Once I Was A Clever Boy: The "Seña" on Spy Wednesday

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.

Saturday, 25 April 2020

The "Seña" on Spy Wednesday

The Liturgical Arts Journal has a handsomely illustrated article about this custom in the cathedral of Quito in Ecuador at Vespers on Spy Wednesday. As Lucas Viar points out his article although it survives in Quito and three Venezuelan cathedrals it was once more widespread in Latin America, including Lima, of which there are photographs of the discontinued ceremony, and derives from the cathedral in Seville. That was for a long period the mother church of New Spain. Its customs travelled across the Atlantic, and thus what appears to be a fascinating, not to say remarkable example of fourteenth or fifteenth century piety has survived but upon a different shore.

The article can be viewed at The "Seña" on Spy Wednesday

A friend who spent a gap year teaching in Quito told me about this ceremony and I was pleased to be able to share the article with him when I found it.