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.


Wednesday 18 May 2016

St Eric of Sweden


Today is the feast of St Eric of Sweden, otherwise King Eric IX, and like St Olav of Norway and St Cnut of Denmark, a martyr King who became a patron of the monarchy and nation.

There is an online account of his life at Eric IX of Sweden

http://catholicsaints.info/wp-content/uploads/img-Saint-Eric-of-Sweden.jpg

A later medieval carving of St Eric 

Image:catholicsaints.info.

Last March Medieval Histories, a really excellent online journal from Denmark, and often with fascinating material on medieval Scandinavia, had the following illustrated feature about him:

St. Erik of Sweden – A study of the Bones in his Reliquary 
  Erik theSaint fromSweden being studied

Erik the I of Sweden (c. 1125 - 1160) was a stout man, used to fighting and a great fan of fresh-waterfish. And that he might have died as the legend tells  Read more.





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