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 26 April 2023

The Collegiate Church of Holy Trinity Edinburgh


The BBC News website reported recently about the identification of some carved stonework in Edinburgh as being from the Collegiate Church of Holy Trinity, which was tragically demolished in 1848 to make way for Waverley Station. The plan was to store the stonework re-erect the church. By the time that happened in 1872 quite a bit of the masonry had gone missing and the resulting rebuilding in Chalmers Close was significantly less than the original church. It was presumably in this mid-nineteenth century period that the recently identified stonework migrated. The report about them can be read at Mystery carvings came from dismantled royal church


The church from the north in the early 1840s

Image: Wikipedia 

building had been left uncompleted in the fifteenth century. It was founded in 1460 by Queen Mary of Guelders, the widow of King James II, as a memorial to her husband who had been killed at the siege of Roxburgh that year. Although work on the project clearly continued after her death in 1463, when she was buried in the church, the nave of the church was never built, nor was the central tower completed. Wikipedia has a very detailed account of the foundation and building, and of its subsequent fate, with excellent illustrations and plans. This can all be seen at Trinity College Kirk

The Wikipedia life of the Queen can be seen at Mary of Guelders

However there is in addition an excellent online biography and appraisal of Queen Mary from the weavingthetapestry project at Mary of Guelders, Queen of Scots (c.1433-1460)

There is a somewhat shorter account that is also well balanced from Medievalists. net at Mary of Guelders, Queen of Scotland


Her activities as a builder are described in a video which can be seen at Mary of Guelders and the Architecture of Queenship in fifteenth-century Scotland


One unique and beautiful treasure does survive from the medieval church - the two sided wings of the altar piece which depict on the outside the Holy Trinity and the first Provost, Edward Bonkhill, accompanied by an Angel organist and, on the inside, Queen Mary’s son King James III with St Andrew and his Queen, Margaret of Denmark, with St George.


Hugo van der Goes circa 1478-9
Royal Collection on permanent loan to the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh  

Image: Wikipedia 


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1 comment:

Zephyrinus said...

A riveting read. Thank You, John.

27 April 2023 at 12:44

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