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:
