• De-faced, not Destroyed: The Targeted Iconoclasm of Rood Screens in Reformation Norfolk

The destruction of pre-Reformation furnishings in English parishes was a long, uneven, and ultimately incomplete process. Much of what still survives are structural furnishings such as windows, deemed too essential to the operation of the building to remove. Yet, there remains a remarkable number of painted rood screens, whose illustrations of holy characters have been scratched or gouged but are still recognisable. Without the excuse of utility, why were these images only partially desecrated? Particularly, why were their faces and hands often solely targeted?

Marking or scarring of the face was a typical punishment for convicted criminals in this era. This essay explores that these acts were directed by a personal, tacit knowledge of punishment which goes beyond the execution of iconoclastic legislature, which declared only for their complete removal. This intentional scarring could be understood as vindictive humiliation against the declared ‘false’ church’s use of holy faces. This partial destruction, consistent with the damnatio memoriae tradition, may have been imposed as an even more absolute condemnation than total removal.

It is argued in this essay that attacking the faces was an expression of anger towards the controversial imagery itself, rather than just hesitant anticipation of a Catholic restoration. Medieval Christian worship was intensely connected to the senses, and to images. Their haptic quality is confirmed in personal prayed books, where the touching and kissing of devotional portraits was common – images were believed to be intercessory sources to the saints themselves. This long-standing culture of connection to the divine through tactility therefore may have directed the public’s unrest to be expressed in a similar, although violent, engagement with those once-powerful faces now vilified by Protestant theology. This iconoclasm therefore demonstrates a dichotomy: the absolute transition to Protestantism which rejected images and yet confirmation of the power that holy portraiture held.