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 St Hilary of Poitiers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St Hilary of Poitiers. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 January 2015

More medieval images of St Hilary



Following on from my recent post here are some more medieval images of St Hilary of Poitiers, courtesy of John Dillon from the Medieval Religion discussion group. Click on the links to view the pictures:

a) Hilary of Poitiers as depicted in an eleventh-century copy of his Vita by St. Venantius Fortunatus (Montpellier, Faculté de Médecine, ms. 48, fol. 31v):

b) Hilary of Poitiers' soul received by angels as portrayed on a later eleventh- or early twelfth-century capital in the église Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand in Poitiers:

c) Hilary of Poitiers (at right) blessing St. Troecia / Troesia (Ste. Triaise) as portrayed on an earlier twelfth-century relief now in the Musée Sainte-Croix in Poitiers:

d) Hilary of Poitiers' soul received by an angel as portrayed on the surviving fragment of his mid-to-later twelfth-century cenotaph in the église Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand in Poitiers:
Detailed views, at different resolutions, of a cast of this sculpture belonging to the Musées de Poitiers are available here:

e) Hilary of Poitiers (at left) at the Council of Seleucia and devils inspiring and tormenting the non-Nicene (heretical) bishops as portrayed on the later twelfth-century lintel of the west portal of the église (ancienne collégiale) Saint-Hilaire in Sémur-en-Brionnais (Saône-et-Loire):
Detailed views:

f) Hilary of Poitiers treading on the dragon of heresy as depicted by Savalo of Saint-Amand in a later twelfth-century (third quarter) copy of his De Trinitate, De synodis, and Liber in Constantium imperatorem (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin. 166, fol. 3v):

g) Hilary of Poitiers as depicted (four scenes) in the late twelfth-century Navarre Picture Bible from Pamplona (Amiens, Bibliothèques d'Amiens Métropole, ms. 108, fol. 214v):
Detail (Hilary instructing heretics):

h) Hilary of Poitiers blessing St. Martin of Tours as depicted in a panel of the earlier thirteenth-century St. Martin window (ca. 1215-1225) in the ambulatory of the basilique cathédrale Notre-Dame in Chartres:

i) Hilary of Poitiers' soul received by an angel as depicted in a later thirteenth-century gradual (ca. 1250-1260) for the Use of the abbey of Notre-Dame at Fontevrault
(Limoges, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 54r):

j) Hilary of Poitiers (at centre) at a council as depicted in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 20v; image greatly expandable):

k) Hilary of Poitiers (at right) consecrating St. Martin of Tours bishop as depicted in a panel of the late thirteenth- or early fourteenth-century St. Martin window in the cathédrale Saint-Gatien in Tours:

l) Hilary of Poitiers' consecration as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century (second quarter) French-language collection of saint's lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 211r):

m) Hilary of Poitiers and other bishops fighting heretics 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. 38v):

n) Hilary of Poitiers as depicted by Jean Bandini in a late fourteenth-century book of prayers (payments recorded, 1385 and 1386) made for the Avignonese Pope Clement VII (Avignon, Bibliothèque-Médiathèque Municipale Ceccano, ms. 6733, fol. 30r):

o) Hilary of Poitiers driving out the serpents as depicted in an early fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 242, fol. 32v):

p) Hilary of Poitiers at a council as depicted by Jean Fouquet in his now dismembered mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Étienne Chevalier (1450s; this folio in the Musée Condé, Chantilly [Oise], ms. 71, fol. 36r):

q) Hilary of Poitiers (at centre in the image at left) at the Council of Seleucia as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 138v):

r) Hilary of Poitiers as depicted in a late fifteenth-century Book of Hours (ca. 1490) for the Use of Tours (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, ms. 507, fol. 174r):

s) Hilary of Poitiers (at left, lower half of the page) as depicted in a hand-colored woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) at fol. CXXXIr:

Another list member, Genevra Kornbluth, added the following image of St Hilary with St Martin, a fourteenth century embroidery (second photo):



Tuesday, 13 January 2015

St Hilary and St Martin


Today is the feast of St Hilary of Poitiers, the fourth century Gaulish champion of orthodoxy in respect of the Divinity of Christ.

He also was the bishop who ordained St Martin of Tours as an acolyte. In this panel from the St Martin window in the church of St Martin in York St Martin is depicted as acolyte at a Mass celebrated by St Hilary. The window dates from circa 1442, and was the gift of the vicar Robert Semer. Originally the west window of the church it was removed in 1940 and so survived the bombing of the church in 1942. In the peculiar, and to my mind, highly dubious scheme of restoration of part of the church - once a fine moid-fifteenth century building - it is now situated in the new north wall.

photo

Image: Gordon Plumb on Flickr

Sunday, 8 June 2014

Pentecost


Today is Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit, whether we think of it as a consuming fire, a rushing wind, a stream of water, or the gift of eloquence in tongues.


 

Image:fisheaters.com 


Hail this joyful day's return,
hail the Pentecostal morn,
morn when our ascended Lord
on his Church his Spirit poured! Alleluia!

Like to clove tongues of flame
on the twelve the Spirit came--
tongues, that earth may hear their call,
fire, that love may burn in all. Alleluia!

Lord, to you your people bend;
unto us your Spirit send;
blessings of this sacred day
grant us, dearest Lord, we pray. Alleluia!

You who did our forebears guide,
with their children still abide;
grant us pardon, grant us peace,
till our earthly wanderings cease. Alleluia!


Words: Attributed to St Hilary of Poitiers (d.368);
trans. Robert Campbell (1814-1868)

Text:oremus.org 
  
This is the hymn that we sing as the introit on Pentecost at the Solemn Mass at the Oxford Oratory. I like it not just because it is an ancient hymn but because, unlike some of the better known, and excellent, hymns associated with this season it emphasises the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church rather than to individuals. The Holy Spirit is bestowed upon the Church as the Body and the Bride of Christ, and so is mediated to the individual members of the whole in union with it and other members.

Few images of Pentecost convey in any adequate way to my mind the transforming and renewing power of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here is a detail of one which does suggest the reality described in the Acts of the Apostles:


Pentecost
Detail from the painting by El Greco 

Image:bustedhalo.com