St Botolph’s Church Murals, Hardham, Sussex (c. 1100)

The Lewes Group

SPUC’s Dr Daniel Frampton encounters six compelling artworks spanning 900 years of art history, including film, and examines each work from an openly pro-life perspective in a unique cycle of short essays that aim to be educational and contemplative – revealing, too, the powerful role art can play in advocating for a true culture of life that speaks truth to power in a world that has lost its moral centre.

This week, Daniel visits the 12th-century murals in St Botolph’s Church in Hardham, Sussex.

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Nestled at the foot of the South Downs near Pulborough in East Sussex lies the old church of St Botolph’s, Hardham, one of the finest churches in England. It is the simplest of stone constructions – either late Saxon or early Norman – and it is little more than a stone barn, a long way away from the ornate Church palazzos of Rome. Nevertheless, St. Botolph’s is a gem of a church, exactly because of its simplicity, though its true treasure is to be found within – the best-preserved medieval murals in England, including one of the first-known depictions of St George.

Attributed to the Lewes Group, a workshop of medieval painters connected to Lewes Priory, these early 12th-century murals, recovered in the 19th century, retain much of their original detail and colour. They are so clear that even a modern observer may recognise the biblical scenes they depict.

While such images might, today, seem quaint and trivial – especially to a generation raised on the modern, altogether less eloquent, scripture of Marvel films – these scenes meant so much, if not everything, to the parishioners who once worshiped among them. Although these medieval men and women are long dead and now await resurrection hopefully under the luxurious turf of the churchyard outside, the meaning of the murals has outlasted their fragile flesh.

We have only to stand in silence for a while and look; and standing alone in that hallowed space, silent and empty, I look and try to see what they saw.

Standing there, the images that I find most moving at Hardham are those portraying the early life of the infant Christ, communicating a message of hope, as fresh and as relevant as it was 900 years ago; these scenes include the Nativity, as well as the Annunciation, marking the moment when Christ was conceived, not forgetting the Visitation, when the pregnant Virgin Mary visited Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.

Remarkably, above this latter scene, the original Latin script survives; it reads, VIRGO SALUTATUR STERILIS FECUNDA PROBATUR; The virgin is greeted, the infertile woman is shown to be fruitful.

As this greeting suggests, these artworks are above all murals of hope in the truest Christian sense of the word, tellingly emphasised through the theme of birth, a symbol of renewal, as well as optimism for the future, a promise of salvation, indeed, ultimately made flesh – a promise that every child holds. As grim as the 12th century was, especially from our point of view, medieval people never lost sight of this promise.

But at Hardham there is another scene, a harrowing frieze of infanticide: the Massacre of the Innocents, when King Herod ordered the slaughter of infants in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Hope. Here, on a wall in St Botolph’s, one of Herod’s brutish soldiers can be seen clutching a newborn by its leg as the boy’s distraught mother, prostrate on the ground, begs in vain for reprieve. The message, in this case, is that promise, essential innocence in the form of a baby boy, can in this world be killed almost without a thought.

For pro-lifers, of course, this is an all too familiar and dreadful reality. One lethal night in Bethlehem is, today, repeated hundreds of times over, at every hour, at every single minute, across the benighted cities of the world – and yet, Christ survives.

Like the 12th-century parishioners at Hardham church, we live in a world so far unredeemed, but one that nevertheless carries a promise of salvation. In the end, it is up to us – the not-so-innocent, the not-so-bad – to decide whether we live up to that promise. It is in our hands, just as it was in the hands of Herod’s men. What will we decide to do?

Much may stand or fall depending on our treatment of the unborn. To kill a child is to kill hope, and in doing so, kill ourselves. But it is my hope, just as it was the hope of the artists of the Hardham murals, I’m sure, that a pro-life encounter with art will ultimately help us stand against the Herods of this world. That is my hope, for art has a power of its own, striking directly at the beating heart of the matter. Let’s use that power for the better, to move souls, inspire friends and, most importantly of all, convert the adversary. That is my introduction, as well as my hope, for this series.

As I walk away from the church at Hardham, I look back briefly towards the churchyard and fancy I hear the parishioners muttering to themselves under the packed ground. “Is it time?” someone asks. Another voice replies softly, “Not yet.”