Luppitt / Lovapit / Luppit

There is an entry for Luppitt [variant spelling] in the Domesday Survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/ST1606/luppitt/] [accessed 22 April 2017], but it mentions neither priest nor church in it. The Lysons (1806-1822) write of a square baptismal font decorated "with rude figures of animals". Reported in Lewis' Dictionary of 1848 as a font "in the early English style". Described and illustrated in Bond (1908) as a Norman font ornamented with masks and figures: "one holds a huge nail, another is driving it into somebody's head (there is not room for his body)", and makes a reference to Sisera and Jael [Judg. 4: 17-22 and 5:27): Jael, a Kenite woman, killed Sisera, the commander of an army opposed to Israel, while he slept]. Elsewhere, Bond (ibid.) refers to the presence of a "Tree of Spiritual Life and Knowlegde" motif, and to "a centaur carrying a spear, and with a big foliated tail, while in front are fearsome beasts facing one another with grinning jaws" (ibid.). Pevsner (1952) writes: "The font is the fame of Luppitt, Norman of the most barbaric 'native' kind. A square bowl with heads at the corners and the following representations: Centaur fighting two dragons, two men fighting each other with nail-shaped clubs, a group of dachshund-like animals, tree with dishevelled foliage (tree of life treated by an exceptionally uncoventional carver?)". Hoskins (1954) dates it to the 10th century. The entry for this church in Histooric England [Listing NGR: ST1690406759] notes: "Parish church. Norman origins and font, rebuilt in the late C13 - early Cl4, refurbished in the C15 with new tower (the top part rebuilt in 1905) and the south porch, the church was renovated 1885 - 90 and the chancel was rebuilt at the same time, renovated again in 1923 […] The font is very good and though probably Norman may be late Saxon. It is built of Membury stone. It has a square bowl with round rim moulding. The bowl is covered with a rich and elaborate sculpture. The east face features a martyrdom and the other sides feature a fabulous monster, wild animals and patterns. Each corner has a large mask-like head. Most of the shaft and the base are C20." On-site notes: the basin has four heads, one at each corner (one bearded male, one mask-like, one male pulling a pointed beard, one practically erased); a fighting scene between two warriors armed with sword-club and shields, a human head between them, on the east side of the basin, and, on this side too, a lion-like mask above a male bearded head; a lion and centaur fighting an amphisbaena (?) on the north side; on the south side there are 4-5 animals, four-legged, one on top of the other; on the west side there is a floral or plant motif, like a laberynth. The inside of the bowl is lined with lead and there is central drain. The centre and lower parts of the stem of the base appear of a later date and are cylindrical and plain except for a large torus at either end; there are three plinths, the first and third are octagonal while the second, the one in the middle, is square. Stabb (1908) illustrates the font and writes on the decoration: "At the west end of the church there is a very interesting Norman font, one of the finest specimens in Devonshire; the square bowl and part of the shaft are old, the lower part of the shaft and the base are modern. The bowl is elaborately carved on each of the four sides. On the east side [...], is a human face with grotesque mask above, in the centre is carved a scene of which it is difficult to give a meaning, and I should welcome any solution. In the centre is a human head, on the left hand side of which is a male figure, holding apparently a large nail just over the head in the centre; on the right is another figure holding a nail or hammer in the right hand, and a mushroom-shaped object above its head in the left hand. The right hand corner of the east side bears the tail and hind quarters of a Centaur, which is continued round to the north side. At the top of the corner, just over the back of the Centaur, is carved a human face, but without the mask that is in the south-east corner. The Centaur holds in its hands a spear, and in front are two long-necked animals with their mouths open, and showing rows of long teeth [plate 151c]. There is another face at the north-west corner, and the west face of the font is covered with a design representing the Tree of Life [...]. There is another face at the south-west corner, and the south side of the bowl [...] is carved with different animals; the largest is apparently a deer, and beneath is a dog hunting a hare; there seems to be two animals above the deer, but the remains are too worn to enable even a guess to be made as to what they are intended to represent." Clarke, 'The Luppitt Font', in Dev. & Corn. N. & Q. 7: 6 (1913), refers to this font as "Anglo-Saxon work" and dates it firmly in the 10th century. Photographed by John Piper in 1978. John Sage (2000) and in the town's website [www.luppitt.net/text/histfont.htm] has done an interesting recollection of older sources such as Ralegh Radford, Clarke, etc., as well as a few more current sources related to this font, of which the following are part. Ralegh Radford interpreted the iconography thus: "a holy man made his abode in a remote forest inhabited by barbarians, many of whom he converted to Christianity. The king of the country, a pagan, desired to put him to death; a pretend friend of the saint betrayed him and guided the king and his following to his retreat. The saint was captured and murdered, the king standing by. The false friend, with a congenial associate, retired to a little distance; the other attendants of the king stood around; the Christian converts fled". To this, Radford adds: "I believe that much of the so-called symbolism in this, as in many other cases, is purely decoration rising out of the sheer love of ornament for its own sake" [otherwise, 'horror vacui'?]. Sage mentions the identification of the animal on the north face of the font as an amphisbaena, a serpent with a second head at the end of its tail, thereby typifying duplicity and danger, while the south face he reads as a hunting scene, "with possibly dogs and a hare". Sage (ibid.) adds that the bowl and about three inches of the shaft, the original part, is what the Rev. W.T. Perrott, then recently installed as Vicar of Luppitt, found in 1880 "when digging on his glebe land nearby"; Perrott then asked for a grant aid from the Church Building Society and by June of that year "the font had been restored. Sage (ibid.) also informs that the 'List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest' issued on 16 March 1988 by the Dept. of the Environment stated: "The font is very good and though probably Norman, may be Saxon. It is built of Membury stone. It has a square bowl with round rib moulding. The bowl is covered with a rich and elaborate sculpture. The east face features a martyrdom and the other sides feature a fabulous monster, wild animals and patterns. Each corner has a large mask like head. Most of the shaft and the base C20". [NB: John Sage was vicar at Luppitt at the time -- the reference to Radford has not been matched to a specific work]. [a pillar piscina in the same church is dated 12th to 15th century depending on the sources -- it is not included in this Index]. The entry for Tortington (West Sussex) in The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland [www.crsbi.ac.uk/ed/sx/torti/Index.htm] gathers information for several sources that favour the existence of a workshop in Dorset ca. 1150 responsible for the manufacture of the fonts at Torrington, Bishop's Teignton, Honiton, South Molton, Dun[kes?]well, Luppitt and Blackhawton.