Firm roots and bastard shoots: the development of the iconography of the Tree of Jesse in Plantagenet England

Since the foundational examination of the iconography of the Tree of Jesse by Arthur Watson in 1934, the iconography has largely only been considered through individual examinations, with only Susan L. Green taking a broader view in 2018, though still restricted to Northern Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Following in the footsteps of these larger studies, this thesis seeks to redress the balance and investigate the development of the iconography of the Tree of Jesse in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England as single, linked, and evolving iconography.

It will accomplish this through the use of three case studies. The first is a reassessment of the Tree of Jesse in a stained-glass window found in the Corona Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral. Curiously made to the same monarchical design as the archetypal window in Abbot Suger's Saint-Denis, this thesis answers why it was included in the heart (or, rather, head) of the monumental glazing programme created to aggrandise the cult of Thomas Becket, a saint who came to epitomise the struggle of the Church against tyrannical and overreaching monarchy. Second is Lincoln Cathedral, which houses four extant examples of the iconography, chief among which are a tomb slab that has been the focus of much scholarly attention and that will be reattributed here as the centrepiece of an abortive cult, and fragmentary stained glass that hints that a far greater Tree was once installed following the Canterbury model. Finally, the patronage of Henry III will be examined, as the king commissioned the first three known instances of the iconography in domestic settings at three key moments of his life, all of which reveal much about the developing psyche of the erstwhile king as he sought stability for his notoriously discordant dynasty.

Overall, this thesis provides insight into development of the iconography, the "Becketization" of English cathedrals, and the political landscape of Plantagenet England, all while demonstrating that the Tree of Jesse was a singularly adaptive and uniquely symbolic in the Gothic style.