St John of Beverley and his minster

Today is the anniversary of the death of St John of Beverley in 721, a saint about whom I posted in October on the feast of his translation in St John of Beverley. Today gives an opportunity, or excuse, to post another picture of the great medieval church which arose at his cult centre in Beverley. Being a bit off the beaten track it is not as well known as it deserves to be - Beverley Minster is one of the glories of high and later medieval Yorkshire and England, a treasure house of sculpture as well as soaring architecture.

The High Altar of Beverley Minster.

The building is early thirteenth century, the reredos from the fourteenth century and the east window, with its medieval glass, an earlier fifteenth century insertion. In the middle ages the relics of St John rested in their shrine on the top of the reredos. To the left of the altar can be seen part of the Percy tomb from the early fourteenth century.

Image:urbex.co.uk

St John of Beverley

Today has been the feast of the translation of St John of Beverley. St John, a former Bishop of York, died on May 7th 721, and was buried in the monastery he had founded at Beverley.

St John of Beverley.
Early sixteenth century glass in the chapel of The Queen's College,Oxford.
The figure was re-set in later glass when the chapel was rebuilt in the early eighteenth century.

Image:Lawrence Lew OP on Flickr

The church, or more particularly, St John himself, at Beverley received great benefactions from King Athelstan in the 930s, and the saint and king were often depicted together in and around the Minster. It was at Beverley that in 1037 at the time of his formal canonisation (or perhaps a recognitio) his relics were translated to a new shrine, the event which is commemorated today - still his feast in northern Catholic dioceses rather than his dies natalis. His shrine church at Beverley was, in effect, a pro-cathedral within the diocese of York, served by a college of canons and with a residence for the Archbishop adjacent to it.

Just over a century later, in 1138 there is the earliest existing mention of St John's banner when Archbishop Thurstan incorporated it, with those of St Cuthbert and St Wilfrid into the standard which gave its name to the Battle of the Standard when the invading Scots were defeated.

In 1188 a fire severely damaged the minster in Beverley, and not until 1197 were the relics of the saint recovered and in the following decades the rebuilding of the church led to the creation of the present Beverley Minster, one of the most beautiful, and possibly, situated as it is off the beaten tract for tourists, one of the least known of the great churches of medieval England.

Beverley Minster

Image: walkingenglishman.com

By 1266 it was accepted that when levies from were made in Yorkshire for the royal army, it was sufficient for Beverley to send one man with the banner of St John. In 1292 a new shrine was commissioned by the Chapter. An extant contract between Roger de Faringdon and the Canons of Beverley specifies

"a silver-gilt shrine, made from gold and silver supplied by the Chapter, 5 feet long, 1 foot wide. Of proportionate height, beautiful, and adorned with plates and columns in architectural style with figures everywhere of size and number as the Chapter determine, and canopies and pinnacles before and behind, and other proper ornaments. Roger to remake any figure at the whim of The Chapter. The pay to be silver equal to the weight used before gilding. Roger may not undertake any other work before completion."

On 25 October 1307 John's relics were translated to the new tomb. The new shrine is usually stated to have been elevated on the top of the reredos screen behind the high altar, and not on a seperate pedestal.

King Edward I was a devotee of St John and furthered the cult, and in 1295 the King established a chantry in Beverley Minster in the saint's honour. In 1301, he gave 50 marks towards the building of the shrine and he also diverted half of a fine owed by the town to the same purpose and ceded the remaining half. The King visited the Minster in 1296, 1297, and 1300 on his way north to fight the Scots and took the banner of St John to aid him. The banner was also used in military campaigns by King Edward II, King Edward III and King Henry IV, and King Richard II stopped at Beverley on his Scottish campaign of 1385.

In 1415 King Henry V gave the credit for his victory at the Battle of Agincourt to the miraculous intervention of St John, the battle having been fought on this anniversary of John's translation. On the day of the battle, blood and oil were seen running from the shrine. The King made John one of the patrons of the royal household and Archbishop Chichele of Canterbury ordered that both of his feasts on May 7 and October 25 were to be celebrated throughout England. King Henry and his new Queen Katherine came to Beverley in 1420 to make offerings at the saint's shrine, as did their son King Henry VI in 1448.

It was in this period in the early fifteenth century, and somewhat earlier than had hitherto been thought according to recent interpretations, that the west end of the Minster was completed.

The west front of Beverley Minster.

Image:© Copyright Graham Hermon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

there is more about the relationship between the town and the cult of St John in this article from the East Riding VCH volume 6. The shrine appears to have been destroyed in 1541, but in 1664 the bones of St John were discovered under the nave floor by workmen. Today a floor slab marks the grave and on May 7th each year a civic pilgrimage is held, together with children from Harpham, the village where St John was born.

The grave of St John

Image:© Copyright Graham Hermon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

With acknowledgements to the articles on Wikipedia and in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Almuces

Almost a year ago I posted Men in mink about almuces. Since then I have been meaning to publish some further thoughts about the topic. Well, let's face it, it is the sort of thing that is never that far from my mind.

The almuces we were considering were those of secular canons - those of cathedrals and collegiate churches - rather than regular canons, such as the Premonstratenians, who as Br. Rupert O.Praem pointed out, have retained the use of white almuces.

Some medieval foundations specify in their foundation deeds or statutes the type of almuces to be worn by the canons. Some were of cloth rather than fur, as for example at the College of the Holy Trinity in my home town of Pontefract, which was founded in 1385. At Beverley Minster different groups within the community had different types of fur for their almuces so as to differentiate them.

The brass rubbings and incised slabs we were considering were from both England and the continent. English medieval almuces appear to have been more on the lines of a mozzetta, but unlike continental examples had two pendant lappets at the front - shown on many English brasses. The examples from the Empire and Poland appear to be longer, and did not have the lappets. Here is a photograpgh from Fribourg in Switzerland from c.1900:

In appearance it is virtually identical to one shown on a brass from Posznan of c.1390.

In France and Scotland the almuce appears to have been worn drawn up over the head of the wearer - wearing it like that in choir on a cold morning must have been rather like wrapping oneself in a duvet to keep warm.

English, German and Polish examples on monuments and in illuminations show it being worn as a close fitting shoulder cape. Here is a mid-fifteenth century English depiction of the almuce worn by an Augustinian canon under a cope:

St John of Bridlington
Mid-fifteenth century glass in the Beauchamp chantry Warwick

Photo: Gordon Plumb's photostream on Flickr

Here is another image of a secular priest from the same period who is also depiced in an almuce:

Robert Semer, Vicar of St Martin-le-Grand York, c.1442.
The cappa nigra is shown as blue rather than black for the sake of allowing light through. Also noteworthy is his "Old English surplice" with its scallopped edges.

From the St Martin window, given by Semer, and still in the church

Photo:Gordon Plumb's photostream in Flickr

By the later fifteenth century the almuce is sometimes shown being carried over the left forearm, as it still is by the Premonstratensians. Thus the figure of Provost Edward Bonkil on the Trinity panels from his collegiate church in Edinburgh from the years 1473-1482, and dated more closely to 1478-9, shows him carrying his almuce over his arm.

Photograph from the National Gallery of Scotland.

Provost Bonkil is in the second panel ftom the left

I found I had copied a posting from the New Liturgical Movement by Gregor Killmorgan from January 14th 2010 about almuces, and I am adding that to this post:

Yesterday I mentioned that the books of the great Joseph Braun SJ are available online. To give those of you unfamiliar with his work an idea, and since I recently came by some very good - and rare - pictures of the almuce being worn on my friend Leo's The Far Sight 2.0, which I use to illustrate this piece, I have translated the respective section from Braun's Handbuch der Paramentik [Manual of Paramentics], p. 204 f. The photographs of tomb slabs of the 16th century were taken by me in Halberstadt Cathedral.

The almuce (almucia, armutia) is not very commonly used today anymore. A part of choir dress, it identifies the wearer as a canon or prebendary. It is made of fur and is in principle a shoulder cape, but is only sporadically used as such any longer. Mostly it is today merely an insignia which either rests on the left arm or is placed on the desk of the choir stall.

The first news of the almuce we receive from the 12th Century. It was originally a headdress: it either had the shape of a cap reaching somewhat beyond the ears , or that of a hood extending below far down the back. Both types are mentioned and described in the statutes of Bayeux (ca. 1270). The hoodlike almuce was here a privilege of the canons of the upper row of choir stalls. It was made, whether cap or hood, sometimes of woolen stuff or silk, sometimes, and this was most common, of fur or lambskin; but in the latter case it was lined with stuff. Also, if made of fur or skin, it was popular to trim it with tassels at the hem, which were made from the tails of weasels and similar animals. The sculptures show plenty of evidence for this, especially in the later period.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages the almuce underwent, in terms of shape and character, a very significant change. The pictorial representations, but especially the numerous tomb figures of canonici from this period are very instructive in this regard [NLM note: see photographs of tomb slabs at Halberstadt Cathedral to the left]. The Almucia now takes the form of a collar, of a real shoulder cloak, which is either slit at the front, or completely closed in the manner of a bell-shaped [NLM note: the term used in German for conical chasubles] chasuble, and it often not merely covered the upper body, but even reached down beyond the waist. A hood was indeed still attached to it, but more as a decoration and as a reminder of the erstwhile purpose and character of the garment than for the sake of use as head covering. In this new form the almuce appears uncommonly becoming.

If the collar remained open in the front of, it ended in some places from the chest on in two long, wide, stole-like strips, which extended almost to the knees. The transformation of the almuce was no doubt occasioned by the circumstance that during choral Office, more and more the more convenient biretta came into use as head covering, and consequently, the almuce lost its practical significance.

The almuce was not originally an insignia of collegiate and cathedral canons. It was even worn by laypeople, and not merely by men, but also by women. In the late Middle Ages it must, however, have already possessed the character of an insignia, as can be inferred from the circumstance that it now regularly recurs in the tomb figures of canons, if the deceased is not shown in Mass vestments. With express words it is called by the Provincial Synod of Milan of the year 1579 an insigne Canonicorum. The odd-sounding name almuce has as yet not found a completely satisfactory explanation.

An almuce of the closed variety is also worn by the canons of the Collegiate Chapter of Saints John Baptist and John Evangelist at Regenburg, Germany, of which Mgr. Georg Ratzinger, the brother of Pope Benedict XVI, is a member:

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