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.


Tuesday 18 July 2023

The Wintour Vestments


Staying on a traditionalist liturgical theme, and with the clear warning that this has nothing to do with a tie in between Vogue and Mass of Ages, the Liturgical Arts Journal had an article about the vestments made by Helena Wintour in the seventeenth century which can be seen at Vestments of Recusant England: The Peasecod Chasuble of Helen of Wintour

The background to Helena and her embroidery, and the subsequent history of the vestments - now divided between Douai and Stonyhurst, is set out more clearly on Wikipedia at The Wintour vestments

I have seen the point made that given the covert nature of recusancy and the risks involved it is striking that these vestments, made for worship in hidden chapels and behind necessarily closed doors, yielded nothing to such circumstances. They are not the seventeenth century equivalent of tie-dyed hop sack decorated with felt stuck on with copydex. They are as splendid as could possibly be, made of the finest materials, because nothing less than the very best was worthy of the Sacrifice of the Mass.


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