Framing the Word: Presenting Religious Texts as 'Comely' Ornament in Post-Reformation England

This essay examines the form and appearance of religious texts depicted in the decoration of churches and houses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England. It questions narrow interpretations of these texts as simply didactic sources to be read and emphasises instead their visual impact and semantic qualities as ‘comely’ ornament – as carefully designed adornment suitable to the nature and purpose of the space and a demonstration of appropriate behaviour. Understanding the functions of the embellished word in spaces used for Protestant piety – putting emphasis on how such paintings were seen rather that what they said – is important because it challenges dominant models of Protestant worship as visually impoverished and taking place in bare and neglected surroundings. Words on walls in Post-Reformation England had many functions beyond the instructive and edifying, acting to prompt and facilitate creative responses to the conjunction of place, text and image in various forms of religious practice. In reflecting on the language of ornament and the power of the frame the discussion shows how the essential inadequacy of man-made ‘horizontal media’ as a means of expressing the divine was acknowledged and managed, thereby contributing to this volume’s interest in the workings and challenges of spiritual intermediality in the early modern context.