St Giles by Thomas of Coloswar

Following on from yesterday's post about St Giles here is another late medieval depiction of him. This painting is described as The Death of St Giles, but normally the incident is seen as not being fatal to the Saint, but the means whereby he was drawn to the King's attention. St Giles is usually represented as being wounded in the leg - hence his patronage of cripples - but the Master of St Giles shows him with wound in the hand. This version has a wound to the breast.

I have taken this piece from the Web Gallery of Art pages, and edited it slightly.

The Death of St Giles

Thomas of Coloswar

1427

Tempera on pine wood, 89.5 x 69 cm
Christian Museum, Esztergom, Hungary

The picture shows one of the panels of the Garamszentbenedek Altarpiece.

Nicholas, a canon of Gyõr, who was also cantor of the royal chapel in Buda Castle, in 1427 commissioned Master Thomas, painter of Coloswar (Kolozsvár) to make a polyptych for the high altar of the Abbey Church at Garamszentbenedek (today Hronsky Benadik, Slovakia). Ending in a pointed arch, the central picture of the polyptych (which consists of nine panels) represents the Crucifixion, the internal wings are decorated with four episodes of the Passion and the external ones with scenes taken from the lives of several saints. (One of the latter has been lost, and so has the predella with the inscription about the donation.) The panel representing St Giles is the top quarter of the external wing on the right, its rounded corner following the line of the arch of the central picture.

The hermit, who lived in a forest, was nurtured by the milk of a tame hind. The king's huntsmen pursued the animal, but when the saint interceded with the hunter he aimed his arrow at the holy man and instead of wounding the deer it pierced St Giles's breast. This moment is recorded in the painting. The saint bears the pain with a meditative, pious countenance. The arrow is depicted in the picture twice, perhaps because a single arrow rushing in the air may have introduced too great a tension and lack of balance into this lyrical scene. The hind taking refuge with the hermit is also characterized by calm stillness. The artist may have used a drawing from a model-book of the period for this work, which is indicated not only by the calmness of the animal as if it were part of a still life, but also by its movement: the model of the animal looks as if it had been drawn with all four legs underneath it, but the painter, adjusting the model to the painting, represented its right foreleg stretched out. Though the hunter s figure is much smaller than that of St Giles, the lines of the rock in the foreground and the light colours of the foliage of the forest seem to lead one's eyes to him. In accordance with the style, which had a predilection for elegant, curving lines, the painter stressed the impressive and buoyant line of the bow, which is beautifully set off by the darkness of the forest.

In the international life of King Sigismund of Luxembourg's court at Buda, Thomas de Coloswar had an opportunity to become familiar with the leading movements in painting of the period. The panel representing St Giles has similarities to Bohemian art. The rocky, wooded landscape - to quote Antal Hekler - "the colour of a fairytale in spite of its awakening realism" reveals features akin to the art of the Master of Trebon and the illuminators working under his influence.

This painting was the central panel of the Calvary altarpiece at Garamszentbenedek. This altar piece is one of the most significant painting of the period in Hungary; its source can be traced to the court painting in Bohemia, and it is also related to the court painting in Burgundy.

There are more pictures of the altarpiece here.

Now in addition to the fact that the first picture shows St Giles I have the added interest in the picture that the figure of the archer on the right appears to be taken more or less directly from a copy- book drawing now in the collection at the Christ Church Picture Gallery in Oxford, where I do part-time work. That drawing has been attributed to various possible masters and locations, and to a late fourteenth or early fifteenth century date. There is an article about it in 40 Years of Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford 2008, pp 64-5.

St Giles

Today is the feast of St Giles, the patron saint of the church where I was baptised in Pontefract and where I worshipped for many years before coming to Oxford, and served there as Parish Clerk for a number of years.

One of the many little projects I have in mind is to do a study of the cult of St Giles in medieval England. Devotion to him seems to be post-Conquest, but to have spread rapidly, and as he was invoked as a patron by a wide variety of people churches, chapels and hospitals dedicated to him occur in many places.

Detail of "Saint Giles and the Hind," by the Master of Saint Giles c. 1500

There is an article about St Giles here.

Out of my fees as Parish Clerk at Pontefract I gave copies of three pictures of St Giles to the church - two from the work by the Master of St Giles of circa 1500 now in the National Gallery, and another, of a fourteenth century stained glass figure of him from the choir clerestory of Wells Cathedral.

The first one I gave is that of The Mass of St Giles:

It is a well known image, but still worth reproducing. The painter has set it in the abbey of St Denis near Paris, and it must be one of the best contemporary depictions of the interior of a late medieval church and of the liturgy being celebrated.

Lindisfarne

Today is the feast of St Aidan and the saints of Lindisfarne. In 1989 I was fortunate to be able to stay there for a long weekend with a religious community and to be able to explore something of its atmosphere.

Getting there is a bit eccentric - the bus from Berwick upon Tweed is the only one in the country, as far as I know, that has a timetable dependent upon the tide-table. Once on the island there are times of great quiet, simply because the tide is up, and the tourists cannot get onto the island. There is a refuge mid-way along the causeway for cars that get caught out by the North Sea.

There are the handsome remains of the Norman priory church - a cell of Durham - but now yet another example of the wanton destruction of the reformation era, the medieval parish church and Tudor castle, together with a modern statue of St Aidan and a very good English Heritage museum that presents a substantial array of finds from the great age of Lindisfarne in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Besides that there is a numinous quality to the place. Yes, you know it is historic - I took a copy of Bede to read whilst I was there, and yes, the light is such that the landscape and seascape are always changing in an elusive, ineffable way (Bishop Trautmann please note) that one wants to capture - I took up sketching again to try to do so. There is more though, indefinable as it is, but the knowledge of what was achieved there is not just of material achievements in the museum or pictures of the Lindisfarne Gospels, or the relics of St Cuthbert in Durham - rather it is an awareness of men seeking God at the frontier of land and sea, of earth and heaven, and in so doing making their way forward into the unseen.

To sit and look at St Cuthbert's Isle, where he used to go just off-shore to meditate, and to know something of his story, and then to go, as I did, on to Durham and see the majestic building of the cathedral rising up above the city and dominating the view, and to understand the extent to which it as building celebrates the life of the saintly hermit and bishop is to have a disclosure of God's grandeur as mediated through one human life and soul.

St Aidan and the saints of Lindisfarne pray for us.

More web links

Observant readers may have noticed that I have added some more sites to the list at the side. This is partly for the benefit of my readers, but also a way of keeping a record of useful sites for my own reference.

I have added the official site for the Papal visit and to mark his beatification the Newman reader site. This has most of the key works by Cardinal Newman online. Also on the ecclesiastical theme I have also added the site for the English Dominicans, which provides a useful introduction to each of their priories.

On the Monarchist, genealogical and heraldic aspect I have added the Almanach de Gotha site, which has an excellent selection of portraits and photographs, as well as heraldry, and also the website of the Hanoverian monarchy. It is in German, but covers the whole history of the family down to the present day.

As a research tool I have added the Medieval calendar calculator. I had lost my reference to this some time ago and was delighted to find it again in my files. It provides an easy to use, year or month-at-a-glance calendar for any year between 500 and 1582. Quite apart from its usefulness to historian it could be useful if any of those years come round again.

Linking two or three other interests I have also added the good Art in Medieval Hungary site.

Men in mink

I spent part of the day as a steward at the exhibition of vestments and brass rubbings at the Oxford Oratory - which is on until Monday, and well worth going to see if you are within reach of Oxford.

This afternoon I had a learned discussion with Fr Jerome Bertram, C.O., who made virtually all the brass rubbings on display, and Dr Masha Upanskaya, a Russian-born historian and member of the congregation. The subject of our conversation was the origin of the fur used to make almuces in the medieval period. For those of you who do not know, and shame upon you for not knowing, what almuces are, look here and here.

Almuces were grey - that we know from pictorial representation and the use of lead to indicate the fur on some brasses. But what was the fur? Not squirrel, as there was only the red squirrel, and not the grey varmints that have taken over from them - though using them to make almuces would be a very good idea. Arctic hare, a type of stoat, even pole-cat were considered, but rejected by us. Ordinary rabbit was a possibility, but what about the tails, which are long and very un-rabbit like?

It was Masha who came up with what we think is the answer. She based this on the depiction of the shape of the tails which are a feature of the almuce, forming a pendant fringe. She thinks they look like the tails of the European Mink. So we think medieval canons wore mink to keep warm during the Offices.

Peterborough

The church at which my friends were received in Peterborough was The Sacred Heart and St Oswald. I was delighted to find a modern church which by its dedication revived an ancient devotion in the city.

The story can be found in St Bede's Ecclesiastical History of how St Oswald, King of Northumbria 633-641 not only sent out the remains of a feast to the beggars outside, but ordered that the silver plate on which the food was carried be also broken up and given to the poor. His guest, St Aidan, who sensed that Oswald was not long for this world, was so moved that he took the king's right arm and blessed it, with the prayer that it should never decay. When, not long after Oswald was killed in battle at Oswestry by King Penda of Mercia his corpse was hacked to pieces by the victors and displayed. His head eventually returned to the north and is now in the coffin of St Cuthbert at Durham, carried thither by the monks of Lindisfarne when they fled the Vikings. Other relics went to Bardney abbey in Lincolnshire.

St Owald's right arm, incorrupt as a result of St Aidan's prayer, eventually came to Peterborough, and was the principal relic of the abbey. It was kept in a chapel in the south transept of the monastic church, and still venerated by pilgrims, until the dissolution of the abbey in 1539 and the later establishment of the diocese in 1541. What happened to the Holy Arm thereafter appears unrecorded. To get some idea of such a royal relic look at my recent post about the "Holy Right" of St Stephen of Hungary here.

St Oswald,
pray for us!

Photo: De Cura Animarum

In the modern church hall there were pictures from a parish pilgrimage to Lindisfarne and Durham, so there is clearly an awareness of the continuing link with St Oswald and a wish to share that with parishioners.

Travelling in Faith

Yesterday I journeyed across country to Peterborough to attend the reception into the Church of two of my friends. Charles and Kate Miller are long-standing friends from Pusey House, and until last Sunday Charles was serving as the assistant curate at the Anglican parish church in Downham Market in Norfolk. However they have been preparing for a while to be received into the Catholic Church, and yesterday, accompanied by their three children, Joseph, Cecilia and Teresa, they were. It was a very happy, but also prayerful occasion, with two other former Puseyites acting as sponsors, and with two others of us in attendance. The Mass was celebrated by Mgr Philpot who had prepared them.

Afterwards we went on to the house they are leaving in Downham Market for a small celebration before I made my way back. There was a clear sense that for Charles and Kate this was both the end of a spiritual journey and also the beginning, but that at the same time it was all one journey.

Getting to the church in Peterborough demonstrated one thing I should have realised - to a Muslim taxi-driver one Christian church is indistinguishable from another if the passenger is not sure of the address, but rashly assumes that all taxi-drivers have "the knowledge." Now let's be fair - I would probably be the same with mosques. No, I wouldn't, actually, but you get my point. However with my second taxi driver I found the universal point of reference in our society - I told him which supermarket I was given to understand it was near. We were there in no time.

I will post some comments as a historian about Peterborough in the next few days.

Extraordinary Form Masses at SS Gregory and Augustine

In addition to the regular EF Masses at The Oxford Oratory at 8 on Sunday and at St Antony of Padua on Thursday at 9, this coming week SS Gregory and Augustine has three EF Masses - the usual Wednesday celebration at 6, and two additional ones, on Thursday at 6 with the intention for priests and on Friday at 6 - the regular First Friday devotion.