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.


Tuesday 9 December 2014

The Meeting at the Golden Gate


In the middle ages the standard representation of the fact of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady was the meeting of St Anne and St Joachim at the Golden Gate.

Here are some depictions of that event in medieval stained glass, posted by the Rev Gordon Plumb on the Medieval Religion discussion group; all of them date from the end of the fifteenth or the very beginning of the sixteenth century:

A few medieval, some of them restored, images of the Meeting or Kiss at the Golden Gate:

Elland, St Mary the Virgin, West Yorkshire, East window, 3a:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15218851455

Rouen, St Ouen, Bay 30:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15491062969

Great Malvern Priory, Worcestershire, NII:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15317572766

Gresford, Denbighshire:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15243404958
There are more views, posted by Dr Madeleine Gray, of the glass in this window at:
http://stainedglass.llgc.org.uk/image/6335
Click below the photo for the larger version - and scroll down for thumbnails of the rest of the sequence.


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