It is
really three scenes, although it appears as one. Herod's daughter is on
the right performing a mediaeval tumble dance before the king and queen and
their two guests, and on the left St John the Baptist is shown, still
kneeling, although his head lies on the pavement. Salome is holding the
charger against her breast. In the central portion of the picture she
appears carrying the head of St John in the dish. The picture above this
shows the coronation of the Virgin Mary, and the wall of heaven is higher
still.
The martyrdom of St Edmund in the next spandrel is a most realistic
picture. The saint is tied to a tree and is pierced by fourteen arrows.
The black-letter inscriptions read "Edmund Prync and martyr."
"Heven blys to hes mede
Hem sall have for hys gud ded"
Above this picture is the painting already mentioned of St Thomas a Becket
being approached by the four knights who are about to murder him.
On the south side of the nave the chief part of the wall is given up to
the legend of St Katherine of Alexandria. She was said to be the daughter
of Costus, King of Alexandria, and was married to a son of Constantine
Chlorius, the Roman Governor of York.
The upper panel shows the temple of Serapis, and St Katherine endeavouring
to convert the Emperor Maximin to Christianity. Further to the right she
is shown entering the prison into which she was cast. The emperor,
impressed both by her beauty and her arguments, endeavours with the help
of several philosophers to persuade her to give up her belief in
Christianity; they are, however, all converted by her, and soon after they
are executed at the emperor's command.
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