James Hillson (York): Hagiographical Heraldry and the Plantagenets – St George, Edward the Confessor and the Arms of England circa 1259-1363

At the battle of Crecy in 1347 the English army fought as it had since Edward I under five banners: two were secular, the dragon standard and the royal arms, but the majority were hagiographical – the arms of Saints George, Edward the Confessor and Edmund the Martyr.  In both peace and war the later Plantagenet Kings persistently utilised the visual relationship between themselves and the heraldry of their peculiar patron saints in constructing royal identity.
This paper aims to demonstrate how the articulation of this relationship in Plantagenet decorative programmes reflected changing attitudes in the self-consciously projected image of royal power.  Through the prominent display of hagiographical arms in a royal context, the concepts associated with Plantagenet authority could be given a public and instantly recognisable visual reinforcement.  Focusing on the painted heraldic programmes of Westminster Abbey (1259-72), York Minster Nave (c. 1290-1300), St George’s Chapel, Windsor (c. 1347) and St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster (1348-63), the paper will examine the shift from programmes which promote Edward the Confessor as the typological exemplar of sacred Kingship towards the growing cult of Saint George as England’s peculiar patron.  In so doing, it will explore the monarchy’s contrasting iconographic responses to both Edward I’s revival of Roman imperialism and the changing political situation following Edward III’s triumphant return from war in France in 1348.