Because I don’t have enough series of posts on this blog already, here’s another one. As I’ll be visiting Norwich Castle many times this year, I thought I should make some parallel visits to its Norman counterpart, the city’s cathedral.
The cathedral notes that this is the effigy of St. Felix, a reminder that the word effigy seems to have mostly been redefined as representations of people who are normally unloved, the whole tomb effigy thing feels much less commonly here now.
Historically, it was thought that this was Herbert de Losinga, the first Bishop of Norwich, before I’m sure great academics decided that it was St. Felix, who is known for bringing Christianity to East Anglia.
This effigy was originally located above the Bishop’s Door in the north transept, before a decision was made to bring it here in 1969. A replacement copy has been made where it used to be located and that’s visible on a George Plunkett photo from 1976. This side of the cathedral can’t be visited, it’s the private access to the Bishop’s Palace (both the new one and it would have been the access from the old one too).
Obviously, I’ve gone to AI to understand what this might have originally looked like.