St Vincent

Today is the feast of St Vincent, whose depiction in art I have featured before but this year Gordon Plumb and John Dillon have provided a most impressive series of pictures of the saint's story on the Medieval Religion discussion group. Many of these are very interesting as to what later medieval life and liturgy were like, and hence this rather lengthy post. Larger views of the pictures I have posted can be obtained by clicking on the appropriate link at the bottom right.

Gordon Plumb started the series of images as follows:

St Vincent of Saragossa:
The 22nd of January is the feast of St Vincent of Saragossa, who died in 304 and was a deacon and the first Spanish martyr. He was trained by Valerius, bishop of Saragossa. Of his martyrdom there is no doubt, though there is considerable uncertainty about exactly how it occurred. Prudentius is our first witness and Augustine attests that the cult was known all over the Roman Empire. According to the ancient Legend, he suffered under the edicts of Diocletian and Maximian. At first imprisoned and kept short of food, he refused to sacrifice and was then racked, roasted on a grid, imprisoned and put into the stocks. He died as a result of his sufferings. He is often shown as a deacon holding a palm, or else suffering on the grid.

Angers, Cathédrale Saint-Maurice, Bay 121, Martyrdom of St Vincent, c.1180:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16237364432
and detail of Vincent's body protected by crows:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16237383302
of Vincent being flogged:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15618333743
of Vincent being visited by angels in prison:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16052356717
Vincent on the grill:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16050686738
Death of Vincent:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16212308586
Vincent and Valerian before Decius:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15615773394

Oxford, St Peter in the East, North Chapel, North window, right-hand light, part of deacon holding palm (St Vincent of Saragossa): This glass was given by Vincent Wycking, Vicar in 1433.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2762050523

Heydour, St Michael, nV, 2a-3a:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3452347882

Harpley, St Lawrence, wI, D2, Vincent and Ledger:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3320378464

Panel in the Collections of the Victoria &Albert Museum showing Vincent burnt on the rack from Saint-Germain-des-Près, Paris of c.1240-45.
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O8588/saint-vincent-burnt-on-the-window-unknown/
The church was originally dedicated to St Vincent, later being redecicated to St Vincent and St Germanus. On this window see Mary B Shepard in Gesta, Vol. 37, No, 2, 1998.
Further panels in the Metropolitan Museum, New York can be seen here:
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/466580

Bourges Cathedral, Bay 12, St Vincent of Saragossa window, with facility to see excellent images of each panel by clicking on the window outline. To get to Bay 12 click on the appropriate box in the
general plan of the Bourges windows:
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/Bourges/12_pages/Bourges_Bay_12_key.htm


John Dillon then posted his selection, again with an introduction to the cult:

A popular martyr of early Christian Iberia, Vincent (d. 304?) was a deacon at Zaragoza (a.k.a. Saragossa) who did a lot of preaching for his Bishop, Valerius.  The latter (in some accounts) had a speech impediment.  At the outbreak of the Diocletianic persecution they were both arrested and hauled off to Valencia, where they were imprisoned pending a hearing.  When that hearing came, Vincent did most of the talking and spoke so ably that the presiding magistrate concluded that the really dangerous one was the deacon, not the bishop.  Consequently, Valerius was exiled but Vincent remained in prison, where he underwent a series of tortures before being executed.

Early witnesses to Vincent's cult include St. Paulinus of Nola, Prudentius, and St. Augustine of Hippo.  The last named eulogized Vincent annually on this day and we have from his pen no fewer than six sermons celebrating this saint.  Vincent's Passio in its standard form (BHL 8631) was in existence by the middle of the sixth century.  A briefer text (BHL 8638) may be close in content to a Passio that circulated in the fifth century.  On Vincent's early medieval cult in general, with editions of major texts, see Victor Saxer, Saint Vincent diacre et martyr: Culte et légendes avant l'An Mil (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 2002; Subsidia Hagiographica, vol. 83).


Some period-pertinent images of Vincent of Zaragoza (or, if you prefer, of Saragossa; also V. of Huesca, V. of Valencia, and V. the Martyr) :

a) as depicted (third from left; after Sts. Demetrius and Polycarp) in the heavily restored, later sixth-century mosaics (c. 561) in the nave of Ravenna's basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo:
http://tinyurl.com/2foe88u

b) as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 342):

http://tinyurl.com/llnuwlz

c) as depicted (two scenes from his Passio) in the early eleventh-century frescoes of the central apse in the basilica di San Vincenzo in Galliano, a frazione of Cantù (CO) in Lombardy:
1) Undergoing torture by hot lead:
http://tinyurl.com/pgmpc2w
2) His corpse guarded by birds and being prepared for burial:
http://tinyurl.com/pt5qdy3

d) as depicted (in the soffit at right, second roundel from bottom) in the earlier twelfth-century mosaics (c. 1143) of the chiesa di Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (a.k.a. chiesa della Martorana) in Palermo:
http://tinyurl.com/7kxovph

e) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Germanus of Paris) in the frontispiece to a mid-twelfth-century collection of writings by Origen from the abbey of St.-Germain-des-Prés in Paris (Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 11615, fol. 2v):
http://tinyurl.com/phxpbpn

f) as depicted (centre register, second from left, between his fellow deacons Sts. Peter of Marcellinus-and-Peter and Lawrence of Rome) in a probably mid- or slightly later twelfth-century mosaic (restored, 1859) in the choir of the basilica cattedrale della Trasfigurazione in Cefalù :

http://www.wga.hu/art/zgothic/mosaics/3cefalu/6cefalu.jpg

This second view  is greatly expandable:

http://www.christianiconography.info/sicily/latinSaintsCefaluCathedral.jpg

g) as portrayed (martyrdom scenes) in a perhaps later twelfth-century relief (after c. 1160) in the Münster in Basel:

http://tinyurl.com/zqfu6yl

h) as depicted (at right; at left, St. Victor of Syria) in the later twelfth-century frescoes (1164) in the church of St. Panteleimon (Pantaleon) at Gorno Nerezi (Skopje municipality) in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/h2jgbg4
In Byzantine-rite churches both Victor and Vincent are celebrated on 11. November (in the Synaxary of Constantinople Vincent also occurs by himself under 22. January). That is also the feast day of St. Men(n)as the Egyptian, whose church in Constantinople is reported from the twelfth century as possessing relics of Vincent and Victor.

i) as portrayed in high relief (scenes) on his late twelfth-century polychromed stone cenotaph in the Basilica de los Santos Hermanos Mártires, Vicente, Sabina y Cristeta in Ávila:
http://tinyurl.com/z6fnpka
http://tinyurl.com/h5g48nc
The Clever Boy would add that these are a wonderful series of pictures of late Romanesque sculpture which has retained its paintwork - a delight to peruse.

j) as depicted (martyrdom) in one of four panels of a full-page illumination in the late twelfth-century so-called Bible of Saint Bertin (c. 1190-1200; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 5, fol. 28v, sc. 1B):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f5%3A028v_min_b1

k) as portrayed in high relief (birds guarding his corpse at sea) on the left pillar of the left portal of the late twelfth or early thirteenth-century south porch (by 1210) of the basilique cathédrale Notre-Dame in Chartres:

http://tinyurl.com/mctmt3h

l) as depicted (scenes of his life and martyrdom) in the early thirteenth-century St. Vincent window (bay 12; c. 1215) in the ambulatory of the cathédrale Saint-Étienne in Bourges:
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/bourges/12_pages/Bourges_Bay_12_key.htm

m) as depicted (scenes from his Passio) in panels from a mid-thirteenth-century glass window (1240s; from the abbey church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris) in the Walters art Gallery and Museum, Baltimore:
http://art.thewalters.org/detail/77393/stained-glass-window-with-scenes-from-the-life-of-saint-vincent/
Gordon Plumb's post has links to other panels from the same window in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

n) as depicted (martyrdom) in a panel of a mid-thirteenth-century ambulatory window (Bay 201, panel A1; c. 1254) in the cathédrale Saint-Julien, Le Mans:
http://www.medievalart.org.uk/lemans/Clerestory/jpeg/Le_Mans_Bay_201_Panel_A1.jpg

o) as depicted (scenes of his life and martyrdom) on a later thirteenth-century altar frontal (parchment over wood; from the church of Santa María de Monte at Liesa [Huesca]) in the possession of the Diputación Provincial de Huesca (for better views click on the individual frames):

http://www.liesa.info/frontal.htm

p) as depicted (sixth from left, after an archangel, St. Peter, the Christ child, the BVM, and St. Paul; the remaining two are St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Augustine's son Adeodatus, venerated in medieval Milan as a saint) in a later thirteenth-century fresco on the parapet of the Gospel ambo in the basilica di San Vincenzo in Galliano, a _frazione_ of Cantù (CO) in Lombardy:
http://tinyurl.com/mf7gqks
Detail view (Vincent):

http://tinyurl.com/n32deye

q) as depicted (martyrdom) in a late thirteenth-century copy of French origin of the Legenda aurea (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 24v):
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/ds/huntington/images//000967A.jpg

r) as depicted (martyrdom) in the late thirteenth-century Livre d'images de Madame Marie (ca. 1285-1290; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 78r):
http://tinyurl.com/yj8su7y
https://lafrancechretienne.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/martyr_de_saint_vincent.png

s) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (between c.1312 and 1321/1322) in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/40826

t) as depicted (second from right, lower register, in the panel at lower left; martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (between 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 16v):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/16v.jpg

u) as depicted (two scenes: preaching and undergoing martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (c. 1326-1350; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 101v):
http://tinyurl.com/yd8s4pf
Note that in these illuminations we seem to have evidence of that rare figure in church annals, the mitred deacon. In the first of these, the figure robed in blue is thought to depict Vincent's actual bishop, the confessor St. Valerius of Zaragoza.

v) as depicted in a panel of the mid-fourteenth-century great window (c. 1340-1350) in the choir of the Kirche St.-Vinzenz in Segringen (Lkr. Mittelfranken) in Bavaria: 
http://id.corpusvitrearum.de/images/3419.html

w) as depicted (martyrdom) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea, from the workshop of Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston, in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (1348; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 46v):
http://tinyurl.com/y8snjlq

x) as depicted (portrait; scenes) by the Master of Estopiñán in a later fourteenth-century triptych (c. 1350-1370) in the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, Barcelona:

http://www.museunacional.cat/sites/default/files/003940-CJT.JPG

y) as depicted (the finding of his body) in a late fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Rennes, Bibliothèque de Rennes Métropole, ms. 266, fol. 48v):
http://tinyurl.com/jqau7dc

z) as depicted (his body about to be cast into the sea) in an early fifteenth-century copy of the Elsässische Legenda aurea (1419; Heidelberg, UB, Cod. Pal. germ. 144, fol. 295v):
http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpg144/0614

aa) as depicted (at left, martyrdom; at right, St. Vincent Ferrer) by Bernard (Bernat) Martorell in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg:

http://www.wga.hu/art/m/martorel/stvincen.jpg

bb) as depicted (martyrdom) by the court workshop of Emperor Frederick III in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea (1446-1447; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. 326, fol. 38v):
http://tarvos.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/server/images/7006832.JPG

cc) as depicted in grisaille by Jean le Tavernier in the mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Philip of Burgundy (c. 1451-1460; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 2, fol. 257v):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f2%3A257v_min

dd) as depicted (scenes) by Nuno Gonçalves on several later fifteenth-century panels (c. 1451-1475) in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrepipa/5632595721/
A closer view of a copy:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Lagos40_kopie.jpg

I posted about these great panels in St Vincentin 2011.

ee) as depicted by Jaume Huguet in five mid-fifteenth-century panels from a never-finished altarpiece (c. 1455-1460; for Barcelona's església de Sant Vicenç de Sarrià) in the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, Barcelona:
1) Ordained priest by St. Valerius of Zaragoza:

http://tinyurl.com/zwo6xjz

2) Brought before the proconsul Datianus / Dacianus:

http://tinyurl.com/hp2e4l2

3) Martyrdom - torture by fire:

http://tinyurl.com/jpqnm8q

4) Martyrdom - torture on a cross-shaped eculeus:

http://tinyurl.com/jd68ouh

5) Seekers for cures at his tomb:

http://tinyurl.com/zt8bgjg

ff) as depicted by Tomás Giner in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (between 1462 and 1466) in the Museo del Prado, Madrid:

http://tinyurl.com/zrqbm94

gg) as depicted (at left; at centre, St. James the Great; at right, St. Eustace) by Antonio and Piero del Pollaiolo in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (c. 1466-1468) in the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence:
http://tinyurl.com/hu4or78

http://www.shafe.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/pollaiuolo_three_saints_altarpiece_1466.jpg

hh) as depicted (martyrdom) in a late fifteenth-century copy of the Legenda aurea in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (c. 1480-1490; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 244, fol. 54v):
http://tinyurl.com/ydw94le

ii) as depicted (at centre, between St. Michael the Archangel and St. Lawrence of Rome) in the central panel of the late fifteenth-century retable in the iglesia de San Vicente Mártir at San Vicente de Labuerda in Labuerda (Huesca):

http://www.romanicoaragones.com/1-Sobrarbe/SVicenteLabu%20G24.jpg

jj) as portrayed in relief (image at right) on a guldiner of 1493 from Bern:
http://tinyurl.com/lfxwdh4

kk) as depicted (martyrdom) in the earlier sixteenth-century portion (c. 1540) of a window in the église Saint-Ouen at Pont-Audemer (Eure):
http://tinyurl.com/l29vh9d

Later John posted some additional images of St. Vincent:

1) as depicted (two scenes) in an eleventh-century troper from Autun (Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal, 1169):
a) Martyrdom on a cross-shaped eculeus (fol. 14v, bas-de-page):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000516z/f34.item.r=Arsenal%201169.zoom
b) Martyrdom by fire (fol. 15r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000516z/f35.item.r=Arsenal%201169.zoom

2) as depicted (beaten with clubs) in an earlier fourteenth-century French-language legendary of Parisian origin with illuminations attributed to the Fauvel Master (c. 1327; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 183, fol. 215v):
http://tinyurl.com/hdruag4

3) as depicted (four scenes) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of books 9-16 of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (c. 1335; Paris, BnF, ms. Arsenal 5080):
a) With St. Valerius of Zaragoza before Datianus / Dacianus (fol. 263r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55000813g/f531.item.r=arsenal%205080.zoom
b) Martyrdom on a cross-shaped _eculeus_ (fol. 263v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55000813g/f532.item.r=arsenal%205080.zoom
c) Martyrdom by fire (fol. 264r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55000813g/f533.item.r=arsenal%205080.zoom
d) Datianus / Dacianus orders the disposal of V.'s body; ravens protect it from a wolf (fol. 264v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55000813g/f534.item.r=arsenal%205080.zoom

4) as depicted in the very late fourteenth- or earlier fifteenth-century Breviary of Martin of Aragon (Paris, BnF, ms. Rothschild 2529, fol. 306v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000996s/f614.item.zoom

5) as depicted by the Portuguese artist Frei Carlos (attrib.) in an earlier sixteenth-century panel painting (c. 1520-1530) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Museum website can be seen here: http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/435847

http://tinyurl.com/je52f2s

St Vincent in stained glass

The Rev Gordon Plumb has posted on the Medieval Religion discussion group aseries of photographs of stained glass images of St Vincent of Saragossa, whose feast day it is today.

St Vincent , who died in 304, was a deacon and the first Spanish martyr. He was trained by Valerius, bishop of Saragossa. Of his martyrdom there is no doubt, though there is considerable uncertainty about exactly how it occurred. Prudentius is our first witness and Augustine attests that the cult was known all over the Roman Empire. According to the ancient Legend, he suffered under the edicts of Diocletian and Maximian. At first imprisoned and kept short of food, he refused to sacrifice and was then racked, roasted on a grid, imprisoned and put into the stocks. He died as a result of his sufferings. He is often shown as a deacon holding a palm, or else suffering on the grid.

Angers, Cathédrale Saint-Maurice, Bay 121, Martyrdom of St Vincent, c.1180:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16237364432

and detail of Vincent's body protected by crows:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16237383302

Vincent being flogged:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15618333743

Vincent being visited by angels in prison:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16052356717

Vincent on the grill:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16050686738

Death of Vincent:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/16212308586

Vincent and Valerian before Decius:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/15615773394

Oxford, St Peter in the East (now the library of St Edmund Hall), North Chapel, North window, right-hand light, part of deacon holding palm (St Vincent of Saragossa): This glass was given by Vincent Wycking, Vicar in 1433.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/2762050523

Heydour, St Michael, nV, 2a-3a:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3452347882

Harpley, St Lawrence, wI, D2, Vincent and Ledger:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/3320378464

Gordon then sent an additional number of images of St Vincent as follows:

Panel in the Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum showing Vincent being burnt on the rack from Saint-Germain-des-Près, Paris of c.1240-45.

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O8588/saint-vincent-burnt-on-the-window-unknown/

The church was originally dedicated to St Vincent, later being rededicated to St Vincent and St Germanus.  On this window see Mary B. Shepard in Gesta, Vol. 37, No, 2, 1998.

Further panels in the Metropolitan Museum, New York can be seen here:

http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/466580

Bourges Cathedral, Bay 12, St Vincent of Saragossa window, with facility to see excellent images of each panel by clicking on the window outline. To get to Bay 12 click on the appropriate box in the general plan of the Bourges windows:

http://www.medievalart.org.uk/Bourges/index_floorplan.htm

In previous years I have posted about this martyr saint and his images in St Vincent, in Another red pileus, in Conferring the Diaconate and in  St Vincent of Saragossa.

Saints of the Week

This week the liturgical calendar has been quite busy with saints days and I thought I would provide links to previous posts which touch on the lives of some of them.

Monday was the feast day of both St Fabian and of St Sebastian, depictions of both of whom I posted about in 2011 in St Fabian and St Sebastian.

Tuesday was the important feast of St Agnes, and that evening we had an interesting reflection from Fr Jerome at the meeting of the Brothers of the Oratory on the liturgical significance of her feast - she has proper antiphons for the Offices in both the Tridentine Breviary and the moderrn Divine Office, and it is the feast on which the lambs whose wool will be used for this year's pallia are blessed in Rome - and on the unique Christian concern for virginity and the consecrated lives of women as Sisters or enclosed Nuns. This is an ancient part of the Church's life, being clearly established by the time of St Antony in the later third century. Indeed it can be traced directly to the Virgin Mary's response to the Archangel at the Annunciation. The concept of St Agnes or other young women preferring the life of a spouse of Christ was incomprehensible to the Jews and the Romans, and indeed to much of the modern world, yet it has inspired much selfless and holy work over the centuries.

I have posted about depictions of her and the widespread cult of St Agnes in The Royal Gold Cup in 2012 and in St Agnes last year.

Wednesday was the feast of St Vincent of Saragossa, and I have posted about some of the superb late medieval Iberian images of him in St Vincent in 2011, and linked to it a post Another red pileus in 2012, and also in 2012 in Conferring the Diaconate and last year in St Vincent of Saragossa.

Yesterday was the feast day of the Oxford born Jesuit lay brother and constructor of priest holes St Nicholas Owen, who died after torture in the Tower of London in March 1606. My previous posts about him can be read at St Nicholas Owen from 2011 or in a slightly revised form at St Nicholas Owen from 2012.

Today is the feast of St Francis de Sales, erstwhile Oratorian, and later Bishop of Geneva. My account of my visit last July to his shrine church in Annecy and other places in the city connected with him can be read at Over the hills to Annecy and back.

 

St Vincent of Saragossa

Today is the feast of St Vincent, the third of the great martyr deacon saints along with St Stephen  and St Lawrence. Deacon to the Bishop of Saragossa and martyred in Valencia circa 304 his cult remained especially strong in Iberia.

  St Vincent

Anonymous sixteenth century painting

Image:Wikipedia

There is an online account of him and his cult and its diffusion here.

I suspect that the Cluniac connection with the Santiago Pilgrimage may well have helped in this process of promoting his cult. It could well explain the existene of a chapel dedicated to him in the Cluniac priory in my home town of Pontefract as recorded in the twelfth century benefactions listed in the cartulary. Like other saints from beyond the region I have posted about such as St Nicholas and St George popular devotion spread very rapidly in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries across western Europe.

My previous posts about depictions of St Vincent can be seen at St Vincent, at Another red pileus and at Conferring the Diaconate

Conferring the Diaconate

This morning Bishop Alan Hopes will ordain 21 former Anglican clergy to the Diaconate for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in Westminster Cathedral. Amongst them is my good friend John Hunwicke.

To mark the occasion I am posting a painting by the Catalan artist Jaume Huguet (1412-92) from his Retaule de Sant Vicenç de Sarrià‎, of 1455-60 which is now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.

In this panel St Vincent is ordained as deacon by his Bishop, St Valerius of Saragossa:

Image:Wikimedia

As with contemporary late medieval Netherlandish and German art I delight in the details of liturgy and contemporary life and costume such paintings record. As a painting it is a splendid representation of the beauty of medieval ritual and practice.

 As with the great Lisbon panels depicting St Vincent, themselves of the 1460s, the use of a red pileus is shown - is this, I wonder, an indication of membership of the episcopal familia and the equivalent of a Monseigneurial or canonical biretta today?

May St Stephen, St Lawrence and St Vincent join us in praying for these new Deacons.

Another red pileus

One of the regular contributors to the Medieval Religion discussion group is the Rev. Gordon Plumb, who provides superb photographs of medieval stained glass, some of which I have reproduced in other posts. Amongst the images he posted on her feast day of St Agatha was this panel, now in St Mary's Shrewsbury, but originally from the Trier region.

Donor kneeling before St Agatha with above St Bartholomew,
St Peter and St James
Nave, north aisle, central window

Image: Gordon Plumb on Flickr

What really caught my eye was the donor, identified by Gordon Plumb as Everard von Hohenfels, who held various positions in the cathedral at Trier from 1470 until his death in 1515 - or more particularly his headgear. He appears to be wearing, in addition to his surplice and cassock, a rather splendid red pileus.

Last year when I posted about the St Vincent Panels in Lisbon, which date from the 1460s, a friend asked me in the comments box about the red pileus he is shown wearing with his dalmatic.

Image: Wikipedia

I could offer no certain explanation, but wonder if it is a fifteenth century equivalent of a modern monsiegnorial or canon's biretta - St Vincent as the immediate deacon of his bishop, Everhard von Hohenfels as a senior figure in the cathedral at Trier. Some of the lay figures in the St Vincent panels are wearing similar head coverings. Given the location of Trier and the possible Burgundian influence on the St Vincent paintings it may reflect Netherlandish practice in the later fifteenth century.

Given that together with aother friend we once upon a time spent may happy hours considering whether medieval bishops actually wore green galeros (as in their heraldic form) maybe I should keep my eyes open for instances of the red pileus. It is a rather natty item.

St Vincent

Today is the feast of St Vincent of Saragossa, a deacon martyred in the early part of Diocletian's persecution.

He is venerated as the patron of Lisbon, where there survives the St Vincent Panels, a wonderful set of paintings of the veneration of the saint by representitives of the realm of Portugal and dated to the 1460s. It is attributed to the artist Nuno Gonçalves who was working in the years 1450-71. The six panels include some sixty portraits of the leading figures in the life of the kingdom under King Duarte I and King Afonso V. In recent years there has been considerable scholarly debate about the identification of the figures in the painting and there is a good, illustrated, account here.

One of the two central panels depicting St Vincent.

He is flanked by King Duarte I and his Queen Eleanor of Aragon, with King Afonso V and his Queen Isabella of Coimbra kneeling in front with their son, the future King John II on the right.

The panels are a marvellous record of the men and women who shaped Portugal's destiny as it embarked on its great era of expansion, encouraged by Dom Henry the Navigator who appears n the panals, and also of the ruling elite of mid-fifteenth century European kingdom.