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 25 July 2011

The Hand of St James


Today is the feast of St James the Great. In addition to the great pilgrimage centre of Santiago de Compostella there is also the English devotion to him centred on the Hand of St James from Reading Abbey.

The relic came to there from the Empress Matilda, daughter of the founder of the abbey, King Henry I. She had been married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V and following his death in 1125 Matilda returned to England bringing with her the relic of the hand, which hitherto had been part of the Imperial treasure.

File:Matilda jidnrichInem.jpg

Emperor Henry V and Matilda

Image: Wikipedia

The King had founded the abbey of the Virgin and St John in 1121 with Cluniac monks, and endowed it with a formidible collection of relics. The Empress presented the apostle's hand to Reading where it became the principal one, being that of an apostle, the brother of St John the co-patron and a link with the Cluniac inspired pilgrimage to Santiago. From the relic came the use of the shell as an heraldic symbol by the abbey and town of Reading.

The story of the relic and the unsuccessful attempts of the Emperor Frederick I to regain it from King Henry II are retold by the late Prof. Karl Leyser in a splendid essay reprinted in his Medieval Germany and her neighbours. For an excellent biography of the Empress I would recommend Marjorie Chibnell's 1991 Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English.

Reconstruction of Reading Abbey - © Nash Ford Publishing

A reconstruction of Reading Abbey

Image:www.berkshirehistory.com/churches

The relic remained at Reading until the destruction of the abbey in 1539. There is more about the abbey on the website of the Friends of Reading Abbey. In 1786 workmen found what appears to be the holy hand in the ruins of the abbey - there is more about that here. The relic is now held at St Peter's Catholic church in Marlow.




The Holy Hand


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Is there any record of what the relic was used and how it was used?
relics are said to contain the spirit or entity of the dead one and like a genie is able to aid the possesors in their goals.
conssidering the sucsess of reading i belive this to be true in fact most weathly and powerfull cities have ancient relics.
thanks
j
jimilyall@hotmail.com