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, 2 February 2015

Candlemas


Today is Candlermas, the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple and of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

File:Maitre de Saint Severin Cologne 1465 1515 La Presentation au Temple.jpg

The Master of St Severin Cologne 1465-1515
Painted circa 1490
The Louvre

Image: Wikimedia

As regular readers will realise I am particularly fond of late medieval northern gothic art and its representation of  Biblical scenes in what was for the artist and patron a contemporary context, and all the delightful details of pre-reformation liturgical amd pious practise.

Candlemas has always had agreat appeal to me, and that has been reinfovced in Oxford by two things concerning institutions close to my heart. Today is the College Feast of Oriel, my college, and teh dtae of the foundation of the Oratory in england by that great Orielensis Bl. John Henry Newman in 1848. It ios therefore very much aday of festival in my personal calendar.

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1 comment:

Zephyrinus said...

Thank you for the marvellous Late-Mediaeval Posts on the Blog. Riveting reading.

May I wish you a Very Happy College Feast Day.

2 February 2015 at 20:31

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