The village of Hallaton, eight miles north-east of Market Harborough, occupies a sloping site with a stream to the south and to the west what may have been a 12thc motte and bailey castle built to protect iron works (VCH, V, 121-33; Pevsner and Williamson, 1984, 171-72). The imposing church of St Michael lies on the south-west side of the village, half a mile below the castle site. Although the exterior of the church, including the dominant W tower, is largely 13thc and 14thc, Romanesque elements are preserved in the aisled interior. Notably part of the N arcade is late 12thc; otherwise it was extended in the 13thc when a new chancel was built. Most importantly for this Corpus a sculpted tympanum detached from its original doorway is now reset in the N porch. For Pevsner, this tympanum depicting St Michael fighting the Dragon was 'the best Norman tympanum in the county' (Pevsner and Williamson, 1984, 171-72).

According to The Domesday Survey, Hallaton with 6 carucates, had belonged to the Saxon Tochi, but by 1086 it was held by a Norman under-tenant from Geoffrey Alselin. The demense encompassed 2 ploughs and 2 serfs, 19 villeins, a socman, a freeman, and 2 bordars with 6 ploughs. Although no church is mentioned in The Domesday Survey, the parish was associated with Leeds Priory early in the 12thc. when Daniel Crevequer of Leeds (c. 1130-1177) granted the advowson of half the rectory to that Priory, which had been founded by his father Robert in 1119 (VCH, V, 1964, 121-33). The Priory appointed one rector who divided the income equally with the second rector.

The lands reverted to the king in 1155, and in 1171 King Henry II granted them to Thomas Bardolf on his marriage to Rose, the heir of Ralph Hanselin; she was probably a descendant of the family who had held Hallaton at the time of The Domesday Survey. Their son married Beatrice, the heir of William de Warenne of Wormegay. (VCH, V, 1964, 121-33)

All the sculpture is carved from the local white or yellowish oolitic limestone. The tympanum, described by Pevsner as the finest in Leicestershire, dates from the second quarter of the 12thc and has survived both a Late Norman and a 14thc enlargement of the church. The N arcade capitals date from the third quarter of the 12thc. (Fieldworker)

The iconography of Michael fighting the dragon shown on the tympanum is peculiar to Western Christendom. In Carolingian representations the archangel is shown triumphant above a small vanquished dragon, whereas by the early eleventh century the dragon had been enlarged and Michael given a more aggressive pose. The composition of Michael lunging to the right with a shield belongs to the later Northern tradition, although the lance is more typical of Continental iconography (Alexander, 1970: 88–98). There are many other Romanesque sculptures in England where St Michael is positioned facing right and holding a shield, including reliefs at the churches of Moreton Valence and Harnhill (both Gloucestershire), Kingswinford (Staffordshire), Southwell and Hoveringham (both Nottinghamshire) and Garton-on-the-Wolds (Yorkshire). Only the reliefs at Hallaton, Moreton and Garton-on-the-Wolds depict Michael with a conical shield and lance, and only those here and at Garton show Michael with a conical shield, but the sculpture at Garton is so badly eroded that other connections with Hallaton are impossible to establish.

According to Rev. 12, 7-9, there was a war in Heaven, in which a seven headed dragon was defeated by St Michael, both being at the head of an army of angels. Medieval representations of the subject invariably present this as a one-on-one combat between St Michael and a single-headed dragon.