Cowlam / Colnun

There are three entries for Cowlam [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/SE9665/cowlam/] [accessed 1 November 2014], reporting one priest and two churches, one with church lands, here. The font here is noted in Lewis' Dictionary of 1831 as "a curious ancient font". Noted in Browne (1886). Described in Cox & Harvey (1907) as one of "a highly remarkable series of elaborately carved Norman fonts which occur in the Wolds" [the others are: Cottam, Kirkburn and North Grimston]. Home (1908), who describes this as an splendid font that "at once arrests the eye" dwells on "the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the other, after the manner of the Westnorland wrestlers to be seen at the Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the subject represented is Jacob wrestling the 'man' at Penuel." Described in Bond (1908) as an unmounted Norman cylindrical font with vertical sides; the arcading provides niches for scenes/figures: 1) Adam, Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden; 2)standing warrior armed with sword stands facing a seated crowned figure who holds a sword on his lap (Herod?); 3)the Magi, each carrying a gift; 4)the Virgin sits in profile, crowned, holding a lily in her right hand; a big crowned Child sits on her knees, his right hand raised in benediction; both face the left; 5)cleric, priest or bishop, holding staff, and right hand raised in benediction; 6)two wrestlers engaged in embrace [Mann (1985) suggests perhaps Jacob wrestling with the angel, or perhaps a combat between good and evil]; 7)unidentified female figure in a rich dress. Tyrrell-Green (1928) writes that "the idea of conflict to which tyhe Christian is pledged in Baptism is set forth by man striving with man, as in the wrestling scene upon the Cowlam font"; T-G (ibid.) identifies as well scenes of "the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the innocents, and our Lord's Baptism". Bond (ibid.) mentions other figures/scenes on this font: St. Lawrence's body on the gridiron being turned over by a torturer and, also, St. Margaret's heels disappearing down the mouth of the dragon while her upper body bursts out of the beast's back toward its middle. Mann (ibid.) suggests a date ca. 1130-1150 for this font, as well as for those at Cowlam and Cottam. Painting of the font by John Piper in 1952. On-site notes: inspection showed that neither of these two scenes mentioned in Bond, nor the Baptism of Christ mentioned in Tyrrell-Green, exist on the Cowlam font. Bond and Tyrrel-Green may have been using a mistaken source or reference. The whole iconographic program is included below in the BSI record. The inside of the basin appears to have been re-built, hence the rather shallow inside well (27 cm). The plinth on which the font is now raised is also of a much later date.