Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday, 6 December 2010

Relics of St Nicholas


St Nicholas is a saint whose cult has spread far and wide, and who retains his appeal - even if only as Santa Claus. Today is his feast day.

A few years ago I twice saw a programme on television about the relics preserved at Bari which are well attested to be those of the Saint. There is a page here from the St Nicholas Center about these and other relics elsewhere, and here there is an illustrated, English-language page on the examinations in the 1950s of the relics believed to be St Nicholas at Bari.

The St Nicholas Center appears from its website to be a rich source of information on all aspects of the Saint and his cult. The following image is taken from their piece about reconstructing the facial features of the skull at Bari:

Reconstructed face

Image: St Nicholas center

As the website shows this accords well with the iconographic tradition in Orthodoxy as to the appearance of St Nicholas.


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