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.


Thursday, 9 May 2024

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Oxford


The Pilgrimage now sets off towards the ancient Universirty cities, with Oxford the first destination. As I point out in my notes below there does not appear to have been a particular statue or image identified as Our Lady of Oxford in the Middle Ages, and each church doubtless had its own. However the likeliest candidate as the one to which St Edmund of Abingdon ‘betrothed’ himself seems to have been in St Mary’s parish church in the High, and the church used then and now by the University. Waterton suggests St Nicholas which was eventually taken over by the Dominicans but I would still favour St Mary’s as the church concerned. 

As Waterton says there were - and still are - many images of the Virgin in the churches of Oxford, but no single image was uniquely ‘Our Lady of Oxford’.

My main post about these statues was written in 2021 and can be seen at Our Lady of Oxford

I added a supplementary note last year at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Oxford

May Our Lady of Oxford pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all


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