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.


Friday 19 May 2023

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady at the Pillar St Edmundsbury


In my previous posts about this shrine I commented on the eccentric route the Pilgrimage takes around the country as it now dashes back to Suffolk and to Bury St Edmunds/St Edmundsbury. As I explain in my original post this was a late medieval shrine in the parish church of St Mary rather than in the Abbey, which appears to have had three Lady Chapels of its own.

My posts about this shrine from previous years can be found at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady at the Pillar St Edmundsbury

The Abbey was s frequent place for royal visits in the medieval period and the original burial place in 1533 of King Henry VIII’s sister Mary, sometime ( and very briefly ) Queen of France and then Duchess of Suffolk. Following the dissolution of the monastery and the abandonment of the idea of creating a cathedral foundation in the abbey church her body was moved to St Mary’s Church where it still lies.

Our Lady at the Pillar pray for The King and The Queen and for us all.


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