Greyfriars return to Oxford

At noon today in Blackfriars here in Oxford two Franciscan Conventuals,  Bro. James Mary McInerney and Bro. Gerard MaryToman made their Solemn Profession as members of the Order (OFM Conv.) to the Vicar General, Fr Jerzy Norel, who had travelled from Rome for the occasion. This was the first time Franciscan Conventuals had been professed in Oxford  for almost 500 years and today can be seen as the formal beginning in Oxford of their new house here, which they will occupy next month.

Oxford does, of course, already have a Capuchin Franciscan house in Greyfriars in Iffley Road, but they are now to be joined by the Conventual Franciscans who are establishing themselves in the former convent of the Anglican All Saints Sisters of the Poor in St Mary's Road, just off the Cowley Road. They are well known for its work in running and promoting Hospice work for terminally ill children and teenagers in Helen and Douglas House. The building itself is an early work of Sir Ninian Comper. The site has been renamed The Friary. The Anglican Sisters will continue their work alongside the Hospices and based in smaller premises as part of the same complex. The Friary will become the main formation house for the Friars throughout the Custody of Great Britain and Ireland.

The interior of the chapel of the Convent

Image:Laurence Lew on Flickr

The chancel of the chapel

Image:asspoxford.org




The High Altar

Image: Allan Barton (Vitrearum) on Flickr

The website of this new Franciscan foundation can be seen, hopefully, at The Greyfriars | Oxford.
It will no doubt have the photographs which were being taken of todays professions and Mass.

There will no doubt be some confusion as to which is which community - but 'twas ever thus with the Franciscans. When it comes to habits theConventuals wear grey habits, the Capuchins wear brown habits.

The following paragraphs are adapted and supplemented from posts there, which reproduce piecues from the local press:


On Saturday 17th May 2014, the Friars from Blessed Agnellus of Pisa Formation House in Oxford appeared on the front page of the Oxford Mail .

 The interview came about after plans were unveiled that the Friars will be moving from their current home in Holton, near Wheatley, to a new home in Cowley just a short distance from the city centre. 12 friars will be making the move into the former All Saints Convent on St. Mary's Road in Cowley, formerly the home of the Anglican All Saints Sisters of the Poor. The Sisters will be relocating to a smaller residence nearby, and have been extremely positive about the friars' arrival in Cowley.

Greyfriar formator Friar Daniel Geary, 53, said: “It is going to be quite a wonderful and historic moment. “There will be 12 of us in the house of formation, with many being involved in training and going to classes. But part of that process is also to become involved with the area. Cowley is a very rich and diverse place and we look forward to joining the community.”

Known as the Greyfriars for their grey habits, two members of the Franciscan Conventuals first arrived in Oxford in 1224, having been sent to England by St Francis of Assisi.  In September that year nine Franciscans arrived ashore at Dover, led by Blessed Agnellus of Pisa, and chosen by St Francis of Assisi. In November 1224,after leaving five friars in Canterbury, two friars moved to London, and the last two settled in a house in Oxford. Here they established a major teaching foundation here which survived until 1538. In 1517 (an ominous year!) Pope Leo X divided Franciscans into Conventuals, who live in cities, and Observants, who live outside them.

In 1906, the Greyfriars returned to England. Then in 1928 another branch of Franciscans, the Capuchin Franciscans, took over the care of Greyfriars Hall in Iffley Road.

Last September the Greyfriars took a house in Holton, near Wheatley, and since then they have been hoping to move back to the city.

Paul Kennedy, 28, is currently training to be a friar. He said an increase in young recruits like himself prompted the Order to come back to Oxford. He said: “We thought it was a good reason to come back, it’s really quite exciting for all of us. “It has been a struggle to find somewhere that has enough bedrooms for all of us.  But we heard the All Saints sisters had left their convent because it was too big and they were more than happy to let us move in.”

The new convent is also next door to Helen & Douglas House, established by the Sisters, and the St John’s residential care home, which Paul says the Greyfriars will offer their services to.

He added: “We have already had much support from local groups and many of us study at Blackfriars Hall [in St Giles’]. “The reason we wanted to be back in a city is so we can work closely with the homeless, the poor and local schools. We hope if people know we are here they will come to us when they need us most.”

For those friars training for the priesthood, The Friary will be an ideal location for travelling in to the city centre for their classes at Blackfriars Hall. The multicultural Cowley Road is busy, colourful and lined with cafés, restaurants and shops, with a mixed population of students and professionals. On the same site as The Friary are Helen & Douglas House children’s hospice, and St. John’s nursing home; both of which have a long and fruitful history with the All Saints Sisters of the Poor who helped to establish them both. Student Friars are hoping to get involved with these ministries as part of their apostolates, and have already started volunteering at Helen and Douglas House and The Porch Steppin’ Stone Centre on nearby Magdalen Road.

The Friars spent two full days moving from their former home in Holon, near Wheatley and are now looking forward to a short break before they begin their summer assignments. The Friary will officially open in September with the start of the new academic year, and the Friars will welcome two new postulants and also the return of three post-novices from the United States.

The Community asks for  prayers during this time of transition, and also for the All Saints Sisters of the Poor.

St Augustine's Abbey Canterbury

Today is the feast of St Augustine of Canterbury, who died in 605. The monastery of SS Peter and Paul which he founded at Canterbury to the east of his cathedral in 598, became his shrine church. In the tenth century St Dunstan added the dedication to St Augustine, which became the name by which the abbey was known, and it became one of the great Benedictine houses of medieval England - indeed the first where the abbot had the right to wear pontificalia, a papal grant made in 1063. There is an online version of a useful illustrated history of the abbey from 1896 here, and a contemporary online account with illustrations and links here. 

I recall Fr Hunwicke making the point that the plan of Christian Canterbury was arguably based on that of Rome, with the cathedral church of Christ inside the city as with the Lateran (itself primarily dedicated to Christ) and SS Peter and Paul outside the walls, like the Vatican and St Paul's in Rome, but combined into one in the Kentish city. I cannot find the exact link, but he makes related points about following Roman patterns in Fr Arthur Middleton and my Biretta, a post from 2009.


Other than the fine late medieval gatehouse little of it survives today beyond foundations in the care of English Heritage. Until 1822 however much of one of the western towers of the great romanesque church, known as Ethelbert's tower after the King baptised by St Augustine in 597, survived.

Ethelbert's Tower in 1800

image:anglicanhistory.org

The local historian William Gostling recorded that

"On the morning of the 10th of October, 1822, the S.S.W. corner of the Tower, known by the name of Ethelbert's Tower, comprising about one half of what remained of that venerable edifice, and amounting in weight to many hundred tons, and nearly seventy feet in height, fell with a tremendous crash, cracking by the shock the remaining part, the altitude of which was about one hundred feet, and presenting a grand, but terrifically dangerous appearance. On the Thursday subsequent to the accident, which was occasioned by a tremendous high wind, an attempt was made to pull down that which was left standing, by inserting large timbers through the various fissures; but this trial was extremely futile; a plan of a more formidable kind, (a battering ram) was then adopted, which likewise, in the onset, proved of no avail; but, upon its removal, and being directed in another position, that justly admired and very ancient structure, yielded its majestic head to the force of the machine, in the afternoon of Thursday, October 24th. Its descent was awfully grand, and to the lover of antiquity, grievous. Thus fell an edifice, consecrated by ages, and rendered sacred by its association with some of the most important and intereseting events in our local and national history."

St. Ethelbert's Tower had an internal space about 16 feet square, walls 4 1/2 feet thick. It was erected A.D. 1038-50, and was a fine piece of Norman architecture.

Watercolour of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury by John Bulman, 1780 - 1800

Image: Artfund.org /© Beaney House of Art and Knowledge

This was not the only loss in this period. Henry Ward in the Canterbury Guide, published in 1843, records how 

"In the common cemetery which adjoins the church southward, about sixty feet from it, there stood, till lately, a large massive ruin, composed of flint and rubble stone, of an extraordinary thickness, having been to all appearance, two sides of a campanile or bell tower. It was taken down in 1793, by the united efforts of nearly 200 men, the materials, exclusive of rubbish, amounting to nearly 500 cart loads."

With acknowledgements to Machadoinck.com for these quotations 

The remains of St Augustine's Abbey in 1703.

The Ethelbert tower is centre right

 image:anglicanhistory.org

The fate of St Augstine's is reminder of how much has been lost, and indeed how significant remains survived to be recorded by antiquarians but are lost to us other than in their descriptions and drawings.

At Trinity Hall in Cambridge there survives a remarkable piece of late medieval antiquarian information about the abbey. Here is an extract from their blog, which had featured the Canterbury Gospels and their use at the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury:


" One item due to play a key role in the ceremony is the St Augustine’s Gospels (Corpus Christi College MS286). This magnificent manuscript is a vulgate text of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and was probably brought to England by St Augustine in 597. The practice of using St Augustine’s Gospels for the enthronement of the Archbishops of Canterbury was revived in 1945. The Parker Librarian, Christopher de Hamel, will remain in charge of this precious manuscript throughout the ceremony.

St Augustine’s Gospels viewed via the Parker Library on the web

But why is a Corpus manuscript featuring in our Old Library blog and what its connection to Trinity Hall?

The answer lies in one of our own most precious manuscripts Thomas Elmham Historiae Abbatiae S. Augustini (Trinity Hall, Cambridge, MS1) created in about 1410-1413. On one leaf of Thomas of Elmham’s history is a remarkable early plan of the East end of St Augustine’s Abbey. It is finely drawn in red, blue and black and features the chapels of the East end, various reliquaries, the high altar and the altar screen.

Plan of the East end of St Augustine’s Abbey (Trinity Hall Cambridge MS.1)

“At the top of the screen are six books identified by a small inscription as the books sent from Pope Gregory (the Great) to Augustine”. The entry in the Cambridge Illuminations exhibition catalogue continues, “It is intrinsically probable that they included the St Augustine’s Gospels.” Thus our manuscript contains the earliest depiction of the Gospels used for the enthronement of the new Archbishop! As one of the holiest works in Britain it is more than likely that St Augustine’s Gospels were kept as an object of veneration with other sacred texts above the high altar of the Abbey.

The six holy books above the high altar of St Augustine’s Abbey

The Abbey was destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries and remains a ruin today. The monastic library was dispersed and its manuscripts came onto the open market. Our manuscript was collected by the antiquarian and Catholic sympathizer, Robert Hare (d. 1611), who was a great donor not only to Trinity Hall but also to the University Library. Thomas Elmham’s Historiae Abbatiae S. Augustini came to us as a result of Hare’s friendship with Henry Harvey (Master of Trinity Hall 1559-1585) and has been a treasured by the College ever since.

Robert Hare’s signature

Source:oldlibrarytrinityhall.wordpress.com

Here is an engraing of part of the Thorne plan, showing the High Altar and its reliquaries , and which is a very important source for what was the appearance oif the interior of major monastic churches. Its influence can be seen in some of the twentieth century works of that great designer Sir Ninian Comper.

Image:ljudmila.com

London churches - existing and envisaged

One of my regular readers has drawn my attention to two post by other bloggers which make for interesting reading.

The first, from last November, on the Jacobite Intelligencer is an account of the oldest Catholic churches in London, and can be read here. Of these I have worshipped at St James Spanish Place, which is very splendid, and seen St Patrick Soho Square from the outside, and hear good things of its life as a parish. I knew of the former Sardinian chapel in Kingsway but have not so far seen it. The old Royal Bavarian Chapel in Warwick Street has, of course, been in the news and on the blogosphere recently, and not for its architecture but rather for hosting rather debatable activities.

In any case an inducement to do a church crawl in London sometime to view the architecture.

The other post is more recent and from Andrew Cusack with a "what might have been" - the design by Sir Ninian Comper for a new church at Clerkenwell for the Venerable Priory of St John of Jerusalem, that is the nineteenth centuryAnglican re-establishment of the English branch of the Order of Malta. The design looks very fine indeed, and an interesting, indeed exhilarating, combination of styles.

Image: Ayla Lepine / Watch This Space

I suspect the central altar owes something to the Crusading knights chapel at Tomar in Portugal, about which there is an article here, and ultimately the Holy Sepulchre itself. As so often in these case of grand designs it is to be regretted that the scheme was not carried out. The article can be read here.

St Wilfrid's Cantley

The New Liturgical Movement has a post about Sir Ninian Comper and St Wilfrid's, Cantley, South Yorkshire, which is well worth looking at.

This exquisite church interior by Comper is his recreation of what he considered a late medieval English parish church might have looked like. The result may, conceivably, be more finely done than the originals were, but it is a delight.

I have only visited the church once, although it is in my home area, being just on the southern outskirts of Doncaster. In recent years an extension has been made, successfully in my opinion, to the small medieval building to create, in effect, a second, modern church reusing nineteenth century furnishings from an aisle added then to what was originally a simple medieval structure of chancel, nave and tower.

The adjacent country house, Cantley Hall, was owned by the Childers family, one of whom, Hugh Culling Eardley Childers was MP for Pontefract 1860-71 and 1872-85, serving as First Lord of the Admiralty, Home Secretary and later Chancellor of the Exchequer in the governments of Gladstone and Rosebery, and he is depicted in stained glass in the church as St Hugh of Lincoln.
 
His re-election in 1872 for the Pontefract seat was, incidentally, the first Parliamentary election by secret ballot.

Comper's interior at Cantley is an outstanding example of his work - probably his most complete restoration of a medieval church - and also an outstanding example of Anglican artistic patrimony.