Twenty One Today

Today is the twenty first anniversary of my reception into the Church at the Oxford Oratory in 2005, two days before Pope John Paul II died.

Last year to mark the twentieth anniversary I wrote a long article on this blog about how I came to that decision, together with some reflections on my subsequent experiences. That can be viewed at Twenty years on. 

What I wrote then still holds good, but I think I am now a little more optimistic about the way the Church is going - which is not to deny that a lot needs to be done at parish, diocesan, national and, ultimately,Papal level to get it back properly on track.

On this twenty first anniversary I am not sure if I have come of age as a Catholic - faith is, after all a lifelong pilgrimage, and I did quite a bit of my pilgrimage years before I was received - but I remain sure that I made the right decision.

May St John the Baptist, St John the Evangelist, St Philip the Apostle, St Philip Neri, St Robert of Newminster, St Robert of Knaresborough, Bl. Robert Grosseteste, Bl. John of Dalderby, and St John Henry Newman continue to pray for me.

The Battle of Towton 565

Yesterday, Palm Sunday, was the 565th anniversary of the battle of Towton, fought in the date and feast day in 1461, and hence its fifteenth century name of Palm Sunday Field. It is normally accounted the bloodiest battle in English history, and one of the more momentous.

I have posted about Towton before, as a search on the blog will reveal.

Over the weekend the historian David Grummitt had two open access articles on SubStack about his latest research into the contemporary sources we have for the battles of the Wars of the Roses, and in this case, Towton.

They can be seen at Lord Clifford, the Battle of 'Dintingdale' and Palm Sunday 1461 and at Was the Battle of Towton Fought in a Blizzard?

His articles are well worth signing up to, and his book on the earlier battles of the Wars one I must get round to reading.

Folded Chasubles and Broad Stoles

This being this blog regular readers will expect during Lent at least one article about folded chasubles and B-road stoles, the traditional liturgical gesture for deacons and sub-deacons in this penitential season.

This week the Liturgical Arts Journal has an illustrated article showing three phases in the evolution of these vestments, together with illustrations of the different forms the chasuble and stole have taken. There is also a link to an older article - one I believe I have linked to before on this blog - about the history of these items.

The article can be accessed at Gothic, Neri and Roman: Variations of the Folded Chasuble and Broad Stole 

Reassembling the Altenburg altarpiece

Staying with the theme of statues of Our Lady on this Feast of the Annunciation the Städel Museum in Frankfort recently succeeded to bringing back together the component parts of the Altenburg altarpiece. This lovely piece is dated to the 1320s and originated in the Praenonstratensian monastery for canonesses at Altenburg in what is now western Hesse. It was broken up about a hundred years ago, but has now happily been reassembled and is on display in Frankfort.

 

There is an article about it from The Art Newspaper at Frankfurt’s Städel Museum announces ‘momentous’ acquisition of Altenberg Madonna

Medieval Histories has another account which can be viewed at The Altenberg Madonna

The website of the Städel itself about the altarpiece can be seen at Altenberg Madonna acquired for the Städel

Wikipedia has a brief note about the abbey at /Altenberg_Abbey,_Solms

Our Lady of Walsingham enthroned at Arundel Castle

Today being the Feast of the Annunciation seems a good occasion on which to share a post from the British website of EWTN about the creation and enthronement in the private chapel at Arundel Castle, the ancestral home of the Fitzalan-Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk and Earls of Arundel and premier Catholic family of the realm, of a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Walsingham itself is, of course in the county of Norfolk, and the article cites the verses on the Wracks of Walsingham, attributed to St Philip Howard, in whom the Howards and Fitzalans were united, lamenting the loss of the shrine, and of devotion, at Walsingham.

The illustrated article can be seen at Our Lady of Walsingham in Arundel Castle

An atlas that belonged to Queen Mary I

Artnet recently had an article about a copy of the third volume of Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia. This was the last part of his account of English history and finally completed in the year of his death in1555.

The book was printed in Basel, but for this presentation copy for Queen Mary I there was the addition of a number of maps which were without precedent in an English book.

The illustrated account of the volume can be seen at Rare Atlas Owned by Queen Mary I Could Sell for $1.6 Million

As the writer points out there are export prohibitions in place so the book will remain in this country.

Reinterpreting the battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings

 

There are reports online today stemming from the work of Professor Tim Licence from UEA which proposes a radical reappraisal of the military events of October 1066.

I have heard Prof. Licence lecture online about the battle of Hastings and his detailed knowledge both of the sources and of the archaeology and topography of the battlefield was extremely impressive, and presented with elegance and moderation. He is currently working on the Yale biography of King Harold II.

The new interpretation is set out with maps on the website of the Daily Telegraph at We’ve got the Battle of Hastings all wrong, academics find

The argument can also be found on the website of BBC News at Victorians got Battle of Hastings wrong, professor says

Traditional Austrian Passiontide veils in Carinthia

Today, being the eve of Passion Sunday, is the day for veiling statues and images in churches as we move into Passiontide and draw closer to Holy Week and the Triduum.

Since the 1960s veiling is less universal than it once was in both Catholic and Anglo-Catholic parishes. A friend once opined that it tended to follow diocesan liturgical cultures in the Catholic Church in England. When I was churchwarden at St Thomas’ in Oxford I pushed a little at the envelope of Anglican Canon Law

( there’s a joke in there somewhere I think) by reintroducing the practice during the vacancy in the living. This meant a morning of clambering around the church and fixing the purple cloths. My vertigo meant I was unable to veil the reredos, which had to wait for the assistant priest on the Sunday morning. We carried on with the restored practice and I even went back to help the new acting priest, the late, great Fr John Hunwicke, after I had left the C of E, to keep the tradition going.

This came back to my mind when I saw an article yesterday on the Liturgical Arts Journal about the nineteenth century decorated veils which have been rediscovered and brought back into use at the church at Kaning in Carinthia. These are not plain cloth but painted boards that depict the Passion against a sombre background.

The illustrated article can be viewed at Rediscovered and Revived Lenten Veils in Austria

There is a short discussion of the history of such veiling on the Zenit website which can be found at Questions about liturgy: Should the cross be veiled during Lent

I would add to What the author of the article says that practice does very from one country to another and that veiling the altar and processional crosses and their crucifixes appears quite common in England.

I heard the point this week that such veiling was a northern European tradition deriving apparently from the German hungertuch. Such a veil for the whole altar as certainly known in medieval England, and images were veiled for all of Lent. Some statues, of which original examples survive as well as modern versions, occupied wooden housings with doors gat could be closed in Lent. In 1471 one such pair of doors sprang open during Mass to reveal St Anne to King Edward IV on his journey to reclaim the crown, and was seen as an augury.

Medieval Roman practice was different, and it was the publication of the 1570 Missal, officially only for that diocese, which only veiled from Passion Sunday came to be copied across the wider Church. This seems also to have been the way in which rose coloured vestments spread from the specific rite of blessing the Golden Rose to the city and diocese of Rome, and thence though St Pius’ Missal to the Universal Church.