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, 15 August 2024

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Kersey


Whilst we are in Suffolk it seems sensible to take in the Shrine of Our Lady in the parish church at Kersey, south east of Bury St Edmunds.

In 2020 the Shrine of Our Lady of Kersey was re-established in the historic church of this Suffolk village. The rededication by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich was reported upon by the BBC News site at Shrine at Suffolk church rebuilt after 400 years

From that it is clear that the medieval statue was of Our Lady of Pity, an image that was especially popular in the late middle ages when Kersey had literally made its name as one of the most famous weaving towns of Suffolk. Wikipedia has an article about kersey cloth, which, as it demonstrates, was by no means an exclusive product of the village by as early as the thirteenth century. The article can be seen at Kersey (cloth)

There is an illustrated account of the church and the restoration of the shrine on Wikipedia at St Mary's Church, Kersey

Wikipedia has a very brief account of the exceptionally attractive village at Kersey, Suffolk

If you want to read about the 1957 “time-slip” experience of the three naval cadets, and it is thought provoking, the Smithsonian Magazine article from 2011 can be accessed at When Three British Boys Traveled to Medieval England (Or Did They?)

The same author has another article on his blog A Blast from the Past about the phenomenon of retocognition which can be read at A Scottish spinster at the Battle of Nechtanesmere, 685AD

Whilst such instances of retrocognition and realisation may well be explicable as sensory aberrations they remain a phenomenon that somehow still defies quite so simple an explanation.

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


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