By Ellie Jones, Cathedral Archivist
This week in the Exeter Cathedral Library & Archives we celebrated “Appreciate a Dragon Day” (16 January) with an In Focus event looking at dragons in Christianity, literature and science. This included depictions in a medieval Psalter, Ulysse Aldrovandi’s ‘Serpentum, et draconu historiae’ from 1640, and an 18th century copy of Edmund Spenser’s epic poem ‘The Faerie Queene’ with a lengthy and powerful description of St George’s encounter with a dragon “His body monstrous, horrible, and vaste, which to increase his wondrous greatnesse more, was swoln with wrath, and poyson, and with bloudy gore…”.
There are dozens of dragons of different kinds to be seen in the Cathedral itself. More than 60 are carved in stone in the medieval fabric of the building alone. The enormous central roof boss in the crossing shows an armoured horseman fending off three attacking dragons, representing a Christian in combat with the Biblical “Three Foes” (World, Flesh and Devil). There are dragons great and small in roof bosses and corbels in the nave, quire, and cloister. They are portrayed locked in permanent battle with each other, being trampled by humans, coiled around themselves, and nestling among foliage. There are also dragons carved in wood in the medieval misericord seats, and in stained glass windows in the chapels of St Edmund and St James, St Michael and St George each stand triumphant over dragons. A 19th century set of vestments once belonging to the nuns of St Wilfrid’s Community in Exeter is embroidered with a graceful image of a female saint standing over a vanquished dragon, probably Mary, or perhaps St Margaret and the dragon that had swallowed her whole.
This photograph from 1887 shows two smaller medieval dragon bosses, taken when the old virgers’ houses were pulled down to make way for the new south cloister. The architect J.L. Pearson incorporated these architectural fragments into his new design, where they can still be seen today in the area around the Cathedral Shop.
Judging by the number of people who came to this week’s event, dragons remain as popular as ever. Remember, if you’re visiting Exeter Cathedral, keep looking up and around and see how many you can find.