Sunday 25 October 2026

The Voice of Him that Crieth in the Wilderness?

Professor Elizabeth Tingle explores a 15th century sculpture of St John the Baptist in the church of St Michael and All Saints, Ravenstone

In the middle of the wall of the south-west corner of the church of St Michael and All Angels, Ravenstone, is set the near-life-sized head of a man. He has longish, straight hair, a bifid (forked) beard, his eyes appear open and he has a closed mouth. The surface of the sculpture is worn and the eyes and nose are damaged. The man looks out from the wall in an intense, almost disturbing manner. It is the head of St John the Baptist.

How the Baptist’s head ended up in a wall in Ravenstone church we do not know. It was probably placed there sometime within the last 150 years. But while the placing of the sculpture was undertaken relatively recently, the head itself is medieval in date. The location is a suitable one, for the south-west corner of parish churches was traditionally used as a baptistry. In the Middle Ages, fonts were commonly placed at the end of the south aisle, close to the main entrance of the church, where Ravenstone’s is still located. Newborn infants would be brought to church for christening in a rite beginning at the church door - most frequently on the south side – and then moved to the font and on to the high altar, in a mobile liturgy. The central act of baptism - the immersion of the baby into the water of the font, invocation of the names of the Trinity, and the child’s anointing with chrisom oil - took place in this space. The ritual commemorated the baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan by his cousin, John. It was therefore right and sensible that the Ravenstone head of the Baptist should be placed near to the font.

The sculpture is an alabaster representation of the head of St John on a platter; the dish behind the figure can be clearly seen. The story of the beheading of John is told in some detail in the New Testament of the Bible. It is a chilling tale. John was a cousin of Jesus Christ, a prophet and holy man of uncompromising views. He made an enemy of the wife of King Herod. Herod had married Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. This was a relationship that was prohibited in Jewish law, and John criticised the queen for adultery. Even worse, King Herod was besotted with the daughter of his wife, called Salome. Herodias wanted John dead, and knowing of Herod’s infatuation with her daughter, she asked Salome to dance for the king, and for a reward, to ask for John’s head. The dance took place and Salome was duly delivered a head on a platter. The sculpture in Ravensthorpe church is a memorial of this event.

As a cousin of Jesus, St John was an important saint in the Medieval Church and was a popular figure for veneration. Relics of the face of the saint were held in Amiens Cathedral in northern France, looted from Constantinople during the fourth crusade in 1204 and subsequently a popular pilgrimage destination. There were many churches and religious guilds devoted to the Baptist and John was the most popular male personal name – and Joan or Jane one of the most popular female names - making the saint the personal patron of many people.

As well as holy travel, in the later Middle Ages, sacred objects for personal use, in a domestic setting or in religious guilds - to aid the saying of prayers, pious meditation and spiritual contemplation - were enormously popular among mercantile and upper artisan groups. Whether paintings and sculptures for the wealthy, or cheaply made rosary beads for the humble, the production of private religious items was a huge industry. An important centre of production of religious objects made from alabaster, which was very popular because of its lustre and amenability to carving, was located just north of Ravenstone. Alabaster, a hardened form of gypsum, was quarried at Chellaston, Derbyshire (and also at Tutbury, Staffordshire). There were important carving and production centres at Burton on Trent and Nottingham. The workshops there made all manner of goods, from tombs and effigies to altarpieces and sculptures of saints, to smaller, more personal, devotional pieces. Heads of St John the Baptist on a platter were one of their most popular items for domestic use and seem to have been a speciality of the Nottingham workshops; there are numerous references to St John’s heads in the records of the borough of Nottingham in the 1490s. At least 90 examples of St John’s heads survive today.

The head at Ravenstone is probably late 15th century in date, by parallels with similar items. It may be a part of an originally larger piece, for the outer edge of the platter seems to have been cut away. In its original form, the head would have been painted to look life-like, with coloured hair, beard, eyes and lips, and it would have been housed in a shuttered wooden case, which would be opened when in use. These have all disappeared from the Ravenstone head. During the English Reformation, there was widespread destruction of saints’ images in churches and homes as they were seen as idolatrous; not only unnecessary but harmful to worship. As a result, there are relatively few surviving alabaster pieces in England in comparison to the huge output. Some of the best pieces are now found in Catholic European churches, where there was no iconoclastic Reformation.

How, where and why the Ravenstone head survived is unknown. It may have been hidden away either in a church or by a private owner, then rediscovered later. At some point, the owner gave it to the church and placed it in what was considered an appropriate place, near the font.

We can learn much about church history from the biography of an object such as the St John’s head. These were intensely devotional pieces in the later Middle Ages, when private prayer and contemplation focused on objects were widely practiced. The use and even existence of such images was denounced by Protestant reformers, and they were broken up or put away. In later centuries, they emerged as curiosities and often became museum pieces. It is fitting, however, that such an item should revert to its original function as a devotional piece. In Ravenstone church, St John appears on the cusp of preaching ‘Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God’.

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Further reading on Medieval Alabasters:

Francis Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters (Oxford, 1984).

Raymond Henry State, The Alabaster Carvers (Melrose Books, 2017).

Click here to see other examples of St John’s heads held in the V&A.