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.


Sunday, 30 November 2014

The Martyrdom of St Andrew


Courtesy of Matthew Heintzelman on the Medieval Religion discussion group:

Saint Andrew, preaching from his cross:

"Having said these words, he shed his garments and gave them to the executioners, who fixed him to the cross as they had been commanded. For two days Andrew hung there alive and preached to twenty thousand people. On the third day the crowd began to threaten the proconsul Aegeus with death, saying that a saintly, gentle man should not be made to suffer so; and Aegeus came to have the saint released. Seeing him, Andrew exclaimed: 'Why have you come here, Aegeus? If to seek forgiveness, you will be forgiven; but if to take me down from the cross, know that I will not come down alive, for already I see my king awaiting me." When the soldiers tried to free him, they could not even touch him: their arms fell powerless at their sides."

From Jacobus de Voragine "Golden Legend" (Princeton, 2012 reprint; pp. 17-18)


Image of St Andrew, from the Hours of Bona Sforza

The Crucifixion of St Andrew from the Hours of Bona Sforza, 
Gerard or Lucas Horenbout, Ghent, circa 1517-1521, 130 x 95 mm, 
Add. MS 34294, f. 189
 
  Image: Copyright © The British Library Board

For the eventful life of Queen Bona, who was married to King Sigismund I of Poland see the online article at Bona Sforza.

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