Illustration: Tile pavement from Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, c1340
Decorative tiled floors have been popular for thousands of years and can be found in most regions irrespective of cultural or religious affiliation. The example shown in this article comes from the church of the market town of Higham Ferrers in the county of Northamptonshire, in the middle of England. It was laid in about 1340, although the church is much older and originally dates from 1220. This particular floor would have been laid when the church was being extended during the early fourteenth century.
The pattern is remarkably contemporary in feel and composition, although geometrically abstract pattern work is as ancient as the human species itself. It has and is still used in a staggering variety of disciplines, particularly within many of the textile crafts. Geometrically inspired pattern work was used extensively in the medieval period and therefore it would not be surprising if the example shown here was not also, in some form or another, used for either inspiration or part of the vocabulary of medieval pattern work.
While there have always been differences, sometimes exclusively so, between religious and domestic pattern work, there has also been energised and beneficial crossovers between the two systems. They have never been consistently mutually exclusive, nor should they be. This is true of the wealth of pattern work that was produced in the two big religious cultures that largely helped to form contemporary Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, namely Christianity and Islam.
Although pattern work was not as strong a component of Christianity as it was of Islam, this did not change the fact that it was used regularly across a number of church, abbey and cathedral interiors. While much of the abstract pattern work in Christianity can be traced back to usage in Imperial Rome, Byzantium and Islam were also strong contenders as was the work of many of the tribes that came to settle in Europe. Most of these were eventually to become the foundation stones that formed the nation states of contemporary Europe.
The illustration above, although a copy of the pattern work found on the floor of the church at Higham Ferrers, does not necessarily closely follow either the colour or present state of the floor. This is a Victorian illustration and as always with many Victorian interpretations of ancient and medieval pattern work, it was given to readers, as it would have appeared when newly formed. The nineteenth century saw a prodigious amount of analysis and record making of all available remaining examples from previous eras, whether that be through architecture, or the crafts that often supplied that discipline. In Britain in particular there was a passion for recording its medieval past.
The passion was perhaps initially guided by political events in Europe, rather than the subject matter itself. Because of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic wars, the British found themselves cut off from European exploration through their Grand Tours. Therefore, during the early nineteenth century mini tours of Britain became popular. Whereas a European Grand Tour would have specifically taken in much of the classical heritage of Europe, the mini tours of Britain took on a different outlook. Classical remains from Imperial Rome have always been thin on the ground in Britain, but medieval remains have always been extensive and covered all of the main cultural eras of the medieval period.
Although there are other factors that go to make up the British early nineteenth century interest in the medieval that was to eventually form the Gothic Revival of the 1830s onwards, denial of the classically motivated Grand Tour was a significant aspect. It could be seen that in some ways at least, the turmoil in Europe helped the British to rediscover and reconnect with their own medieval heritage, rather than that borrowed from Imperial Rome.
Further reading links:
English Medieval Tiles (British Museum Paperbacks)
Old English Tile Designs for Artists and Craftspeople (Dover Pictorial Archives)
English Tilers (Medieval Craftsmen)
Decorated Medieval Floor Tiles of Somerset
Medieval Floor Tiles Of Northern England: Pattern And Purpose: Production Between The 13th And 16th Centuries
Medieval Tile Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Illustrations of medieval romance on tiles from Chertsey abbey
Irish Medieval Tiles (Royal Irish Academy Monographs in Archaeology,)
Medieval Tiles of Wales: Census of Medieval Tiles in Britain
Medieval England: A Social History and Archaeology from the Conquest to 1600 AD
Medieval Decorated Tiles in Dorset
Early Christian and Byzantine Art: Textiles, Metalwork, Frescoes, Manuscripts, Jewellery, Steatites, Stone Sculptures, Tiles, Pottery, Bronzes, Amulets, Coins and other items 4th to the 14th Centuries
Welsh Mediaeval Paving Tiles
Medieval Tiles (Shire Library)
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture (Cambridge Companions to Culture)
English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products
English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork
The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (The Middle Ages Series)
When Towns had Walls: Life in a Medieval English Town
A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland (A History of Everyday Life in Scotland)
