ABSTRACT
It is widely recognised that Byzantine iconography is present in the 12th-century paintings of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel at Winchester Cathedral. This paper argues that in the painting of the Entombment/Lamentation on the east wall, Christ is not being placed into the sarcophagus, which is some distance below but rests on a red stone while his body is anointed for burial. It is argued that features of this representation are dependent on events in Constantinople. The stone on which Christ’s body was embalmed, known as the lithos, was brought from Ephesus to Constantinople by Emperor Manuel I (1143–80) in 1169–70. It was placed in the Chapel of our Lady of the Pharos and ten years later was moved to the Komnenian mausoleum at the Pantokrator monastery, and Manuel was buried next to it. After this time, the red stone itself is shown in Byzantine Lamentation scenes, with Christ laying on it. This paper proposes that this significant imperial and religious event, having influenced Byzantine iconography, was incorporated into the paintings in the chapel in Winchester. This leads to the question of who the patron may have been who is associated with this swift movement of iconographic influence. It is proposed that Henry the Lion (1142–80, d. 1195), who visited Constantinople in 1172, is a likely contender.
