"... The earnest endeavour of the historian to reconstruct the spirit of the past from the materials at his disposal is at best but an experiment, conducted with unsuitable means" (Wilhelm Worringer) How true the celebrated medievalist's sceptical statement really is, can be amply demonstrated by a unique case study: the Royston Cave.
    Tucked away in the heart of a lovely English shire not far from Cambridge, the Royston Cave has jealously guarded its 'secrets' over the centuries.
    Behind an unassuming entrance, the gawping mouth of a narrow shaft alerts the visitor to the uncanny experience in store. The pale light of the electric bulb reveals the eroded surface of the stone and the visitor is overwhelmed by a smell of damp and organic decay, creating an eerie and uncomfortable atmosphere: Freud's unheimlich. In an essay of this title, Freud postulated a new aesthetic category: the uncanny, which is to do with the hidden, the secretive: "..everything is unheimlich which ought to have remained secret and hidden, but has come to light"!. The concavity of the beehive-shaped structure is reminiscent of ancient Mycenaean tholos tombs: standard forms of royal burial in Greece from about 1500 BC whose origins are unknown. They consist of a dome-shaped masonry tomb approached by a shaft. Could the Royston Cave be a burial place?
    The visitor is further daunted by the strange sculpted reliefs decorating the lower register of the belly of the cave. Crude in execution and bizarre to behold, some of them nevertheless sport attributes which make possible the iconographical identification of the dramatis personae represented. Needless to say, they too are undocumented and are on the whole without known precedents or equal. At this point it might be useful to consider the few historical facts available to us.

Discovery

Royston Cave was discovered by accident in 1742 and immediately attracted the attention of several members of the then newly-founded Society of Antiquaries, among them being the Freemason the Rev. William Stukeley, who wrote of it: "... this agreeable subterranean recess, hewn out of pure chalk, of about 30 foot high, and nearly 20 foot in diameter. 'Tis elegant bell-like, or rather mitral form; well turned and exactly circular ... the light of the candles scarcely reaches the top, and that gloominess overhead increases the solemnity of the place. All around the martyrs and historical pieces... They are cut with a design and rudeness suitable to the time wherein she [Lady Roysia : local noblewoman] lived; which was soon after the Conquest". Here then we have an interesting, tentative dating of the cave and its 'rude' carvings; but the general concensus so far appears to be that this was a more recent subterranean chapel, dating back only to the 13th or even 14th century.

The Link with the Templars

The next important stage in considering the history of the cave lies in the putative links with the crusading order of the Knights Templar, whose mysterious history as well as their documented presence in this country prompted local historian Sylvia Beamon to publish her fascinating, scholarly work The Royston Cave. Used by Saints or Sinners? (1992) "... I was reading a book on this crusader order, documented between 1118 and 1308 in this country, and it said that they had little chapels that were circular without and octagonal within." Sylvia Beamon was the first to propose a connection between the Royston Cave and the Knights Templar, and this became the central theory on which she based all subsequent investigation. In strict methodological terms, she used the method of deductive reasoning by starting from an unverified hypothesis, in this instance based totally on intuition, or shall we say revelation, and then proceeded to construe the appropriate evidence to support it.
    Why the connection with the Templars? "If you look around the walls you see St. Christopher with the Christ Child; St. Catherine with her catherine-wheel, and St. Lawrence with the gridiron on which he was martyred. The figure holding a sword has variously been interpreted as representing St. George, but it might equally be St. Michael. A learned gentleman even suggested he might represent Christ as soldier or judge."
    Given that Saints Catherine, Christopher and Lawrence were saints revered by the Templars, iconographical analysis provided the much-needed link with the Templars, whose presence in the area is well documented. But it was the array of symbols accompanying them which most prompted Sylvia Beamon's hypothetical link between Royston Cave and the Templars. Symbols are by definition cryptic messages which resist exhaustive decoding. Why so many on the walls of the cave? We may well ask, yet the symbols represented here are well-known universal symbols and archetypes. Thus the outstretched hand level with St. Christopher's head is the symbol of supreme power, the Deity, which explains its colossal size; the heart in hand symbolises love and piety; the conspicuous presence of the sword is a symbol for active power, will, masculinity, and the inviolability of the sacred. What appears to be unusual and perhaps unique to this particular context are some of the juxtapositions of symbols and, if we are to assume that the reliefs carry a cohesive, overall meaning or message, they could provide the key to deciphering it. Thus, one group consists of a sword next to a 'sheilana-gig' (fertility) and a flowering cross, flanked also to the right by three concentric circles and to the left by an upturned horse with an erect triangular phallus. The horse itself is a complex symbol to do with nobility and power but represented upended it is emasculated of its primary function. The circle too is a universal symbol to do with totality, the cosmos, the self, eternity: "God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere" says Hermes Trismegistus. We have here three concentric circles which signify past, present and future, or earth, air and water, or heaven, earth and hell, or the synthesis of dialectical reconciliation. The inner circle appears to enclose a cross which may denote Paradise with its four rivers running from the centre which is the Tree of Life.
    Sylvia Beamon's book provides an exhaustive exegesis of the imagery which enabled her to make the seminal connection between the Royston Cave and the Templars, but what we must ask ourselves is whether over and above this link, they may yet encode some other signifiers?
    Putative links between the Templars and the Freemasons have been postulated in the past, but given that Freemasons themselves were a secretive society who surfaced in this country in 1717, we do not fare better. Very little documentary evidence survives prior to this date. It is not surprising that some observers have pointed to Freemasonry as being to some degree linked to the cave: concepts which link the idea of the 'cave' with initiation, death, even resurrection, are hard to avoid when presented with such a gamut of mysterious symbolism. Add to that the persistent rumour of Freemasonry-Templar links and the fact that many masons today are initiated into Templar degrees founded in the 18th century, and it becomes natural for some to seek in Freemasonry answers to the enigma of the Royston Cave. The fact that the distinguished antiquarian William Stukeley was himself a mason is worth mentioning but provides no additional insight, and any historical links between medieval Templars and Freemasons, seen objectively, remain tenuous indeed.

Conclusion

Only one conclusion seems possible. In the absence of relevant documentary evidence which might prove some of the hypotheses postulated above, we are left in doubt. In my opinion, the only way forward is a scholarly analysis and exegesis of the only certain primary source available to us - the carved reliefs. Two possibilities can be envisaged:

I). We are faced with a common case of what amounts to no more than graffiti disposed in random arrangements - and similarities have been found to exist in documented examples such as an extant panel engraved with graffiti at the castle dungeon of Chinon in the Loire Valley. The Templars imprisoned at Chinon after their arrest in 1307 produced graffiti which were religious in content. It would be interesting to speculate about a common source such as an existing body of similes or patterns. If common sources were indeed in existence, we would be able to identify an iconography specific to the Templars, but the only connection between the images of the Royston Cave with the Templars is the fact that the saints represented on its walls were also Templar saints, though there may be a connection between the remains of two carved figures in close proximity above a section of wall and a well-known Templar motif: two knights riding on a single horse. However, no steed is visible. It is possible that the work was unfinished. Another motif worthy of note is the flowering cross.
    Floriate crosses appear on extant crusaders' tombs plausibly identified as being Templar. It may also be the case that the original floor was raised in octagonal form. Furthermore, the Templars built up the town of Baldock, nine miles away, and sold their wares at the Royston market, sited above the cave. Unlike Chinon, Royston Cave was not a prison, although it may have been a hidden place, while the images, although crude and seemingly haphazard in disposition, do transcend the level of mere gratuitous graffiti.

II). We have a unified iconographical scheme still waiting to be unravelled. Two facts support this second hypothesis: a) The author seems well versed in a religious symbolism and iconography which would justify the existence of simile or patterns or models to show how St. Catherine or St. George should be made identifiable to a largely illiterate attendance, if the carvings were indeed intended for public consumption, for the key question to be answered is : what exactly was the function of this cave? b) The unified style indicates one author, which could in turn be indicative of the possibility of a patron or persons responsible for commissioning the work. The standard of work is of course far below that which graced thousands of ecclesisastical structures during the middle ages. (Templars did have their own affiliated masons while surviving stone coffin-lids do suggest a vernacular, if sometimes apparently 'crude' style). The mystery remains.
    Further research may well reveal more, but what is needed in the immediate future is the furthering of Sylvia Beamon's pioneering work. Interest for mainstream Freemasonry may lie in deepening the generally limited understanding of the potent universe of symbols.

Notes

1. Sigmund freud The uncanny pp 339-376 m: The Penguin Freud Library. Volume XIV Art and Literature', Penguin Books,London, 1990. p.364.
2. Reynold Higgins. Minoan and Mycenaean Art. Thames & Hudson, London, 1967.
3. Sylvia P.Beamon. The Royston Cave: used by Saints or Sinners (Local historical influences of the Templar and Hospital/er movements). Cortney Publications, Baldock, 1992, p,12.
4. Interview with Sylvia P.Beamon : 12 October 1997, Royston Cave.
5. Ibid.
6. J.C. Cooper: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, Thames & Hudson, London 1987.
7. Ibid. p.36.


Dr. Sanda M. Miller, journalist and broadcaster, is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the Southampton Institute and is the author of the authoritative book on the sculptor Constantin Brancusi (Constantin Brancusi : A Survey of his Work. Oxford University Press 1995).