Page 64 - John Barber's Oakham Castle and its archaeology

just below the ear-lobes, in the fashion of the early and middle thirteenth century. There are no attributes of rank or
office.
The preservation is generally good, allowing for the coarse texture of the stone. The nose shows ancient mutilation
and there are recent bruises on chin and cheeks. The modelling is good, particularly in the planes of the cheeks, and
the features are individual. The face is squarish with a firm chin, the mouth small and tense, and the forehead
tapering.
The treatment is serious and in no sense grotesque. It is hard to find any close parallels in local work (e.g. after a
careful examination of relevant photographs in the NBR). The obvious comparison is with existing heads in the
Castle Hall, and here there are certain tantalising resemblances and divergencies. The relevant and more
conventionalised features of the head are these: the hair is parted into fairly regular rib-like locks, radiating from the
crown; the eyes are bulging and the epicanthic folds fall unbrokenly from the eyebrows to the eyelids; the ears are
stylised and the earholes deeply drilled. All these features are archaic - in the Romanesque tradition. But the smile and
the deep drilling round the ends of the mouth as well as the sensitive gradation of the cheeks suggest the middle or
third quarter of the thirteenth century-one might compare some details of Henry III’s work at Westminster. This
impression is shared by several medievalists I have consulted.
With these details in mind, it is necessary to compare the existing incidental sculpture in the Castle Hall. This
comprises:

(a) the paired heads on the responds of the arcades;
(b) the six musicians seated on the capitals of the ‘nave’;
(c) the heads attached to square blocks which formerly served as corbels for the aisle roofs.

Of these (a), (b) and the north aisle corbels of (c) are all strongly Romanesque in manner. The corbel heads in the
south aisle are much more Gothic, perhaps the work of a younger man, but hardly akin to the head in question.
Certain of the mannerisms in this head, the bulging eyes and the treatment of the ears, are not unlike those in the
paired heads (a) - the pair on the north-east respond even include one with some suggestion of drilling at the corners
of the mouth, but on any account the head would look strangely advanced in this company. The musical figures,
reading from the east, are:

north arcade: (a) a goat playing a rebec
(b) a man (with pipes?)
(c) a man with a tromba marina
south arcade: (a) a lion with a harp
(b) a man with a dulcimer
(c) a man with a very advanced three stringed viol

All the heads are gone, but these were attached by short ribs similar to that on the head in question. The only
figure where it could possibly have fitted is the western one (iii) of the north arcade [see Appendix C]. Here, though
the fit is not perfect, it is by no means impossible, allowing for further chipping. The size of the head is about right,
but the neck would be rather long. The chief objection remains one of style - the drapery on all the human musicians
is very stylised and seems archaic compared with the advanced head, but such anomalies are not unparalleled in late
Romanesque sculpture. It is unlikely that the destroyed east end would have had a free capital for similar figures. In
any case, though we must be prepared to accept a date after 1200 for the Hall, in spite of the archaism of some of the
sculpture, a date as late as the 1250s or 1260s is out of the question, and if the head belongs to the building the
advanced features must be fortuitous.

Pls. IV to VI. Three views of the limestone head from the moat.

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