who’d visited around 1125, had written about the wealth of relics in the church and Lizzie had transcribed one passage: “The stone pavement, the sides of the altar, and the altar itself are so loaded, above and below, with relics packed together that there is no path through the church, cemetery or cemetery chapel which is free.”
“I’m sorry,” Alison said, “but if the Weaver left anything here, it is long gone, swept away by those thugs of Henry the Eighth’s at the time of the reformation.” She described a particularly brutal devastation at Glastonbury. “Not only did they steal all the treasures, destroy the shrines and altars, and strip the roof off to expose the interior to the elements, but they executed the abbot and other influential churchmen.” Without the roof, the walls deteriorated and local people removed the stones to build houses and pave roads.