Between the piers of Carlisle Cathedral are several large oak screens
placed against the stalls of the prebends and painted on the side towards
the aisles. Three of these give a series of pictures describing each the
history of a Saint. They are much decayed, as is also the fourth which
is divided into twelve compartments, filled by the twelve Apostles. The
date of these paintings is not determined, but it is conjectured that the
legends in English rhyme on the Histories of the Saints were written by
Prior Senhouse whose name occurs in 1507, and internal evidence would not
assign them much greater antiquity than 1500.
Over the figures of the Apostles are scrolls illuminated with the
Apostles’ creed, and the name of the Apostle over whose head each
particular scroll is placed. “Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem,
creatorem cœli et terræ. Petrus.” “Et in Jesu Christum filium ejus
unicum, dominum nostrum. Andreu.” etc.
St. Simon is here represented not with the long saw usually attributed
to him, but with a great axe, if the instrument in the hand of Mathias,
which is too much decayed to be distinctly made out, has been a saw,
these two saints have exchanged symbols, or possibly the painter has
named them wrong. The figures are life size or somewhat smaller.