govern point

After St. Christopher, the Doom or Last Judgement was probably the subject most commonly painted in the Medieval parish church. The standard placing is above the Chancel Arch, because of the symbolism associated with the division between Nave and Chancel. This division within the Church, (considered both as actual building and as the Body of Christ) separated the priest’s domain in the chancel from that of the people in the nave, but it also symbolically marked the greater divide between the Church Militant (here on earth) and the Church Expectant (the souls in Purgatory), from the Church Triumphant in Heaven. But this placing is only standard, not invariable, and many Dooms are elsewhere in medieval churches; West Somerton, represented here, is one such.

The word ‘Doom’ in this context carries in itself no sense of disaster, or of eternal damnation; it is the ‘time of trial’, the blinking of an eye between time and eternity in which the individual soul’s fate is sealed, irrevocably. The Risen Christ, often showing the Wounds of the Crucifixion, always presides, usually at the centre of the painting. The Virgin Mary is usually
present as she was at the Crucifixion – at Christ’s right hand and often kneeling in supplication for the souls awaiting their sentence. St. John the Evangelist is commonly found, again often as a kneeling intercessor like the Virgin. There are usually attendant angels, and sometimes Apostles (St. Peter is the most frequently found) and other Saints as well. The Instruments of the Passion – Cross, Scourge, Pillar of the Scourging, Crown of Thorns and so on – sometimes appear, often ‘presented’ to the onlooker by angels.
Below all this, individual souls rise, usually naked, from their graves and are shown entreating Christ and his Intercessors to save them. The long-haired woman beside the trumpeting angel above is shown doing precisely that.

In most cases the aftermath of the Judgement is shown, with groups of souls departing for ever to Heaven (generally on the left [north] or to Hell, on the right [south]). These scenes are often painted on the north & south nave walls immediately before these form a right-angle with the chancel arch wall. Saved souls may appear standing in line to be met by St. Peter before passing into the apartments of Heaven beyond. Conversely, the damned proceed to Hell, assisted by devils and all the paraphernalia of Medieval hell-depictions, including, almost always, the Hell Mouth shown as the literally-painted gaping mouth of a Leviathan-like whale or sea creature.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Are You Going To Hell? 23 Minutes In Hell Author Thinks You Are!
• I Love You For You (God’s Last Thunder Under Despair)