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, 6 March 2016

Russian Coronations


A friend whom I saw over the weekend when he was back in Oxford has given me the link to a very interesting, illustrated article on the Russian Imperial Coronation ceremony, and in particular the way it evolved to emphasis the quasi-sacerdotal or diaconal position of the Emperor, and the problems ( or indeed lack thereof) occasioned by the series of Empresses in the eighteenth century who acted in an otherwise exclusively male role at their coronations.

It can be viewed at http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/print80559.htm



                       The Coronation of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra in 1896
                                           The Dowager Empress Marie Dagmar is to the left
                                                                    Laurens Tuxen, 1898

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