Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: the Romanesque Capitals of St Kyneburgha’s Church, Castor, and the Local Landscape

Situated at the heart of an early 12th-century rural Northamptonshire church – St Kyneburgha’s church in Castor – a beautiful set of Romanesque capitals depicts an array of creatures, encompassing both the natural and supernatural worlds. This paper attempts to identify the inspiration behind elements of the scheme, to assess the myriad ways in which it might be interpreted, and to place it firmly within its landscape context. Traditional readings of the images, largely inspired by scripture, are assessed alongside supplementary interpretations found within didactic texts, in particular Isidore of Seville’s Etymologia, one of the key texts on animal lore in this period. These readings are then set against the expectations and experiences of local people in the surrounding landscape, both during and preceding the time the capitals were constructed, as elucidated in contemporary written texts. Minor landscape names created by local peasants provide further evidence that the iconography was to some extent chosen to reflect its landscape setting. Taken together, the evidence allows us an insight into how one early 12th-century rural community perceived its environment. It is suggested that elements of the scheme operate on a number of levels. It was – in part, at least – designed to remind locals that the demonic and ungodly could be found within commonplace spaces, and that those commonplace spaces were recognisable as the environment immediately outside the church door, in the fields, meadows, and woodlands of medieval Castor.