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Child Saints and Henry V’s Chantry Chapel

Lucy Beall Lott, a PhD researcher at the University of St Andrews, was recently awarded a grant by the Yorkist History Trust to fund a trip to London to investigate the decorative carving scheme that adorns the chantry chapel of Henry V in Westminster Abbey. These statues form an important aspect of her research into representations of child saints in medieval Britain. Here she recounts her experience, sharing some of her tantalising discoveries and outlining the difficulties in what might at first glance appear to be a straightforward attribution of an image of a child saint. For more information about the grants offered by the Trust, please click here.

Above the footfall of Westminster Abbey’s ambulatory, sculptures of unnamed saints line every available surface of the Henry V Chantry Chapel (fig. 1). The act of climbing up to view them feels like its own pilgrimage: accessed through a tiny door in the Confessor’s Chapel which cuts through the foot of Eleanor of Castile’s tomb chest, one must climb up a slick, steep stone staircase, so narrow that one’s shoulders touch the walls. After surviving the climb, the pilgrim is greeted by a magnificent bridge spanning across the ambulatory. The shrill cacophony of the abbey’s tourists falls silent in this space.

The eye is immediately drawn upwards to the statues that stand in niches above the High Altar (fig. 2). Besides Henry himself, who is depicted at the moment of his coronation on the outer wall of the structure, there are some familiar faces identified by previous scholars. They dominate the sequence, their importance indicated by their size: St George, St Edmund, Edward the Confessor, St Mary, and St Denys.

These figures, though undeniably fascinating, are not, however, the ones that interest me. My research draws me to the thirty-four damaged sculptures of saints which stand in pillars of microarchitecture, striking in their multitudes, and intriguing in their lack of identification. Unremarkable at first glance, art historians who have examined the chapel before me have stated that these figures may simply be placeholders. This is possible but, if so, why does each figure adopt a unique pose and hold differentiated attributes? And, most vital to my own research, why are some of these figures children?

These unidentified sculptures of children in the Henry V Chantry Chapel are important case studies in my ongoing PhD research. My thesis, Child Thou Art but a Pilgrim: an Art Historical Investigation of the Relationship between Youth and Sanctity in Medieval Britain, will be the first study to identify the visual language used by medieval artists to portray child saints. Though an understudied phenomenon, child saints were popular figures of veneration in the Middle Ages: the Canterbury Tales demonstrates that even Chaucer’s chicken, Chantecler, knows the vita of the seven-year-old Saint Kenelm, a ninth-century Mercian prince. Hagiographies like that of Saint Kenelm also serve to highlight the long history of child saints within the pedigrees of ruling families, something that makes them undeniably British (as told and understood by medieval chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Monmouth) and therefore popular choices for royal patrons. Kenelm is far from the only prince, or princess, martyred and worshiped in the ‘Conversion Period’ of Britain’s Christian history. We know that Henry V found great personal fulfilment in the veneration of child saints, owing his victory in Agincourt to the Welsh maiden saint Winifred. These holy children can be found in abbeys, manuscripts, and sculptures across Britain, if one only knows how to identify them. Could they be present in the Chapel of Henry V as well? For a space that seems tailored to reflect an idea of national pride, I believe we may be able to find at least one.

I was granted access to view the chapel twice in thanks to the generosity of the Yorkist History Trust. In July 2025, I returned with a camera so that I may capture the details of the statues. They are far overhead, and it is not possible to climb up to them with a ladder due to the delicate nature of the space they occupy. I enjoyed an even more private audience on that morning; gaining entry before the abbey itself opened. Summer light fell against the sculptures, igniting the carved figures with a warmth and movement that made goosebumps prickle across my skin. I found myself unprepared for the effect the space had on me in that instance, and it took me a moment to remember that I had a job to do. My task is as monumental as the space itself: can I reunite any of these figures with their names? First, we must attempt to establish that some of these figures are indeed children. Lucky for us, adult figures stand next to youthful ones, allowing the visual indicators of youth that I have established in my thesis to become clear (figs 3 and 4).

The figure on the left is at once made venerable by the presence of a bushy beard. Dense lines are carved into his face beginning at either side of his nose, moving upwards to the sides of his face and connecting with what hair he has left on the sides of his head. His beard is so thick, in fact, that his neck is not visible. The figure on the right, meanwhile, is much more delicate. While he, like his older counterpart, has draped robes, the slightness of the body is visible. The fabric of his cloak is gathered at his neck, under his beardless chin, and draped around his shoulders. His bent arms are raised, hands exposed to reveal that the figure holds something. It would be tempting to suggest that he holds a book. But upon closer inspection, we can see this may not be true:

Unfortunately, due to the damage this statue has suffered post-Reformation, it is difficult to identify whatever this thing may be (I would very much like it to be a dove). Perhaps one day it would be possible to take a closer look. For now, we can see that the attribute is unique, and the adult figure does not carry it. In the most striking contrast to the first figure analysed, the face of this figure is beardless and the curly hair cropped short, characteristics evocative of youth.

While it can seem ‘easy’ to identify a child in a piece of artwork, it can be much more difficult to prove they are indeed a child. It is not enough to say, ‘well, it is a child because they look like a child’. How can we, as art historians, categorise this? For this case study, and for brevity’s sake, we will focus solely on the stylisation of hair as the main indicator of youth. A surprisingly large amount of my time as a PhD student has been spent not looking at art but gathering examples from contemporary medieval literature about the ages of man. One of the most popular books of medieval England, John Trevisa’s English translation of Bartolomeaus Anglicus’s On the Properties of Things, contains a helpful chapter on the ages of man. Childhood encompassed a larger period of one’s life than perhaps expected: medieval people generally considered it to begin at infancy and end around the age of twenty-one or twenty-five. A teenager, therefore, was still very much a child. Trevisa’s translation tells us how important the appearance of a boy’s face was to indicate what stage of life he was entering: ‘by the voys [voice] and face men knowith bitwene children and men of ful age’. Thus, a beard was a key visual signifier of adulthood, of ‘full age’. This is a concept we can see directly reflected in the figures of the Henry V chapel. Furthermore, the tight curls the youthful figure adopts has long been included when medieval sources describe the ideal British prince. A parallel for the hairstyle may be seen below the chantry chapel itself, with a weeper on the tomb chest of Edward III meant to represent prince William of Hatfield (fig. 6).

Might there be female children represented as well? Another youthful figure invites a closer look (fig. 7). This statue, which I would like to suggest is a female youth, is less defaced than our male saint. The first clue, again, is the hair. Like other female figures in the chapel, this figure’s hair tumbles loosely around her shoulders, framing the sides of her face and falling behind her back. The robes are cut closer to the figure’s body, the breast appearing to swell slightly and the waist accentuated. Enough remains of the facial features to show smooth, rounded cheeks, a small nose, and upturned brows. She looks upward; her face turned into the light. There is something held in her left hand: if one could decipher the surviving objects held by these figures, we would be a step closer to identifying the figure itself, assuming such a thing is possible.

It will be difficult and perhaps impossible to reunite some statues with their names. However, the images analysed here presents us with a few facts: the artist seems to have differentiated youthful saints from aged ones through the styling and lack of facial hair, gave them each different attributes, and perhaps even included female youths. What if one of the attributes not only survived, but could be identified? Could we then argue for a possible identification? I would like to briefly analyse a final figure, for whom I will tentatively suggest a name (fig. 8). 

This figure carries the pre-determined attributes of youth we have seen in the previous two sculptures. Though the angle at which one must view the figure is, to put it lightly, not ideal, we can see that the face of the figure is smooth and beardless. The curved lines of the chin sweep downwards, with no sign of facial hair. The nose and eyes are somewhat visible, and we do not see the triangular carvings on either side of the cheeks that the artist previously used to denote the beard. The uninterrupted lines of the bare chin continue to be visible around the lip of the chalice the figure holds. This cup is one of the few surviving attributes held by any of the figures in the sequence, and it is one that is instantly recognisable. It is unlikely that it would be Mary Magdalen, with her alabaster jar of ointment, as she is represented already in the chapel and the figure does not have the same body type or hair as the sculpture we have tentatively described as female. The other option is St John the Evangelist, who is also represented elsewhere in the chapel according to William Richard Lethaby and William Henry St. John Hope. The chalice also lacks the tell-tale snakes that fit the legend of St John and the poisoned chalice. I would like to suggest this fresh-faced youth may be a different saint, following the trend of ‘Britishness’ so visible throughout the artistic programme. Edward, king and martyr, may therefore be a worthy candidate, an identification reinforced by the strong presence of royal saints such as Edmund and Edward the Confessor. At just sixteen years of age in 978 Edward the Martyr was famously stabbed upon his horse whilst drinking from a chalice at the gates of Corfe Castle in Dorset, in a murder organised by his stepmother. Her own son, Ethelred the Unready, assumed the throne. Edward’s cult flourished, partly in thanks to his half-brother. Edward the Martyr is thus usually represented with a chalice, from manuscript illuminations to portraits on Opus Anglicanum embroidery (fig 9).

While I have no definitive answers at this stage, and I fully accept that these statues may never be reunited with their names, I am confident that this analysis of just three of the thirty-four small sculptures has brought forth some interesting, and important details for us to consider. For my own research, I can see that the artist used an understood visual language of childhood to denote youthful figures, intentionally separating them from their more venerable friends. This is of great importance, not only for the further understanding of the phenomenon of child sainthood but for medieval childhood as a whole, as it attests to societal importance of both concepts in medieval England.

I would like to thank the Yorkist History Trust for funding this exciting adventure into the Henry V Chantry Chapel. I am so grateful to the Trust for giving me this opportunity, one that I’ll remember for the rest of my life as an art historian. 

If you’re undertaking research on any aspect of late medieval England, the Trust provides grants that can assist with expenses such as travel costs and archival photography permits. Please see our grants page for more information and for details on how to apply.