St Wilfrid

Today is the Feast of St Wilfrid, the great Northumbrian born seventh and early eighth century Bishop of York, and then of Hexham, founder of what became the see of Chichester, tireless missionary and a determined and combative fighter for the rights of the Church and its adhesion to the Roman obedience.

I have posted about him in 2010 in St Wilfrid, in 2011 in Celebrating St Wilfrid, in 2013 in More on St Wilfrid, and in 2022 in St Wilfrid. These cover more of his life and achievements, and have links to relevant sites.

I have also written about his place in the formation of Fr Faber in my 2011 article St Wilfrid and Fr Faber. Continuing the Oratorian theme in 2013 I wrote about the foundation at the church of St Wilfrid in York of a new Oratory in the city in St Wilfrid's York

A modern depiction of St Wilfrid

Image: St. Wilfrid’s Catholic High School

A while back I happened upon an online piece which interviewed the author of an English Historical Review article about the way in which those who claimed the St Wilfrid on his deathbed in 709/10 at Oundle had nominated them to succeed him in the abbacy at Ripon or to the see of Hexham, and happened to be the only witnesses to what the saint had said…. The article can be read at Historian turns detective to uncover ancient Ripon conspiracy

Whilst looking for illustrations I found a very well illustrated account of Hexham Abbey ( strictly speaking Priory) on the website of Great English Churches. This has, in addition to splendid views of the interior of the later medieval church and of the stone episcopal seat from the Anglo-Saxon era, a good selection of pictures of the significant quantity of painted decorative woodwork from the fifteenth century in the building. It may not be the greatest art but it does indicate what medieval church interiors were like. The article can be seen at Hexham Abbey

Hexham Abbey is very well worth seeing, as is the very attractive town centre as part of an exploration of Hadrian’s Wall, looking for the Wars of the Roses battlefield or at the Jacobite associations of Dilston Castle, or simply enjoying the glorious Northumberland countryside.

St Wilfrid Pray for us

Commemorating Fr Faber

Today is the the 150th anniversary of the death of Fr F.W. Faber C.O. He was 49, and had been in poor health for some time before his death. Nonetheless he had established the London Oratory and been a prolific writer of devotional books as well as of hymns.

The New Liturgical Movement website has the text of a recent address by Fr Anthony Symondson SJ to mark the anniversary.  It can be read at A Tribute to Fr. Frederick William Faber.

Fr Faber as a young man
This is a rather different image than in the surviving photographs of him in his last years

 Image:nunraw.blogspot

The present Provost of the London Oratory, Fr Julian Large C.O., has also been writing about Fr Faber and the commemoation of his death. His excellent letter to the parishioners on the subject of his great predecessor can be read here. 

Given Fr Faber's devotion to St Wilfrid, which I have written about before in St Wilfrid and Fr Faber, it seems very appropriate that Oratorians from Oxford, the University where Faber was a student, should be about to take on the administration of the church of St Wilfrid in York, in the county where he was born.

St Wilfrid and Fr Faber

Having written my posts St Wilfrid two years ago about his life and cult and last year about two of the churches under his patronage I was wondering what to say about him today when, searching for images of him on the internet I came across this one, of a statue in the church at Cotton in Staffordshire. It is not in itself a great work of art, but it is an interesting link between St Wilfrid and one of the great figures of the English nineteenth century Church, Fr F.W. Faber.

Statue of St Wilfrid
St Wilfrid's Catholic church, Cotton, Staffordshire

Image: Mr Po on Flickr

Fr Faber, the Oxford DNB life of whom by Sheridan Gilley can be read here, was born at Calverley in the West Riding  in 1814, although he only spent the first six months of his life in the village, about which there is an online article here. His grandfather, Thomas Faber, was the Vicar and Frederick William was born at the vicarage. The medieval church at Calverley, in which he was baptised is dedicated to St Wilfrid, and in later life Faber was to exhibit considerable devotion to the seventh and eighth century Bishop whose Roman preferences shaped the evolution of the Northumbrian church. Devotion to English saints was, of course, a hallmark of the Oxford Movement.

Thus upon his reception it was under the patronage of St Wilfrid that Fr Faber made his initial foundation at Cotton, known as the Wilfidians, built a church under St Wilfrid's patronage, and was to take the name Wilfrid in religion.

In later years at London the Oratory came to have a chapel of St Wilfrid, where Faber's remains now lie, and St Wilfrid's Hall.

 

St Wilfrid's Calverley

Image: Wikimedia commons

St Wilfrid's Calverley may then be seen, in a sense, to be a somewhat surprising mother church to the London Oratory.

Vilifying and celebrating Archbishop Laud

The fact that Archbishop Laud, about whom I posted earlier today, was a controversial figure, both in his own times and subsequently, is undoubted. There are two contrasting, but not unreasonable, interpretations, both of which make some good points, which can be read here and here.

The Archbishop was described by Fuller as "low of stature, little in bulk, cheerful in countenance (wherein gravity and quickness were all compounded), of a sharp and piercing eye, clear judgment and (abating the influence of age) firm memory."

The presentation of his readily recognisable image in picture and word expressed the views of others about him.

An engraving by William Marshall is unsympathetic in showing the Archbishop in his later years after his fall from power

Image:npg.org.uk

A hostile cartoon of 1644: The Devil offers a horned Archbishop Laud a cardinal's hat.

Presumably this is to go with his mitre - something in itself which Laud would never have worn.

The figure on the left is presumably an allusion to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, whilst that on the right proffers a biretta, rosary,a cross and surpliceas well as a bag of relics or for a pyx.

The items on the table may be meant to be money or Hosts.

Image:gutenburg.org

Another hostile pamphlet from the time of the Archbishop's execution

scholarsresource.com

The Oxford Movement rediscovers Laud

Image:openlibrary.org

The Expectation of Our Lady

I was charmed as usual last Sunday by the recessional hymn we sang following the Solemn Mass at the Oxford Oratory. It is by Fr F.W.Faber (1814-63) and I thought I would share it with readers.

It is Faber at his best - presenting theological truth with warmth and emotion, and using vivid images, but it is restrained at the same time - not as 'over the top' as he could be when it came to devotion to Our Lady. I am grateful to my friend Irim Sarwar who hunted out the text on the internet for me. The hymn's charm is enhanced by its lilting, slightly bouncy tune, which is from an Oratorian compilation of 1870, and can be founfd in the Oratory sponsored Catholic Hymnal. It seems a very appropriate piece to share on Christmas Eve.

Like the dawning of the morning
On the mountains’ golden heights,
Like the breaking of the moon-beams
On the gloom of cloudy nights;
Like a secret told by Angels,
Getting known upon the earth,
Is the Mother’s Expectation
Of Messiah’s speedy birth.

Thou wert happy, Blessed Mother,
With the very bliss of Heaven,
Since the Angel’s salutation
In thy raptured ear was given;
Since the Ave of that midnight,
When thou wert anointed Queen,
Like a river over-flowing
Hath the grace within thee been.

On the mountains of Judea,
Like the chariot of the Lord,
Thou wert lifted in thy spirit
By the uncreated Word;
Gifts and graces flowed upon thee
In a sweet celestial strife
And the growing of thy Burden
Was the lightening of thy life.

And what wonders have been in thee
All the day and all the night,
While the angels fell before thee,
To adore the Light of Light.
While the glory of the Father
Hath been in thee as a home,
And the sceptre of creation
Hath been wielded in thy womb.

And the sweet strains of the Psalmist
Were a joy beyond control,
And the visions of the prophets
Burnt like transports in thy soul;
But the Burden that was growing,
And was felt so tenderly,
It was Heaven, it was Heaven,
Come before its time to thee.

Oh the feeling of thy Burden,
It was touch and taste and sight;
It was newer still and newer,
All those nine months, day and night.
Like a treasure unexhausted,
Like a vision uconfess’d,
Like a rapture unforgotten,
It lay ever at they breast.

Every moment did that Burden
Press upon thee with new grace;
Happy Mother! Thou art longing
To behold the Saviour’s Face!
Oh his Human face and features
Must be passing sweet to see
Thou hast seen them, happy Mother!
Ah then, show them now to me.

Thou hast waited, Child of David,
And thy waiting now is o’er;
Thou hast seen Him, Blessed Mother,
And wilt see Him evermore!
O His Human Face and Features,
They were passing sweet to see;
Thou beholdest them this moment,
Mother, show them now to me.

St Wilfrid

The other week I posted some comments about St Wilfrid in connection with the proposed Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda, and as to day is his Feast it seems suitable to say something more.

Apropos the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda, which certainly in the case of Wilfrid is most inappropriately named, I would point to Fr Hunwicke's comments which can be found here here; I agree with his choice of the word daft.

It is worth reflecting upon Fr Faber's choice of the patronage and, indeed, name of Wilfrid. Frederick William Faber took Wilfrid as his patron for his foundation at Cotton in Staffordshire and then at the Londoon Oratory, where there is both St Wilfrid's chapel - where the remains of Faber are now buried - and St Wilfrid's Hall. Faber himself chose the name Wilfrid as his name in religion. This was, I assume, not merely a tribute to a great Anglo-Saxon saint with a strong sene of the importance of the Roman obedience. but also a personal reminiscence of the historic parish church dedicated to St Wilfrid in Faber's birthplace, Calverley in the West Riding.

Image from St Wilfrid's Catholic Primary School, Ripon

St Wilfrid's medieval cult was extensive, and centred on Ripon, where some of these traditions have been revived during the twentieth century. At both Ripon and Hexham the crypts of the churches he built still survive. This site from Ripon has a series of articles about Wilfrid and his abbey church there and its archaeology and can be viewed here.

A view of the present Ripon Minster before the fall of the spire on the central tower in 1660 and the subsequent removal of those on the western towers - a reminder of what has been lost even from those churches which emerged still roofed from the disasters of the sixteenth century.

His relics appear to have been removed later in the Anglo-Saxon period to Canterbury, although this was disputed by the church at Ripon and York. If they were moved it is tribute to the perception of his status as a national figure.

Seen as a great patron of the see of York the arms ascribed to him - three suns (not stars as in the icon above) - are prominent in the medieval decoration of York Minster, although there his cult perhaps declined with the rise of that of St William in the twelfth century and devotion to Archbishop Scrope in the fifteenth century. Many churches were dedicated to him, a tradition which has been revived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, notably in Yorkshire and Sussex. These include the spectacular Temple Moore designed church in Harrogate - the town's only Grade I building.

The Anglican church of St Wilfrid Bognor Regis has a very good site about pilgrimages parishioners made to places associated with their patron and other very useful information about him here.

To mark the feast I borrowed Bertram Colgrave's edition of Eddius Stephanus The Life of Bishop Wilfrid (Cambridge UP) from the Oxford Union Library. I recommended the book recently as a valuable source, and must admit that, apart from extracts, I had not read the text through before, though I have meant to for many years.

Eddius' text raises not a few textual questions which are discussed by Colgrave, but it is full of interest and unstinting admiration for its hero. Wilfrid emerges as a major figure by any standards - a courageous and holy bishop and missionary, a loyal son of the Roman church, and a significant political figure not only in England (if that term can be used for his era) but also on his travels to and through the Frankish kingdoms. He inspired love and respect as well as fear and antipathy from his contemporaries.

Wilfrid was a man of prayer and profound faith. His conception of the proper dignity of a bishop and of unswerving fidelity to Rome helped reinforce and develop the strong Anglo-Saxon link to the Holy See that floewd from St Augustine's mission. In his clashes with rulers of Northumbria, and indeed with Frankish rulers he anticipates the Church-State conflicts of later centuries.

Given his achievements it is perhaps sad that he is not better known nationally and venerated as a figure in the life of the Church in England.

Chichester Cathedral - photograph from St Wilfrid's Bognor Regis.

The fishing net recalls Bede's story of how Wilfrid taught the people of Sussex to fish with nets during a famine.
I think this modern image captures something of Wilfrid'determination and resolve and suggests his noble birth.

Assumption at Sandford on Thames

A conversation this afternoon between two friends about the carving of the Assumption of Our Lady in Sandford on Thames church, which lies just to the south of Oxford, and which I regret to say I have not so far managed to get to see, led me to search for it in the internet. I found this photo by Martin Beek on Flickr:

• 

Church of St Andrew.

The great treasure in this church is the unique carving mounted in the south wall of the chancel.It was carved from Barrington stone at the beginning of 15th century and depicts the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The carving of the Virgin is surrounded by an aureole with two angels below the figure holding a reliquary. The carving was hidden to protect it and was discovered in 1723 face down near the south porch where it had been used as a step.

It seemed an appropriate thing to share on this eve of the Assumption, and indeed to make it better known.

In addition to that summary I would point readers to three interesting posts from 2008 by Fr Hunwicke about the sculpture, which add to the story and provide food for thought. They can be found here, and here and here.

Whatever the precise source of the carving it is yet another reminder of what was lost from English churches both in terms of art and devotion during the sixteenth century.