Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of The Four Tapers at St Albans

The Pilgrimage now returns to south-eastern England and the great medieval - and indeed modern - destination for pilgrims of St Albans. 

On this Pilgrimage the focus is less on St Alban and St Amphibalus, though they should never be ignored, but on a particular focus of Marian devotion, the statue and altar of Our Lady of the Four Tapers. This altar was, and is, in the south-east corner of the presbytery ambulatory, and just to the right of the Lady Chapel.

My post from last year has links to those from earlier years, most notably that from 2020 which sets out the quite complicated story of the moves of this devotion around the abbey church. We know more about these relocations thanks to the great tradition at St Albans of maintaining I I a chronicle. 

 

These links can all be accessed from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Four Tapers in St Albans

St Albans Cathedral and Abbey is, in my opinion, with its amazing fusion of medieval history, art and architecture, and its legacy of prayer and spirituality, one of the most intensely moving historic churches to visit. The damage and neglect it suffered for several centuries, followed by an over-enthusiastic late Victorian restoration give it a vulnerability that is almost palpable. 

  

St Albans Abbey in the late middle ages 

Image: Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban and St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society

May Our Lady of The Four Tapers at St Albans intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray