Church dedications fell into disuse after the Reformation, except as a way of differentiating two close-together churches from each other, in towns for example. Many of the modern dedications of medieval churches are the result of well-meaning antiquarians delving through the records in the 18th century. They found wills and bequests to individual altars, and some churches had several of these. Since Marian doctrine was suspect to protestants, and the Church of England didn't recognise the doctrine of the Assumption in particular, those churches became St Mary, and so on. Some modern dedications are simply the result of exotic fancy by enthusiastic Anglo-catholic Rectors.

So how did this splendid dedication at Trimingham come about? In the late medieval period, there was a great devotion to St John the Baptist here. In fact, it was actually possible for English people to go and pray by the real head of the Baptist, as it was kept just across the channel at Amiens Cathedral, and it was kept at at least two other European cathedrals as well. You can still see it at Amiens today.

But rather than make that journey, it was possible to come and pray at the shrine altar here at Trimingham, where a life-sized alabaster carving of he head of St John the Baptist was on display. The head was probably destroyed by Anglican reformers as a result of the 1538 Injunction against images during the reign of Henry VIII. If not then, there was a further injunction which was rigorously imposed in 1547, during the early weeks of the reign of Edward VI. Even so, there is a small chance that the image limped on for a few more years, since Trimingham is a rather remote spot even today. Eventually, however, there would have been a visitation to ensure that the church had been cleansed. Eamonn Duffy, in his remarkable book The Stripping of the Altars, records that even as late as the early 1550s, officials were arriving at churches to discover that images had only just been removed. Drily, Duffy notes a few instances where the official question When did you destroy these images? was answered with As soon as we knew you were coming!, which we can imagine being said in a broad Norfolk accent.

There is no chance that any alabaster images in English churches survived in use to be destroyed by puritans a century later, as is sometimes suggested. The iconoclast William Dowsing, cleansing Cambridgeshire and Suffolk in 1644, kept meticulous notes, and does not record seeing a single image of a Saint in stone or alabaster. But evidence of the cult of St John the Baptist survives at Trimingham even today, and this, despite a fairly brutal restoration, is in the form of the rood screen. It is very small, with only four figures on either side of the entrance to the chancel. Whoever restored it replaced the uprights with wider ones, thus curtailing the edges of the panels.

The eight figures, from left to right, are, on the north side, St Edmund with his arrow, St Clare with her book and monstrance, St Clement with his anchor and crozier, and St James in his pilgrim's robes. On the south side are St Petronella with her book and keys, St Cecilia with her garland of flowers, St Barbara with her tower, and St Jeron with his hawk.

All these Saints are widely found on other Norfolk screens, but what makes the screen here remarkable is in the spandrels above the figure of St James. On one side is the Agnus Dei, the lamb and flag which John the Baptist is traditionally shown holding, and there, in the other spandrel, is the Baptist's head on a platter, as shown above left. This, of course, suggests that the screen did come from this church, although the way that it has been crudely extended to north and south to fit the chancel arch

The figure of St James on the screen has been identified by various people as that of St John the Baptist himself, but it is, I think, St James. As I say, the screen has been brutally restored, and St James' staff has been destroyed in the process, but he is certainly wearing a pilgrim's cloak. Rather oddly, the church guide identifies St Jeron as a second St Edmund, but I think that this must just be a repetition of an editor's error in Mortlock.

It is appropriate that Trimingham's medieval glory should be remembered in a carving, because in the years around the First World War, Trimingham had a notable carving rector, Reginald Page. You can see his work around the church. The pulpit is his, the war memorial is his, as are several other memorials, including his own, which, of course, we must assume he prepared in advance.