‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ the old adage tells us. Despite being the first portrait engraved in England, the portrait of Matthew Parker (1504–1575) from the College Statutes (CCCC MS 582) has not received its thousand words. Yet, it reveals how Parker wanted to be remembered as a religious figure, statesmen, benefactor, and scholar. It is a treasure trove of detail.

The portrait is an engraving by the Dutch artist Remigius Hogenberg (c.1536–c.1588). His signature can just be seen in the bottom right of the image, peeking through the yellow background. When Parker wrote in 1573 that he had working within his own household ‘drawers and cutters, painters, limners, writers, and bookbinders’, Hogenberg was counted amongst them. As some of the text within the border relates, the portrait was produced ‘aetatis suae anno 70 die mensis augusti’, that is ‘in the 70th year of his life, in the month of August’. 

‘Portrait of Matthew Parker’, CCCC MS 582, back inside cover.

Parker’s Bible

That this portrait was engraved, rather than produced as a woodcut, allowed for all of the crisp detail contained within it. Take the book Parker is holding. This is a bible, bound in red velvet and embroidered in gold, just as we know a number of Parker’s books were. As the archbishop of Canterbury, and the foremost collector of books and manuscripts in Elizabethan England, it is hardly surprising that a book featured in his portrait. Parker had also overseen a translation of the Bible into English in 1568, known as the Bishops’ Bible.

Detail of Parker’s Bible from CCCC MS 582, back inside cover.

Closer inspection allows us to read the passage that Parker was pondering over. The text is from Michah 6:8 and it is presented in abbreviated Latin. It reads in English as ‘I will shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: Verily to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitous with thy God’ - a fitting proverb for an archbishop to share and to appear at the end of the college’s statutes.

Parker’s Hourglass

Left: Detail of Parker’s hourglass from CCCC MS 582, back inside cover.
Right: Bottom panel of the frontispiece from CCCC MS 582, front inside cover.

The hourglass resting besides Parker connects with the title page to the Statutes. In that image Parker was depicted preaching with an hourglass beside him. The hourglass in the portrait thus gestures to Parker’s role as a preacher because it was used to regulate the length of a sermon. The woodcut of Parker preaching had originally been commisioned for the second edition of the  Bishops’ Bible. The sheer expense involved in commissioning such illustrations meant that Parker frequently edited his engravings and woodcuts for different purposes.

The hourglass as a symbol for the passing of time also resonates with Parker’s Latin motto which is contained in the oval border framing the portrait. The text ‘mundus transit et concupiscentia eius’, which translates to ‘the world and its desires pass away’, is taken from John 2:17 and now also resides beneath the famous Corpus Clock.

Parker’s Stationery

Detail of Parker’s stationery from CCCC MS 582, back inside cover.

The college’s coat of arms, which Parker had helped to design and register, appears in the bottom right. The arms of Canterbury, Parker’s personal coat of arms, and both of these arms impaled together, also feature. The eagle-eyed viewer can even catch a glimpse of this impaled coat of arms upon Parker’s writing box. Parker’s great affection for heraldry is overwhelmingly evident in this portrait.

Parker’s other stationery requires more interpretative guesswork. The golden item in the centre might variously be an inkwell, handbell or a container of pounce. Pounce was often made from powdered pumice and was used to help ink dry. If so, the inscription ‘Petrus’ on a container filled with pumice offers up a pun because the Latin ‘petrus’ and Greek ‘petros’ translate as ‘rock’. From ‘Petros’ we also get ‘Peter’, with Christ having told St Peter ‘you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church’. Roman Catholic tradition held St Peter to be the first pope and upon this foundation the Papacy claimed authority over the Western Church. However, the role of the Pope as head of the Chuch had been dismissed in England throughout the 1530s and the title of ‘Supreme Head/Governor’ taken by the Crown. 

One motive behind Parker assembling his collection was to preserve the history of the English Church in the period of enormous religious change called the English Reformation. Protecting the historic role of the archbishop of Canterbury as the senior bishop of the Church of England, and drawing this tradition back to the earliest days of the Church, might also be a reason for Parker’s placement of ‘Petrus’ upon his stationery. As a bishop, Parker also believed himself to be part of the apostolic succession and he thereby claimed to be part of a lineage of bishops which went all of the way back to Peter and the Apostles. In the wake of the English Reformation, and accussations that Parker had himself not been consecrated properly, Parker was especially keen to preserve the apostolic succession in England and his place within it.

Parker’s Staff

Detail of Parker’s staff from CCCC MS 582, back inside cover.

Parker’s staff/cane presents a similar range of possibilites. Bishops in post-Reformation England had largely dispensed with the symbol of the crozier (a staff with a hook, traditionally used by shepherds), but a staff more generally represented that a person held a position of authority. White wooden staves are given to senior officers of state in England and monarchs to this day use the sceptre as a symbol of good governance. Parker’s staff has a word emblazoned upon it but this appears differently in this hand coloured version to other versions where the word appears to read ‘marit’. Here it could read ‘marita’ and this might be Parker refering to his own marriage to Margaret Harleston. Clerical marriage was an important issue for Parker. Parker had been part of the first group of English Protestant clerics to marry and even wrote a treatise defending it.

The rich symbolism of this portrait was not unusual for its time and the famous court portraits by Hans Holbein made abundant use of such symbols. This portrait clearly mattered to Parker and it expressed how he wished to be remembered. Following Parker’s death in 1575 this exquisite engraving set precedents for how Parker was subsequently depicted. The leaded window design in the background was even incorporated into the present Parker Library building designed by architect William Wilkins (1778–1839). Frequently positioned seated in front of a latticed window, with books, writing implements and a cane, you’ll spot a number of portraits, statues and engravings of Parker around Corpus Christi. If the trademark moustache does not give him away, the other attributes discussed here might prove useful…

Dr Harry Spillane is a Munby Fellow at the Cambridge University Library
@SpillaneHarry