Seeable Signs - The Iconography of the Seven Sacraments, 1350-1544

Representation of the seven sacraments in medieval painting, sculpture and wood-carving began in Europe in the fourteenth century; by the middle of the 15th century it had become widespread. In this interdisciplinary study Ann Eljenholm Nichols analyses the iconography of the sacraments, looking principally at English work (in particular the imaged baptismal fonts in East Anglia, which are the single best corpus of extant seven-sacrament art), but prefacing her study with a comprehensive survey of all known continental work, some of which has never before been published.   Nichols argues that before 1450 there existed an international iconography of the sacraments, shaped in part by central issues in canon law, but that thereafter English work diverges so radically it is necessary to speak of a distinctive insular iconography.   An explanation for that difference may be found in the peculiar religious climate created by the Lollard rejection of the sacramental sy