St Wilfrid

Today is the Feast of St Wilfrid, the great Northumbrian born seventh and early eighth century Bishop of York, and then of Hexham, founder of what became the see of Chichester, tireless missionary and a determined and combative fighter for the rights of the Church and its adhesion to the Roman obedience.

I have posted about him in 2010 in St Wilfrid, in 2011 in Celebrating St Wilfrid, in 2013 in More on St Wilfrid, and in 2022 in St Wilfrid. These cover more of his life and achievements, and have links to relevant sites.

I have also written about his place in the formation of Fr Faber in my 2011 article St Wilfrid and Fr Faber. Continuing the Oratorian theme in 2013 I wrote about the foundation at the church of St Wilfrid in York of a new Oratory in the city in St Wilfrid's York

A modern depiction of St Wilfrid

Image: St. Wilfrid’s Catholic High School

A while back I happened upon an online piece which interviewed the author of an English Historical Review article about the way in which those who claimed the St Wilfrid on his deathbed in 709/10 at Oundle had nominated them to succeed him in the abbacy at Ripon or to the see of Hexham, and happened to be the only witnesses to what the saint had said…. The article can be read at Historian turns detective to uncover ancient Ripon conspiracy

Whilst looking for illustrations I found a very well illustrated account of Hexham Abbey ( strictly speaking Priory) on the website of Great English Churches. This has, in addition to splendid views of the interior of the later medieval church and of the stone episcopal seat from the Anglo-Saxon era, a good selection of pictures of the significant quantity of painted decorative woodwork from the fifteenth century in the building. It may not be the greatest art but it does indicate what medieval church interiors were like. The article can be seen at Hexham Abbey

Hexham Abbey is very well worth seeing, as is the very attractive town centre as part of an exploration of Hadrian’s Wall, looking for the Wars of the Roses battlefield or at the Jacobite associations of Dilston Castle, or simply enjoying the glorious Northumberland countryside.

St Wilfrid Pray for us

More on St Wilfrid

Today is the feast of St Wilfrid, a saint to whom I have a continuing devotion, and about whom I have posted beforehand in St Wilfrid and Celebrating St Wilfrid. The second of these deals with two relatively modern churches dedicated to him, the Anglican one by Temple Moore in Harrogate and the Catholic one in York. My interest in him has been given a more immediate focus with the proposed Oratorian care of that church of St Wilfrid in York, a project which starts later this month.

St Wilfrid

An early sixteenth century painting in Chichester cathedral

Image: yorkarchaeology.co.uk

There is a lot of information about him and places linked to his life and ministry in the website In Search of St. Wilfrid from the Anglican church of St Wilfrid in Bognor in Sussex. This was compiled to mark the 1300th anniversary of his death in 2009 and a commemorative pilgrimage undertaken by the parish to places associated with St Wilfrid.

To mark his feast day I am posting two more images of this great saint, who combined a passion for the unity of the Church under Roman leadership with an apostolic zeal that led him to evangelize the people of Sussexand to found a whole series of monasteries, together with a very real concern for the rights and privileges of the churches of which he had care. 

The first is from the exquisite Comper restoration of the historic parish church of St Wilfrid at Cantley, just south of Doncaster. This was a self-conscious attempt to re-create the atmosphere of a late-medieval English parish church, and was entrusted to the young Ninian Comper. The result, together with its very skilful modern extension, is quite spectacular - very well worth a visit if you are nearby. I posted about it two years ago in my piece St Wilfrid's Cantley. The church's own website is here.

St Wilfrid

Statue in the Church of St Wilfrid at Cantley near Doncaster

An early work by Ninian Comper

Image:berthanet.co.uk

The other image is from the website In Search of St. Wilfrid and is a depiction which attempts to more faithfully capture the style of vestments and pallium of the seventh century - I suspect they are less elaborate than St Wilfrid would have deemed suitable, and may have an element of 'false archaeology' to them! Blue is an unlikely colour for a vestment at that time I would opine, and St Wilfrid, who was only a Bishop, would not have been entitled to wear a pallium.

 

Early twentieth century glass in the Chapel of St Wilfrid, Church Norton 

Image:wilfrid.com 

May St Wilfrid pray for all his churches, and especially for the Oratorian project in York

Feast of St Paulinus of York

Today is the feast day of St Paulinus, the founder of the see of York in 627 and subsequently Bishop of Rochester, who died on this day in 644.

St Paulinus

An early fifteenth century figure in the north choir clerestory of York Minster

Image:holycrosschurchhaltwhistle

I have posted about him and his mission in Northumbria in St Paulinus of York, St Chad at York and St Paulinus at Dewsbury.

There is a good account of his life, which refers to recent historical criticism of the sources, here.

In the centuries after his death, and despite his career - and indeed his appearance - being recorded by St Bede in his Ecclesiastical History he appears to have slipped in popular memory, and there appears little evidence of a local cultus, other than the tradition of his baptising at Dewsbury, and the lovely glass panel in York Minster of which I reproduce a detail. Later generations appear to have venerated St Wilfrid with numerous church dedications and depictions in the Minster at York far more than the first founder of the See. Both can, of course, be seen as founders not merely of the Church in the north but of a specifically Roman connection.

At York the later cult of St William came to predominate, though it probably never had the same popular appeal as that of St Wilfrid. That of St Paulinus became localised at his later see of Rochester, and wider devotion to him appears to be a more recent phenomenon, arising in the nineteenth century. 

St Wilfrid and Fr Faber

Having written my posts St Wilfrid two years ago about his life and cult and last year about two of the churches under his patronage I was wondering what to say about him today when, searching for images of him on the internet I came across this one, of a statue in the church at Cotton in Staffordshire. It is not in itself a great work of art, but it is an interesting link between St Wilfrid and one of the great figures of the English nineteenth century Church, Fr F.W. Faber.

Statue of St Wilfrid
St Wilfrid's Catholic church, Cotton, Staffordshire

Image: Mr Po on Flickr

Fr Faber, the Oxford DNB life of whom by Sheridan Gilley can be read here, was born at Calverley in the West Riding  in 1814, although he only spent the first six months of his life in the village, about which there is an online article here. His grandfather, Thomas Faber, was the Vicar and Frederick William was born at the vicarage. The medieval church at Calverley, in which he was baptised is dedicated to St Wilfrid, and in later life Faber was to exhibit considerable devotion to the seventh and eighth century Bishop whose Roman preferences shaped the evolution of the Northumbrian church. Devotion to English saints was, of course, a hallmark of the Oxford Movement.

Thus upon his reception it was under the patronage of St Wilfrid that Fr Faber made his initial foundation at Cotton, known as the Wilfidians, built a church under St Wilfrid's patronage, and was to take the name Wilfrid in religion.

In later years at London the Oratory came to have a chapel of St Wilfrid, where Faber's remains now lie, and St Wilfrid's Hall.

 

St Wilfrid's Calverley

Image: Wikimedia commons

St Wilfrid's Calverley may then be seen, in a sense, to be a somewhat surprising mother church to the London Oratory.

Celebrating St Wilfrid

Today is the feast of St Wilfrid, one of the greatest figures in the history of the Anglo-Saxon church. Although originating in Northumbria his career and ministry took him to other parts of England, notably Sussex and the Isle of Wight, and in later years to Mercia, as well as his visits to the continent.

I posted about him last year and that can be read at St Wilfrid. There is an online biography here and the Oxford DNB life by Alan Thacker can be read here.

He is the patron of forty eight ancient churches, mainly in the the north and these are not infrequently associated with the medieval estates of the Archbishops of York - much more than St Paulinus, and with reasonable historical justification, he was seen as the establisher of the See.

Devotion to him has survived especially in Ripon and the public commemoration of his return from exile appears to have survived as a custom that was reinvigorated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as can be read in this piece about this year's celebrations, held on July 31st. However I am rather inclined to think they do such religious pageants with more panache in Italian cities.

In Yorkshire he is also commemorated by two fine churches of a more recent date. St Wilfrid's York was opened in 1864 by Cardinal Wiseman and served until 1878 as the pro-cathedral of the Diocese of Beverley before it was partitioned into two. The church is close to York Minster, and the effect is perhaps not necessarily a happy one, with St Wilfrid's very French style making it all the more conspicuous. I do not know if this was at all intentional.

St Wilfrid's and York Minster

Image:phototravelings.blogspot.com

St Wilfrid's Harrogate from the south-east

Image: The Victorian Society website

In Harrogate is the great Anglo-Catholic church of St Wilfrid, the masterpiece of the architect Temple Moore. Begun in 1904 it was completed in 1935. Temple Moore worked mainly in the north - almost his only southern building is Pusey House in Oxford.

Fr Faber's devotion to St Wilfrid, and his taking of that name in religion, led to the creation of St Wilfrid's chapel at the London Oratory as well as St Wilfrid's Hall there.

On another tack altogether - what has happened to the Society of St Wilfird and St Hilda ( SWISH for short) that was launched as a reaction to the Ordinariate? I commented last year on the irony of St Wilfrid at least as patron - he was the most ardent Romaniser and loyal subject of the Papacy in his age.

May St Wilfrid continue to pray for his churches and the lands he evangelised and ministered to, and for the unity of the Church.

St Wilfrid

The other week I posted some comments about St Wilfrid in connection with the proposed Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda, and as to day is his Feast it seems suitable to say something more.

Apropos the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda, which certainly in the case of Wilfrid is most inappropriately named, I would point to Fr Hunwicke's comments which can be found here here; I agree with his choice of the word daft.

It is worth reflecting upon Fr Faber's choice of the patronage and, indeed, name of Wilfrid. Frederick William Faber took Wilfrid as his patron for his foundation at Cotton in Staffordshire and then at the Londoon Oratory, where there is both St Wilfrid's chapel - where the remains of Faber are now buried - and St Wilfrid's Hall. Faber himself chose the name Wilfrid as his name in religion. This was, I assume, not merely a tribute to a great Anglo-Saxon saint with a strong sene of the importance of the Roman obedience. but also a personal reminiscence of the historic parish church dedicated to St Wilfrid in Faber's birthplace, Calverley in the West Riding.

Image from St Wilfrid's Catholic Primary School, Ripon

St Wilfrid's medieval cult was extensive, and centred on Ripon, where some of these traditions have been revived during the twentieth century. At both Ripon and Hexham the crypts of the churches he built still survive. This site from Ripon has a series of articles about Wilfrid and his abbey church there and its archaeology and can be viewed here.

A view of the present Ripon Minster before the fall of the spire on the central tower in 1660 and the subsequent removal of those on the western towers - a reminder of what has been lost even from those churches which emerged still roofed from the disasters of the sixteenth century.

His relics appear to have been removed later in the Anglo-Saxon period to Canterbury, although this was disputed by the church at Ripon and York. If they were moved it is tribute to the perception of his status as a national figure.

Seen as a great patron of the see of York the arms ascribed to him - three suns (not stars as in the icon above) - are prominent in the medieval decoration of York Minster, although there his cult perhaps declined with the rise of that of St William in the twelfth century and devotion to Archbishop Scrope in the fifteenth century. Many churches were dedicated to him, a tradition which has been revived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, notably in Yorkshire and Sussex. These include the spectacular Temple Moore designed church in Harrogate - the town's only Grade I building.

The Anglican church of St Wilfrid Bognor Regis has a very good site about pilgrimages parishioners made to places associated with their patron and other very useful information about him here.

To mark the feast I borrowed Bertram Colgrave's edition of Eddius Stephanus The Life of Bishop Wilfrid (Cambridge UP) from the Oxford Union Library. I recommended the book recently as a valuable source, and must admit that, apart from extracts, I had not read the text through before, though I have meant to for many years.

Eddius' text raises not a few textual questions which are discussed by Colgrave, but it is full of interest and unstinting admiration for its hero. Wilfrid emerges as a major figure by any standards - a courageous and holy bishop and missionary, a loyal son of the Roman church, and a significant political figure not only in England (if that term can be used for his era) but also on his travels to and through the Frankish kingdoms. He inspired love and respect as well as fear and antipathy from his contemporaries.

Wilfrid was a man of prayer and profound faith. His conception of the proper dignity of a bishop and of unswerving fidelity to Rome helped reinforce and develop the strong Anglo-Saxon link to the Holy See that floewd from St Augustine's mission. In his clashes with rulers of Northumbria, and indeed with Frankish rulers he anticipates the Church-State conflicts of later centuries.

Given his achievements it is perhaps sad that he is not better known nationally and venerated as a figure in the life of the Church in England.

Chichester Cathedral - photograph from St Wilfrid's Bognor Regis.

The fishing net recalls Bede's story of how Wilfrid taught the people of Sussex to fish with nets during a famine.
I think this modern image captures something of Wilfrid'determination and resolve and suggests his noble birth.

Anglican ructions - what would St Wilfrid say?

My friend and neighbour Fr Hunwicke is in fine fulminatory form on his blog about the proposed Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda. You can read his post here.

He is not alone in his views - nothing surprising in that - and Bishop Edwin Barnes, Ancient Richborough, has had some good posts on the relevance of the `Sacred Synod' and related matters. The main points can be read in sequence here,here,and here. I am very pleased to see his citation of the work of the Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

Chichester Cathedral - photograph by St Wilfrid's Bognor Regis

I too have doubts as to there being a very positive response to the Society from St Hilda, and certainly not from St Wilfrid, who was, let's face it, a Romaniser. To invoke his aid in the cause of a society that is " well, sort of, but not really, well, no, really, not actually Roman" is an insult to him and his entire career and also to historical scholarship. If the Synod of Whitby is to be used as a precedent let it be cited for what it decided - the unity of the practice English church with that of Latin Christendom, and all that implied about ecclesial unity. Indeed St Wilfrid might well consider the Ordinariates a bit dubious, but would see their essential commitment to unity. This new, misnamed, society looks more like the Celtic party who insisted on their calendar calculations and practices - Non-Jurors or Old Believers of the seventh century - who left the synod of Whitby unreconciled.

Image from St Wilfrid's Catholic Primary School, Ripon

St Wilfrid and St Hilda pray for the Catholic faith in England.