Writing on the Wall: Chronicles Written for Public Display at St Paul’s Cathedral, London

Abstract

Not all chronicles were written in books. This article examines a widespread alternative, the tablet (table, tabula), which was a display board typically made of wood and parchment. They were once ubiquitous in churches, but today there are few extant examples. This article offers a ‘textual archaeology’, using manuscripts and antiquarian literature to reconstruct lost texts. It presents a case study at St Paul’s Cathedral, London. It examines the functions and audiences of the London historical tablets, and places them in their spatial, textual and manuscript contexts. Tablets displayed a variety of historiographical genres: chronicles, institutional histories, miracle and saint narratives, and lives and deeds of benefactors. Their spatial location indicates particular concentrations around the main pilgrimage sites of the church. Surviving witnesses hint at a broad audience for these texts in London, including local laymen, clergy and pilgrims. Tablets were used to assert the institutional claims and identity of the church, to inform tourists and pilgrims, and to assist in the creation of public memory through ceremonies and rituals. Tablet chronicles point towards medieval uses of the past that were public-facing, accessible, and engaged with the institutional and cultural life of London.