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.


Showing posts with label Cult of St James the Great. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cult of St James the Great. Show all posts

Monday, 25 July 2016

Santiago de Compostella


Today is the feast of St James the Great, the patron saint of Spain, and with his great shrine church at Santiago de Compostella.

image1.jpeg

St James the Moor Slayer

Image: breviary.net 


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Santiago de Compostella

Image: us-mg42.mail


The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

Image: breviary.net


A friend from the Oxford Oratory has been walking the Pilgrimage route, El Camino, for several weeks. For Daniel this is more than the usual test of endurance - he always has to walk with crutches.
He arrived his on crutches there yesterday and sent the following message to his friends:

" I arrived in Santiago this afternoon, have paid my respects to the Apostle, said my prayers and am now eating Lemon and Orujo Sorbet and having a beer (Estrella de Galicia, of course) in the cafeteria of the Hotel Reyes Catholicos."

A great achievement on his part. Happy feast day to him and all other pilgrims to St James





Saturday, 25 July 2015

More images of St James


John Dillon posted a whole series of further images of St James the Great that are either late antique and medieval on the Medieval Religion discussion group site:

a) as depicted in the very late fifth- or early sixth-century mosaics (betw. 494 and 519) in the Cappella Arcivescovile at Ravenna:
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/pelegrino/5779785736/

b) as depicted (at center) in the earlier sixth-century mosaics (betw. 527 and 548) of the basilica di San Vitale in Ravenna:
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/33563858@N00/5222652208

c) as depicted (fourth from left) in the earlier to mid-sixth-century mosaics of the presbytery arch (carefully restored, 1890-1900) in the Basilica Eufrasiana in Poreč:

d) as portrayed in relief (at far left) on a leaf of the mid-tenth-century ivory Harbaville Triptych in the Musée du Louvre, Paris:
 http://tinyurl.com/qdsovlz

e) as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored betw. 1953 and 1962) in the narthex of the katholikon of the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:

f) as depicted (bottom register at far right; after St. Paul) in the mid-twelfth-century mosaics (c1143) of the chiesa di Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (a.k.a. chiesa della Martorana) in Palermo:
 http://tinyurl.com/pohhre5 http://tinyurl.com/ouzt3ts

g) as depicted (lower register, center) in the mid-twelfth-century apse mosaics (completed in 1148) of the basilica cattedrale della Trasfigurazione in Cefalù:

h) as depicted in the later twelfth-century Ascension fresco (betw. 1176 and 1200) in St. George's Church, Staraya Ladoga (Leningrad oblast):
 http://www.icon-art.info/hires.php?lng=en&type=11&id=1436

i) as portrayed in relief on the late twelfth-century portal (betw. 1190 and 1200) of the basilique primatiale Saint-Trophime at Arles:
 http://tinyurl.com/3u59z6z http://tinyurl.com/orr4xql 

j) as depicted (upper right, after St. Andrew) in the late twelfth- or very early thirteenth-century wooden altar frontal of Baltarga in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona: http://www.museunacional.cat/sites/default/files/015804-000.JPG

k) as portrayed in relief in an earlier thirteenth-century enameled copper repoussé plaque of Limousin origin (ca. 1220-1230) from the high altar of the abbey church of Grandmont, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

l) as portrayed in relief on the mid-thirteenth-century châsse of St. Eleutherius in the cathedral of Tournai/Doornik:

m) as depicted in the mid-thirteenth-century Touke Psalter from Bruges (ca. 1250-1260; Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, Walters ms. W.36, fol. 50r): 

n) as depicted (at left; at right, St. Peter) in a thirteenth-century fresco in Matera's rupestrian church of San Giovanni in Monterrone:
 http://www.wikimatera.it/home/operation/foto/2792.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7386/9934235046_cb756af24b_b.jpg

o) as depicted in a later thirteenth-century fresco in the circle of the apostles on the ceiling of the baptistery of Parma: http://www.cattedrale.parma.it/Img/voltabatt/61-giacomoM_Z.jpg 

p) as depicted in the late thirteenth-century Livre d'images de Madame Marie (ca. 1285-1290; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 66r):

q) as depicted (martyrdom; image greatly expandable) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of Jacopo da Varazze's Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 81v): http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000944A.jpg

r) as depicted (martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (ca. 1301-1350), with illuminations attributed to the Fauvel Master, of a collection of French-language saint's lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 34v):

s) as depicted by the workshop of Simone Martini in an early fourteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1317-1320) in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC: 

Saint James Major


t) as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century copy (1348) of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 169v):

u) as depicted in a mid-fourteenth-century panel painting (betw. 1355 and 1360) by Andrea di Vanni d'Andrea, now in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples:
Detail view:

v) as portrayed in relief (third from right) on the late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century tomb of St. Wendelin in his basilica in Sankt Wendel:

w) as portrayed in relief in a fifteenth-century English alabaster in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London:



x) as depicted by Martino da Verona (attrib.) in an early fifteenth-century fresco in the chiesa di San Giacomo del in Vago di Lavagno (VR) in the Veneto: 

y) as depicted in an earlier fifteenth-century fresco (ca. 1440) in Ballerups kirke, Ballerup (Sjælland):  

z) as depicted by Cosmè Tura in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (ca. 1475) from a dismembered altarpiece, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen:  

aa) as portrayed in a later fifteenth-century limestone statue (betw. 1475 and 1500) of Burgundian origin in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:  

bb) as depicted (at upper left) on one of the wings (closed position) of Hans Memling's later fifteenth-century St. John Altarpiece (completed ca. 1479) in the Memlingmuseum, Sint-Janshospitaal, Bruges: http://www.wga.hu/art/m/memling/2middle2/13john4.jpg 
Detail view:

cc) as portrayed by Gil de Siloe in a late fifteenth-century alabaster statue (ca. 1489–1493) now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 1486, Isabel of Castile, patroness of the explorer Christopher Columbus, commissioned an elaborate alabaster tomb for her parents, King Juan II of Castile and his Queen Isabel of Portugal. This star-shaped tomb, still standing in the center of the church of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, outside Burgos, was made between 1489 and 1493 by Siloe, a sculptor thought to be of Netherlandish origin. This statuette of the patron saint of Spain is known from old photographs to have been originally placed near the head of the Queen.:


dd) as portrayed in a very late fifteenth- or very early sixteenth-century wooden statue from Hasslöv (Hallands län), now in the Historiska Museet in Stockholm:  

ee) as portrayed (third from left) in the very late fifteenth- or very early sixteenth-century statues of the apostles (betw. 1498 and 1509) in the south porch of the chapelle St.-Herbot in Saint-Herbot, a locality of Plonévez-du-Faou (Finistère): 

ff) as portrayed (seated) in an early sixteenth-century polychromed wooden statue (betw. 1501 and 1515) in the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin:


St James the Great


Today is the feast day of St James the Great.

Here in the Thames Valley Reading Abbey was given a relic of him in form of one of his hands by the Empress Matilda. The Empress had brought this back to England after the death of her first husband the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, and although it properly belonged to the Imperial collection she, her son King Henry Ii and the monks of Reading ensured it stayed in England. Today it is now preserved in the Catholic church in Marlow. I have posted about this previously in The Hand of St James and in More on the Holy Hand of Reading.

There is more about it in an illustrated post from a blogger here, and a piece about both the hand and other aspects of medieval English devotion to St James here

Gordon Plumb has posted on the Medieval Religion discussion group site more of his photographs of medieval stained glass images of St James the Great:

Chartres, Cathédrale Notre Dame, Bay 5, St James window set of images:

Acaster Malbis. Holy Trinity, Yorkshire, east window, 3d-4d:

Barton upon Humber, St Peter, east window( ex, at present in storage with English Heritage in York awaiting conservation - which is where I photographed it):
and detail:

Oxford, Merton College Chapel, west window:

North Tuddenham, St Mary, Porch, Norfolk, porch, west window, 1b-3b:
detail:

York, St Mary Castlegate, sIII, 2b:
and detail:

York Minster, wI, 5f-7f, 1340's (right-hand figure):

Harpley, St Lawrence, Norfolk, wI, A4:

York, All Saints North Street, sVI, 2a-3a:
and detail:

Stamford, Browne's Hospital, sII, 9a-11a:

Icklingham, All Saints, Norfolk, sII, 2b (figure on right):

Langport, All Saints, Somerset, east window, c2:

Bourges, Cathédrale St Étienne, Bay 27 father and mother of Pierre Trousseau presented by St James the Great, :

Bourges, Cathédrale St Étienne, Bay 25, Annunciation with St James and St Catherine:

Tattershall, Holy Trinity, Lincolnshire, east window, 3b:

Gloucester Cathedral, east window (figure on left)

Doddiscombsleigh, St Michael, Devon, nIII, 2a:
and detail: