Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Walsingham

So finally, perhaps mentally footsore after the curious and circuitous route, and in need of a drink ( or two, or more )  at The Bull or another of Walsingham’s hostelries after making our devotions, the Pilgrimage finally arrives at its destination, England’s Nazareth, the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

 After this possibly arduous journey there is not just the reward of arriving in the holy and blessed place that is Walsingham - and I assure readers that it is so - there are, for historic and institutional reasons two shrines, not one, and neither on the original site of the Holy House and the adjacent Augustinian Priory. All that survives above ground is the east wall and gable of the church, plus fragments of the domestic buildings, a gateway and the holy wells. Of the original Holy House and its later surrounding structure nothing is to be seen. The canons and local laypeople provided some martyrs as the shrine was destroyed, and it fell something like two generations later to St Philip Howard to record the desolation in “Walsingham Farewell”. 

 

The Slipper Chapel 

Built circa 1325 and now part of the Catholic National Shrine

Image: walsinghamvillage.org

   

The interior of the restored Slipper Chapel

Image: walsinghamvillage.org

 

The history of the restoration and development of the contemporary Catholic shrine can be read at

The history of the restoration of the Slipper Chapel and the creation of the contemporary Catholic National Shrine  - now a minor basilica - can be read at The Roman Catholic Shrine of our Lady, the Slipper Chapel • Walsingham, Norfolk

The traditional narrative that pilgrims removed their footwear to walk barefoot the Old English Mile - slightly longer than a Statute one - into the village tends to stress the idea that this was penitential. That may well be the case, but I wonder if it was also because Walsingham was seen as being holy ground.

There is more about the history of Walsingham and the tradition of pilgrimage at The history of Walsingham, Norfolk

The statue in the Anglican created in the 1920s and based upon the Priory seal

Image: stmarybonita.org

The interior of the Holy House in the Anglican Shrine 

It is the same size as the medieval one

The altar and tester are by Sir Ninian Comper

The statue of Our Lady wears a festal cope

Image: explorenorfolkuk.co.uk

There is a detailed reconstruction of what it would have been to be in Walsingham in an article by the late John Ashdown-Hill in The Ricardian This describes the pilgrimage made in 1469 by King Edward IV and his younger brother the Duke of Gloucester. It can be read at HhlhTwKnA2heZ853I

A cut-away reconstruction of the Holy House and priory church in the period 1500-35

The Holy House is shown as being wattle and daub but archaeological investigation suggests the structure was made of split tree trunks like the church at Greensted in Essex

The well house for the springs can be seen at the top left

Image: Stephen Conlin - MeisterDrucke

 My previous posts about aspects of the Walsingham shrine, including material about the possible survival of the original statue, now known as the Langham Madonna in the V&A, and my own sense of involvement and belonging at the Shrines, can be accessed from that for last year at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Walsingham 

The Langham Madonna and the modern Catholic shrine  statue

 

Image: The Living Church 

 

May Our Lady of Walsingham intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray 

Marian Pilgrimage- Our Lady of the Red Mount Kings Lynn

The Pilgrimage now makes its penultimate stop at the chapel of Our Lady of the Red Mount in Kings Lynn.

 

   

Our Lady of the Red Mount

Image: Kings Lynn Civic Society

The vault of the upper chapel 

Image: Facebook - Borough of Kings Lynn

A reconstruction of the original roof

Image: GetArchive

   

This remarkable building was built as a chapel for pilgrims making their way to Walsingham. First proposed in 1483 and authorised in 1485 the upper chapel was added in 1506. It was rendered redundant by the destruction free Walsingham shrine, yet it survived, as is recounted in The remarkable tale  of Red Mount Chapel

There as a well-illustrated account on the Britain Express website at Red Mount Chapel, King's Lynn

My previous notes on the chapel can be accessed through those for last year at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady on the Red Mount at King’s Lynn

In two of those articles I mention the Book of Margery Kempe. This ubique dictated autobiography by a Kings Lynn businesswoman and housewife recounting her pilgrimages and her spiritual insights opens windows into early fifteenth century England in ways no other work does. If you have not read it I urge readers to do so. Margery is nothing if not her own woman - likeable, infuriating, amazing, very different yet very similar to ourselves.

 

May Our Lady of the Red Mount intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Ardenbergh in Great Yarmouth

 The Pilgrimage now makes its way into the important medieval fishing town and commercial port of Great Yarmouth, and to its extremely large parish church of St Nicholas.

Here, in the churchyard east of the church, was the now long-lost chapel of Our Lady of Ardenbergh. This, as I explain in my earlier posts, which can be accessed through Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady “of Ardenbergh” at Great Yarmouth, was a commemoration of the part played by Yarmouth sailors in the victory at the battle of Sluys in 1340.

St Nicholas 1821

This showmen’s the church from the north-east. The chapel of Our Lady of Ardenbergh stood in the churchyard to the east of the 

 

Image: professorhedgehogjournal

 

St Nicholas Church Great Yarmouth

A print published in 1826 showing the view from the south-west

Image: rareoldprints.com

The church in 1880

Image:AbeBooks

The history of the church, and its curious plan,can be read in the Wikipedia account of its development  over the centuries in Great_Yarmouth_Minster

The drastic mid-Victorian restoration resulted in the church outwardly looking like a building of that time rather than being medieval. Bombing in WWII resulted in the church being completely burnt out. The 1950s restoration incorporated some radical changes but created a spacious place of worship, but does not feel particularly old. Unfortunately the timber and lead spire was not rebuilt.

May Our Lady “of Ardenbergh” intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Oak at St Martin’s in Norwich

The Pilgrimage now goes into Norwich and heads for one of the city centre parishes north of the river Wensum, that of St Martin at Oak. It was in the branches of that oak in the churchyard that there stood a statue of Our Lady which from at least the reign of King Edward II attracted offerings as well as care in terms of maintaining the paintwork of the figure.

St Martin at Oak 

James Sillett (1764-1840)

Image: Norfolk Museums Service - artuk.org

St Martin at Oak circa 1909

Image: JBArchive

 

My post from last year is, like others, linked to my previous ones about the shrine. These note include some more about other statues of Our Lady that were places in trees as at Islington or visions of her in ones, as at Evesham, and, more recently, Fatima. These can all be accessed from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Oak at St Martin’s in Norwich

The church today

As a result of bomb damage in WWII the upper part of the tower was, regrettably, not rebuilt

Image: Wikipedia 

May Our Lady of the Oak intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

The Fall of Constantinople in 1453

Today is the 573rd anniversary of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. I am told that as it was a Tuesday. to this day Greek people refuse to start a new project on that day of the week.

The always instructive website on Ancient Greek history and culture Greek Reporter has an interesting piece today which offers some new insights into the background, the events of the siege and the final assault from a new book by a US academic.

In particular he rejects the inevitablist interpretation of what happened and indicates that various other possible outcomes might have happened.

I am not a Byzantinust, and beyond reading something about the events of 1453 and being interested in their true place in wider European history, I can claim no expertise. However the arguments set out in the article seem well made and well worth considering.

The article can be read at Why Constantinople’s Fall Was Not Inevitable. 

The detailed Wikipedia biography of the last Byzantine Emperor whose body was never discovered can be seen at Constantine_XI_Palaiologos 

   

 

 

Emperor Constantine XI

A modern statue in Athens

Image: Orthodoxwiki

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Winfarthing and Our Lady of Weston

Moving north-eastwards the next two stops on the Pilgrimage are at the churches of St Mary at Winfarthing in Norfolk and St Peter at Weston in Suffolk.

 

My previous posts about these two shrines can be found from last year’s notes at Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Winfarthing and Our Lady of Weston

Nothing apart from the fact that it existed appears to be known about the devotion at Weston, which is a  simple unaisled building.

  

Winfarthing is better documented but, as my notes across the years show it suggests shall we say, a distinctive local, and community based, set of ideas in the parish. As I have written in previous years it reads like a synopsis for one or more M.R.Janes stories.

 

Winfarthing Church

 

Image: English-church-architecture 

 Weston Church

Image: Facebook - Chris Droffats on Historic churches uk

May Our Lady of Winfarthing and Our Lady of Weston intercede for us

 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Stoke by Clare

Travelling northwards the Pilgrimage now stops at the parish church of St John the Baptist at Stoke by Clare in Suffolk, and in an area we have already visited.

In 1124  the first Clare Earl of Hertford moved a small community of Benedictines from the great abbey of Bec out of his castle at Clare and established them alongside the church in Stoke. In the fourteenth century this was one of those foundations classified as an alien  priory during the Hundred Years War. When the remaining ones were merged or dissolved and their estates reassigned to other religions houses by legislation in 1415 the Earl of March as Lord of Clare and successor to the original founder secured the refoundation of the Priory as a college of secular canons. Incidentally the final Papal approval of the new statues was secured by “my” Bishop Fleming of Lincoln as he left the household of Martin V to travel to his new diocese in 1420. He appears to have been a friend of the first Dean of Stoke, and requested that at the end of each day, the community should recite the Salve Regina in the Lady Chapel. 

 

That there was a particular devotion to Our Lady at Stoke us recorded but virtually nothing more about it is known. I suspect it originated with the monks, and it may be one of the reasons Earl Edmund sought to refound the community.

The VCH Suffolk account of the history of the college is detailed and very interesting. It can be read here

Stoke by Clare Church

Image: A Church Near You

 

The largely fifteenth century church of St John the Baptist is a handsome and sizeable one with transepts and side chapels, and the college founded by Earl Edmund in 1415 seems to have had in part an educational intent for the local community.

The college was dissolved in 1548 and its last Dean was Matthew Parker, who in 1559 became holder of the see of Canterbury 

The church from the south east

Image: thornber.net

May Our Lady of Stoke by Clare intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Runwell

After their unexpected diversion to the lower reaches the Medway the Pilgrimage resumes in Essex. One can perhaps envisage out hypothetical medieval alter ego taking a boat from the Medway or perhaps from King Edward III’s new development of Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey, across the Thames to the Essex shore, landing maybe in Prittlewell.

The first object of the Pilgrimage is Our Lady’s Well at Runwell which is a few miles inland and due south of Chelmsford. This has been claimed as the only holy well in Essex

My source for this is a post from The Northern Antiquarian which can be seen at Our Lady’s Well, Runwell, Essex

That article seems to assemble such evidence as there is, and of which the quotation from the parish registers in 1602 to the Shrine of the Bl. Virgin of Runnyngewelle  appears the most striking.

There is some more information on The Megalithic Portal at The Running Well 

The Essex Field Club has a brief account, giving the first date of a record of its existence as 1768, at Geology Site Account: Running Well

It might be significant, but then again might not , that the parish church is also dedicated to St Mary

The church of St Mary Runwell

Image: Wickford and Runwell parish

May Our Lady of Runwell intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Oak Apple Day

I wish a happy and joyful Oak Apple Day to my readers  and hope that some at least will be able to take part in some of the traditional ways of celebrating the Restoration of King Charles II to his thrones in 1660. 

King Charles II in his new regalia and robes of state as King of England in 1661

Image: Royal Collection - Wikipedia 

I have found short online pieces that are relevant to today. The first is a Country Life article from 2015 about the observance of the day as a holiday and the various customs that survive in different towns and villages. It can be read at Bring back Oak Apple Day

The second is from the National Churches Trust and follows the itinerary of the King’s flight from Worcester in the autumn of 1651 to his eventual escape from what is now Brighton and to safety in France. It can be found at Oak apple day 

 

King Charles II at the time of the Battle of Worcester 

Image: History Today

In addition there is a 2001 History Today article about the King’s time at Boscobel House in Shropshire where he did hide for a day in the branches of the famous oak tree near the house. The account can be read at Charles II Hides in the Boscobel Oak

 

Now that we once again have a King Charles it seems to reinforce the case for making more of Oak Apple Day.

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Gillingham and Our Lady of Chatham

These two shrines are an addition to the original itinerary, and also a further deviation from what was planned for this year. However, to my good fortune, I came across the website of avereginamaria.info This had material which I had seen before but had forgotten.  

This concerns two parochial shrines on the banks of the Medway, just outside Rochester in Kent, at Gillingham and Chatham.

I have slightly edited and amended the account which comes from Fr J.S.Northcote Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna  1868 

The niche in which stood the famous statue of Our Lady of Gillingham may still be seen over the west door of the ancient parish church which likewise contained a cross which was held to be miraculous. 

Gillingham Church

The niche for the statue can still be seen on the west face of the tower

 

Image: Geograph - David Martin 

Even  more celebrated was the neighbouring sanctuary of Chatham, an ancient Norman church, now destroyed, in which existed many singular and beautiful remains of ancient architecture. Under the entrance arch to the north porch appeared an empty niche and bracket with figures of angels at the sides extending their wings as if over the head of the figure of Our Lady that formerly occupied it, and other angels bending prostrate towards Her. In this niche the famous image is believed to have stood, ….. [W]hen the old church was pulled down in 1788…. fragments of sculpture richly painted and gilt were discovered among the materials with  

which the east window had been built up. Among these fragments were headless figures of the Blessed Virgin and Her Divine Child. The figure of Our Lady was dressed in a mantle fastened across the breast by a fibula in which still remained some pieces of coloured glass in imitation of precious stones.  This was in all probability the ancient and much-honoured statue of Our Lady of Chatham, desecrated at the time of the reformation, and broken up with other building rubbish for the purpose of yet further defacing the church in which it had been honoured for centuries, by blocking its window.

A mid-sixteenth century map of the Medway below Rochester, with north at the bottom 

Chatham church can be seen on the left

Image: Alamy 

 

Mention of both these last-named sanctuaries occurs in a legend preserved by William Lambarde in his pioneering county history A Perambulation of Kent, published in 1576. 

It happened on a certain day, he says, that the corpse of some unknown man was cast on shore somewhere within the parish of Chatham, and was by charitable persons given burial in the church-yard. That night, however, as the parish clerk of Chatham slept, he was aroused by a voice at his window, and asking who was there, it was answered that Our Lady of Chatham willed him to know that the person lately buried near unto the place where She was honored was a sinner, “which so offended Her eye with his ghastly grinning, that unless he were removed, She could not but (to the great grief of good people) withdraw Herself from that place, and cease Her wonted miraculous working among them,” and therefore She willed him to take up the corpse and cast it back into the river. The clerk accordingly arose, and going to the church yard disinterred the body, and conveyed it to the spot where it was first found. Being carried away by the waters it was again taken out by some of the parishioners of Gillingham, who did as those of Chatham had done before them, and buried it in their church-yard. “But see what followed: not only the Cross of Gillingham, that a while before bestowed many miracles, was now deprived of its virtue, but even the very earth where the carcass was laid did continually forever after sink and settle downwards.” 

May Our Lady of Gillingham and Our Lady of Chatham intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Caversham

From Reading, the Pilgrimage now crosses the Thames to go to what was one of the most important and also best recorded Marian shines of mediaeval England. That was the shrine of  Our Lady of Caversham, and having been exquisitely restored in the twentieth century, is one can visit today, but not in its original location 

My post from last year, which links to previous ones which give quite a detailed account of the history of the shrine, and of its recreation, can be accessed by following the links from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Caversham 

The crowned statue with the recent wall paintings 

Image: ourladyandstanne.org

A closer view of the statue

Image: ourladyandstanne.org

  

The Norman style chapel built in the 1950s attached to the Edwardian church

Image: ourladyandstanne.org

The chapel is so technically accurate one could believe it to be twelfth not twentieth century 

Image: interfaithmary.net

May Our Lady of Caversham intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Reading

Moving along the banks of the Thames the Pilgrimage now pauses at King Henry I’s great Cluniac Benedictine foundation of Reading Abbey. Its close connection with the descendants of the founder and proximity to Windsor ensured it hosted royal weddings and burials as well as Great Councils and at least one Parliament 

Reconstruction of Reading Abbey circa 1500

A model in Reading Museum

Image: Friends of Reading Abbey - Reading Museum

 

Plan of Reading Abbey

It appears similar to that of Bury St Edmunds.

The easternmost chapel seems to have been replaced by a larger Lady Chapel in later centuries

 

Image: Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture 

An older plan that indicates the later Lady Chapel but not the two flanking chapels. This does include the known claustral buildings 

Image: Friends of Reading Abbey

. 

 As I have pointed out in my notes for other years, all of which are accessible from my post last year are accessible at Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Reading

To that I would add the revised and updated Wikipedia

entry at Reading_Abbey

It is good to learn from that about the conservation and enhancement of the site. Reading was one of the great abbeys of medieval England yet its bartered rubble core remains were to the uninitiated unappreciated. They certainly were and are a testimony to the fury of destruction that fell on the abbey in 1539 and the martyrdom on the site of the last abbot, Bl. Hugh Farringdon.  

 

Together with new features in the already fascinating Reading Museum - with a sizeable display on Roman Silchester and a nineteenth century embroidered facsimile of the Bayeux Tapestry -  Reading Abbey is very well worth visiting

May Our Lady of Reading intercede for us and our intentions

 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Windsor

 

Travelling back to the eastern limits of the medieval diocese of Salisbury the Pilgrimage now comes to Windsor and the devotion to Our Lady at St George’s Chapel within Windsor Castle - and possibly by extension at the nearby foundation of King Henry VI at Eton College.

My previous posts on the images at the centre of Marian veneration at Windsor can be accessed from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Windsor

By working back through the links to my.first, and most detailed one in 2020, readers will see that I suggest sine if the statues might have resembled the wonderful, yet but delightfully charming Goldenes Rossl given in 1405 as a New Year’s gift to King Charles VI of France by his Queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, and which the King almost immediately gave to the Queen’s brother, the Duke of Bavaria, which is why it now survives at the great Bavarian Marian shrine at Alttöting

 

I have now copied some close up images of this exquisite object and which give an ideas of the opulence of court and ecclesiastical art at the time. In spirit at least such objects as this piece and others in the Louvre and British Museum, anticipate Fabergé’s Imperial Easter Eggs
 

King Charles VI of France kneels before the Virgin and Child

Image:ima.princeton.edu

Our Lady and the Christ Child

Image: antonbrandl.de

Detail of King Charles VI

Image: antonbrandl.de

May Our Lady of Windsor intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Northende Sherborne

This visit on the Pilgrimage is another addition to the itinerary, and one that brings us to one of my favourite churches, Sherborne Abbey in Dorset.

The outside has the calm elegance of its fifteenth century renewal, whilst the interior is a sublime place of prayer created over the decades associated with the Wars of the Roses. Sherborne is a wonderful antidote to seeing the fifteenth century as gloom and doom. What is more the seemingly effortless rhythm of the masonry literally conceals the fact that the core of the building is the late Anglo-Saxon cathedral, and not an entirely new building. For all its varied and sometimes turbulent history, not least when the present appearance of the church was taking shape in the fifteenth century the abbey has an ordered spiritual calm that transcends time and space.

Wikipedia has a detailed history, which includes the sometimes fraught relations between the abbey community and the townspeople over parochial rights, which can be read at Sherborne_Abbey

 

Sherborne Abbey from the south west

The pseudo-Norman porch is an unfortunate Victorian recreation replacing the fifteenth century re-casing

The destroyed church All Hallows extended west from the main abbey. The springer for its easternmost window can be seen. The shrine of Our Lady was in the area in shadow

Image: Sherborne Abbey

The interior looking east

Image: Wikipedia 

Sherborne Abbey with the attached church of All Hallows circa 1530

Image: strongwomen.org.uk

The statue of what was known as Our Lady of Northende stood in the now destroyed parish church of All Hallows in a chapel at the extreme east end of the north aisle. This appears to have been resorted to by local women in particular.

 

Fortunately here there survive churchwardens accounts from the early sixteenth century recording offerings at the shrine. Thus we actually have named pilgrims and benefactors to the statue. The rarely preserved details of devotion can be read in Our Lady of Northerne, All Hallows church, Sherborne

The sanctuary of Sherborne Abbey

Image: CleverDeverWherever

May Our Lady of Northende Sherborne 

intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Salisbury

The Pilgrimage now travels westward from Hampshire to the cathedral city of Salisbury in Wiltshire. Salisbury is still, as it was in the medieval period, dominated by the cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

Salisbury Cathedral

Image:Wikipedia 

Salisbury was a specific focus by reason of the dedication for Marian prayer but there seems to be no clear evidence of a specific statue as at the similarly dedicated cathedral at Lincoln.

Our Lady of Salisbury, pilgrim badge

Although not that clear the badge does shows standing figure of Our Lady holding the Christ Child rather than the earlier enthroned type

Image: Wessex Museums

 

The Virgin Mary, being patron of Salisbury Cathedral, was believed to protect Salisbury’s citizens. In 1409 a local girl watching a game of quoits was hit on the head by an iron ring – she recovered after bystanders prayed to Our Lady of Salisbury. The Wessex Museum service says the shrine was popular with pilgrims from Europe, but unfortunately does not give further details.

Salisbury Cathedral in the 1670s

On the left is the bell tower which was built in the early 1260s and tragically demolished in 1790.

This is how the cathedral would have appeared to medieval pilgrims

Image: rareoldprints.com

There is more about the bell tower in my 2011 post Vandalism at Salisbury Cathedral and I still believe it should be rebuilt, not least because then the cathedral could have bells again - it is one of three Anglian cathedrals that do not have any.

The Salisbury bell tower 

The octagonal upper stage and spire were of wood and removed some years before the final demolition 

Image: Wikinedia Commons

May Our Lady of Salisbury intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray