The Nativity of the Virgin Mary

Today is the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady.

The Nativity of Our Lady

Giotto

Image:Wikipedia 

OnePeter5 has an article about the history of the feast and various customs traditionally associated with it. Most of these relate to the agricultural calendar of farming communities, and the fact that this day in early September was a convenient marker within the annual round.

The article can be read at Forgotten Customs of Our Lady’s Nativity

The Nativity of the Virgin

Andrea di Bartolo 

A Sienese artist active from 1389 until his death in 1428. This work, part of a larger composition, is dated to 1400-1405

National Gallery of Art, Washington 

Image: nga.gov

Both of these paintings, like others of the same subject, include vignettes of late medieval domestic life from the society which commissioned and created them - in this case central Italy.

 May Our Lady,

together with St Anne and St Joachim,

pray for us

Oriel visits the Vatican

Yesterday, the Pope received in audience in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican a delegation of members of Oriel College, led by the Provost, Lord Mendoza.

The Pope and the Provost

Image: oriel.ox.ac.uk 

The occasion was to mark two significant events. The first is that this year Oriel - the House of  Blessed Mary to Virgin in Oxford, to give its full name - is celebrating its seven hundredth anniversary of foundation by King Edward II in 1326. In July it welcomed that monarch’s 21x great grandson in the person of King Charles III who is the Visitor of the College, and there have been a variety of celebrations throughout the year.

The second event is closely bound up with the history of Oriel, and the man who is its most famous Fellow, St John Henry Newman, the Pope proclaimed a Doctor of the Church and co-patron of Education last year.

St John Henry Newman as a Fellow of Oriel 

1822-1845

Image: Venerable English College

In his address to his visitors the Pope urged Oriel to rediscover the Catholic roots of the foundation, and to follow St John Henry in pursuing truth courageously and to see education as the formation of the whole person.

The Oriel College website reports on the visit with quotations from the Provost’s address at Provost leads delegation to meet Pope at Vatican

Vatican News has more of the Pope’s address 

at Pope to Oxford’s Oriel College: Seek truth, promote integral anthropology

His Holiness’ points are good and apposite, and will in my opinion, hopefully fall on fertile ground. My experience of Oriel was that those three factors were there and perhaps more so than in some, maybe many, other colleges in Oxford. Let us hope Papal encouragement will lead to positive growth in these matters.

May Our Lady continue to pray for Her House in Oxford and all Orielenses

Floreat Oriel!

The Battle of Worcester 1651

Today is the 375th anniversary of the battle of Worcester in 1651, and the city and reenactment groups are holding a series of events to commemorate the anniversary.

Worcester Cathedral from the site of Fort Royal with the modern memorial to the battle in the foreground 

Image: tripadvisor.co.uk

Wikipedia has an account of the battle at Battle of Worcester. Although it gives a good narrative of the events the references indicate that its sources are in many cases about a century old and it is perhaps in need of some revision.

The Fugitive King has a similar narrative, but presented with a more modern slant and far more illustrations. It can be accessed at The Battle of Worcester

Wikipedia has a biography of the most prominent Royalist fatality from the battle, the second Duke of Hamilton, which includes the text of his farewell letter to his wife written from the Commandery in the city, a building which still survives. The article can be seen at 

 William Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Hamilton. His grave is marked by a plaque in the choir of the cathedral.

  

Following the battle King Charles II fled, very much as his great nephew Prince Charles Edward did after Culloden almost a century later. Ensuring the survival of the claimant was of paramount concern to safeguard their cause.

King Charles II in armour

Probably painted shortly after his flight to France in October 1651

Image: app.fta.art

Following a circuitous route, and many close shaves, the King finally sailed to France from Shoreham in Sussex on October 15th.

Wikipedia has a good, illustrated, account at Escape of Charles II and also a biography of the King’s most famous helper in his escape at Jane Lane, Lady Fisher

The museum at Shaftesbury in Dorset has an account of the King’s journey which can be accessed at Escape or Die 1651 - Charles II the Most Wanted Man - Gold Hill Museum

King Charles II

Miniature by David des Granges from the time of the King’s accession 

Image: wikiart 

The King and Queen visit the Bayeux Tapestry

This evening the King and Queen, accompanied by the French President and by Mr Burnham, and their wives, visited the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum, which opens to pre-booked visitors next week. 

The BBC News website has a report, including part of His Majesty’s speech, at King Charles, Macron and Burnham arrive to view Bayeux Tapestry at British Museum

King William I 

From the Bayeux Tapestry

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In his speech the King referred to his French ancestry as a descendant of King William the Conqueror. King William I is the 28x great-grandfather of King Charles III, and that bloodline was multiplied by Queen Eleanor of Castile, Queen Elizabeth of York, Lord Darnley, Queen Alexandra, Queen Mary, and Prince Philip (twice over in his case)

King Harold II 

From the Bayeux Tapestry 

Image: History Extra

Furthermore the King is also descended from King Harold II, who is his 30x great-grandfather through his daughter Gytha, Princess of Kviv and the royal lines of Hungary, Aragon, and France through to Queen Philippa of Hainault, the consort of King Edward III. 

From the Valois branch of the French Capetians that bloodline also entered the English, and then the Scottish, royal house through Queen Catherine of Valois, the grandmother of King Henry VII. In that case King Harold is again the present King’s 30x great-grandfather.

In addition all the Kings of Scots since 1437 have also been descended through Queen Joan Beaufort, a great-granddaughter of King Edward III and Queen Philippa, from both King William I and King Harold II.

Those bloodlines are again also repeated through Lord Darnley, Queenr Alexandra, Queen Mary and, again twice over, Prince Philip.

So for the King very much a family occasion.

Feast of St Giles

Today is the feast of St Giles, who has a wide number of patronages, as well as being one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as pilgrims visited his shrine in Provence he became very popular as a patron of churches, chapels and hospitals across much of Europe, and by no means least in England.

I was baptised at the church of St Giles in my home town of Pontefract and for many years the church was a very important part of my life. I have retained a devotion to St Giles, and he is a gentle, kindly, and wise saint to turn to.

The Mass of St Giles

National Gallery, London

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Looking online I found an article about him and his depiction in the now sadly incomplete and scattered altarpiece by the late medieval painter now known to us as The Master of St Giles, and which celebrated his life on the website of The New Liturgical Movement and first published in 2023.

The article can be found at The Life of St Giles

May St Giles pray for us

The face of an eleventh century man from Lincolnshire

I have shared articles in the past about facial reconstructions of human remains discovered in archaeological investigations.

The Standard recently reported on a facial reconstruction of a man who is thought to have died in 1079 or thereabouts, and who was buried in a place of honour in the middle of the Anglo-Saxon church of St Peter at Barton-upon-Humber in Lincolnshire.

There is a detailed description of the church from Great English Churches here

The church is now maintained by English Heritage and their illustrated website description can be seen at History of St Peter’s Church, Barton upon Humber

St Peter, Barton-upon-Humber

Image: greatenglishchurches.co.uk

The report on the study of the remains of the man, who appears to have been aged between fifty and sixty at the time of his death, and was thus born in the 1020s, can be accessed at Researchers reconstruct face of man who lived through Norman Conquest

 

The Beheading of St John the Baptist

Yesterday was the feast, depending on your choice of nomenclature of the Beheading, or of the Decollation, or of the Passion of St John the Baptist.

Over the years I have written quite frequently on his two feast days, of his birth and of his death about St John, devotion to him, depictions of him, and churches dedicated to him.

This time I am returning to a topic I wrote about in 2015, that of carved alabaster devotional images, especially for domestic settings, in An English Alabaster of the Head of St John the Baptist

An article from Substack discusses and illustrates examples of these carvings in Art for the Liturgical Year at Saint John the Baptist and the Forgotten Alabaster of Medieval England

Many examples of these face images of St John are in the V&A, and their website gives access to more photographs.

Other good examples dated to about 1450 and now in Aberdeen and in the Burrell collection can be seen at Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk)

Some, though by no means all, still have the decorated wooden housing which set them off, and which could be closed in Lent.

The number which survive out of what must have been a huge number in late medieval England would suggest that this was an image as popular then as the Sacred Heart, Our Lady of Lourdes or of Fatima or the Divine Mercy in modern Catholic homes.

This prompts me to comment, as I have before along with other historians and theologians, about the decline in devotion to St John the Baptist in modern times. In the Substack article linked to above is a citation of an article by Peter Kwasniewski from 2024 on the Liturgical Arts Journal on The Prominence of St John the Baptist in the Old Roman Rite which looks in part at this, although the decline in devotion to the Baptist is, I think, much earlier than the era of Vatican II. Is he perhaps to challenging and uncomfortable for the modern churchgoer?

The martyrdom itself is also depicted in alabaster panels, which were perhaps intended for a reredos.

A good example of this type survives in the V&A and the detailed catalogue entry with illustrations and discussion of the original paintwork can be seen at The Beheading of St John the Baptist | Unknown | V&A Explore The Collections

I have shared this relatively undamaged carving before and am doing so again. It is dated to the 1480s.

 

The martyrdom of St John the Baptist

Image:collections.vam.ac.uk

St John the Baptist pray for us

The Battle of Mohács 1526

 

Today is the 500th anniversary of the battle of Mohács in 1526 when the Ottoman forces overwhelmed the Hungarian army led by King Louis II and broke the ability of the realm to defend itself. In the folk memory of Hungarians it remains an unparalleled disaster.

This was to be followed by the Ottoman occupation of central Hungary in 1541, capturing Buda exactly fifteen years later on August 29th 1541, leaving the Habsburg King Ferdinand I with the west and north of the kingdom and his rival King John I from the Zápolya family holding Transylvania, and the Holy Crown of St Stephen. The Holy Crown was eventually returned to King Ferdinand and the eastern kingdom recognised as the principality of Transylvania under Ottoman suzerainty. 161 years after the battle is 1526 a second battle, almost on the anniversary, saw the Habsburg forces smash the Ottoman army in the second battle of Mohács and free most of the historic Hungarian realm from Turkish rule.
 

 Wikipedia has a detailed account of not just the battle but the historical background, the events leading up to the battle itself and the events afterwards. This can be read at Battle of Mohács

 

There is another detailed and illustrated account of the battle from the website The Past at The end of everything: the Battle of Mohács, 29 August 1526

Recent research into the abnormally wet weather conditions in 1526 in Hungary is set out in an article from  Daily News Hungary.com at Was the weather completely different 500 years ago? This is what was recorded in the days before the Battle of Mohács

Wikipedia also has a biography of the unfortunate King Louis II who drowned in the flight from the battlefield aged only twenty. This can be seen at Louis II of Hungary

King Louis II

A portrait by Titian

Image: Wikipedia 

 His body was subsequently recovered and buried in the royal church at Székesfehévár. His widow was to act initially as Regent of Hungary for her brother King Ferdinand and then for many years as Regent of the Netherlands for her elder brother the Emperor Charles V. She retired with him to Spain and died in 1558, and is buried at El Escorial. There is an online biography of her at Mary of Hungary (governor of the Netherlands)

A jousting Sallet of King Louis II 

Decorated with the intertwined initials L and M for himself and his wife Mary of Austria.

Image : metmuseum.org

It is thought to have been looted by the Ottomans from Buda and was found in what is now Istanbul. 

It is now in the Metropolitan Museum, and there is more about it at Attributed to Kolman Helmschmid - Jousting Sallet (Rennhut) Made for Louis II (1506–1526), King of Hungary and Bohemia - German, Augsburg - The Metropolitan Museum of Art