Rescuing a piece of memorabilia for St Thomas' in Oxford

Today at an auction here in Oxford I managed to purchase an illuminated address on vellum to the Rev. Francis Underhill when he left his curacy at St Thomas the Martyr here in 1911. I was buying on behalf of the church, where I used to be Churchwarden and have a continuing residual role as Archivist.

Image: Mallams

Francis Underhill musy have had an Exeter Collehe connection -as that is the coat of arms in the bottom right corner. At its upper left is asmall figure of a Boy Scout, so I assume he must have run the parish scout troup. The church itself is shown in the capital O of Oxford, and the parish emblem of a mitre pierecved by a sword can be seen in the T of the patron ssint's name.

I think that the scroll was probably the work of one of the Sisters of the parish sisterhood  - the Community of St Thomas the Martyr - who did similar work for the church.

I am grateful to the Rev David Johnson for pointing out to me the fact thqt this piece was coming up for auction, and enabling us to bring it back to St Thomas'

 

An eagle from Londinium

Several of today's newspapers have reports about the discovery and display at the Museum of London of a superb piece of Romano-British sculpture found by archaeologists in the City. It is of an eagle, gripping or devouring a serpent in its beak, and emblematic of Jupiter. Experts think that it probably comes from a tomb.

 

Two views of the eagle

Image:i.telegraph.co.uk

There are articles from the Daily Mail, with a quote from my friend Prof Martin Henig at  Roman sculpture of eagle devouring serpent unearthed in London and from the Daily Telegraph there is both the article Exceptionally rare Roman statue unearthed in City of London and with a video at Video: 'Fantastic' Roman eagle sculpture found in London

York Foundation

Yesterday Fr Richard, accompanied for the first month by Fr Nicholas, set off to take on the care of St Wilfrid's church in York, and with the eventual hope of establishing an Oratory there.

The Oxford Oratory now has three related posts about this: Please pray for our foundation in York, Fr Richard leaves for York and the link for the remodelled St Wilfrid's Website

Please join me in keeping this important initiative in your prayers.

The death of Conradin

On this date in 1268, 645 years ago, the 16 year old boy- king Conradin was beheaded in Naples with his best friend Frederick of Baden and a number of his supporters, an event which schocked many contemporaries. I wrote about the events anterior to this in my post The Battle of Tagliacozzo in August.

 

A fourteenth century depiction of the death of Conradin and his companions 

from Giovanni Villani's Nuovo Cronica

 Image;Wikipedia

There is an online life of Conradin here.

Conradin from the early fourteenth century Codex Manesse,
a collection of German lyrics, preserved at Heidelburg, and in which
there appear two songs written by Conradin

Image:Wikipedia

Conradin, the last direct Hohenstaufen, was the son of the German King Conrad IV, and grandson of the Emperor Frederick II, inherited his claim to the thrones of Germany, Sicily and Jerusalem at the age of 26 months when his father died in 1254.

Although regarded as King Conrad V by some Germans the monarchy of the King of the Romans was elective, and with papal pressure not to elect another Hohenstaufen, not to mention the fact that Conradin was only a child Germany entered upon the interregnum that included the double election of Richard of Cornwall in 1257 and of Alfonso X of Castile that did not end until the election of Rudolf of Habsburg in 1273.

Conradin’s uncle and “regent” Manfred usurped him in Sicily, possibly beleiving or claiming to have heard of the boy's death. King Manfred, an illegitimate son of the Emperor Frederick II was eventually killed at the battle of Benevento in 1266 fighting against Charles of Anjou, brother of St Louis IX and brother-in-law of King Henry III, upon whom the Papacy, as suzerain had bestowed the kingdom.

At this point Conradin decided to assert his Sicilian claim, at an age not dissimilar to his grandfather's seizure of poer in Germany half a century or so beforehand as a teenager. By the standards of medieval Europe, he was old enough to press his rights in battle. So Conradin, Corradino to the Italians, as I outlined in August led his troops into Italy, but his international army was defeated at Tagliacozzo on August 23 1268.

King Charles of Anjou. 

Reale d'oro, Barletta. 

Half length portrait between lily and cross, with on the reverse his. coat of arms. 

Image;coinsweekly.com

Escaping from the field of battle, Conradin reached Rome, but acting on advice to leave the city he proceeded to Astura in an attempt to sail for Sicily: but here he was betrayed by the Frangipani family, arrested and handed over on September 8th to Charles, who imprisoned him in the Castel dell'Ovo in Naples, together with his inseparable friend Frederick of Baden. The actual nature of their friendship may historically be unclear, but these days it has attracted predictable interest from certain quarters.

His captor’s attitude was summed up in the sentiment Vita Corradini, mors Caroli - Mors Corradini, vita Caroli. “Conrad’s life is Charles’s death, the death of Conrad is the life of Charles” somewhat doubtfully ascribed to the counsel of Pope Clement IV.The Pope, who was living at Viterbo, was to attract blame for not apparently interceding for Conradin's life,  and indeed in the opinion of some was held to be responsib;e. This point was to be made by Luther during the German reformation with a propaganda print showing the Pope personally decapitating Conradin. However there is good evidence that the Pope did try to save Conradin - whom he had described as alamb led to the slaughter as his army advanced through Italy - and also sought the intervention of Charles' brother the King of France to save the young man. In any event the pope was to die a month later at the end of November.

Charles of Anjou Statue in the Vatican collections

Image:allempires.com

Charles hesitated between life imprisonment or death as a punishment. Prisoners from Tagliocozzo, such as the Infante Enrique of Castile were to be imprisoned for upwards of twenty three years, whilst there was also the precedent of King Enzo of Sardinia, illegitimate son of the Emperor Frederick lived out the rest of his life in prison in Bologna from his capture in 1249 until 1272.


Charles decided on death for his rival and called together a  tribunal composed of two representitives of each of the towns of the region.  Conradin was arraigned before this court with having revolted aganst his legitimate sovereign, of having shown contempt for his excommunication by the Church, of having allied himself with the Saracens - i.e. his grandfather's settlement of themn at Lucera  - and of pillaging the convents and churches of Rome. Only one of the judges, Guido de Lucaria, found in favour of Conradin, in a case whose verdict was certain from the beginning.

Conradin was not present at his condemnation, news of which was brought to him in prison by an elderly French knight according to some sources. At the time he was playing chess with Frederick, and, without rising having heard their fatepronounced, resumed their game.

Accounts vary as to whether the sentence was fixed for thenext day or that they were given three days to prepare. Early on the morning of October 29th Conradin,accompagnied by Frederick, the Ghibelline Counts Gualferano and Bartolomeo Lancia, Gerard and Gavano Donoratico of Pisa and seven others went to the scaffold erected in the new Market Place of Naples. The one grace Charles afforded his rival was that Conradin was executed first.

Charles did not help his subsequent public image by turning up to witness the executions, and the events as recorded, accurately or not, by later writers enhance the already dramatic nature of what happened. Villani in the next century ha s the story of Robert Count of Flanders, son in law of Charles of Anjou,outraged at the sentence striking and killing Robert of Bari who pronounced it at the execution, with the words  "Tiens, voici pour t'apprendre à oser condamner à mort un aussi noble et si gentil seigneur." Confidently mounting the scaffold Conradin is said to have declared his innocence, announced his certainty that his German subjects would avenge him  and threw one of his gloves to the watching crowd where it was retrieved by Henri d'Apifero , who found within it the young King;s signet and carried the glove to Constance, the daughter of King Manfred, and this Conradin's cousin, who was married to King Peter III of Aragon. This was no sentimental gesture but rather an action of bestowing the Hohenstaufen claim on the Aragonese. It seems similar to the symbolism of gloves as in the English coronation rite where one is given to the hand which holds the royal sceptre.

Conradin throws his glove to the crowd

Engraving by William Zimmermann in A Popular History of Germany c.1890

Image;lookanlearn.com 

Conradin glove in hand on the scaffold - note the approaching eagle

Nineteenth century engraving by J.Plueddemann

Image:eonimages

His last words are said to have been "O Mother ! What griefs I cause you."

Immediately after Conradin's decapitation Frederick is said to have kissed the severed head before suffering a like fate, and that an eagle swooped down and dipped its right wing tip in the blood of Conradin.


There is more about the trial and execution in the extract from Giuseppe Quatriglio's  A Thousand Years in Sicily: From the Arabs to the Bourbons (1991) here

The significance of the story of Conradin's death is in part that thereby Charles of Anjou set a dangerous precedent for  many other executions over succeeding centuries of dynastic and political rivals across Europe - hitherto the fate of political rivals had not been determined by public show trials resulting in a journey to the scaffold.

Runciman in The Sicilian Vespers says that Conradin's erstwhile subjects never forgot him, and he remained for centuries a figure of legend and romantic speculation. By the fourteenth century the story of the eagle dipping its wing in his blood was known, and in the late 1320s the Emperor Louis IV when ion italy deliberately razed to the ground a fortress where, mistakenly, it was thought Conradin had suffered. In the sixteenth century in Germany he was presented by Luther as a victim of the abuse of Papal power, and I have been told that in 1870 Germans spoke of the Franco-Prussian war as revenge for Tagliacozzo.

His story inspired a whole series of dramatic works and poems in German, French and English in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An example of its popular appeal to nineteenth century English poets with an interest in the Italian middle ages, can be seen in this extract from Conradin by William John Rous, published in 1884:

He turns to clasp with longing arms his friend,

And turning, sees the fatal blow descend,

Then presses with his lips the severed head,

Last greeting of the dying to the dead.

One quivering flash, a shock that is not pain,

And those he parted death unites again.

So perished Conradin, but legends tell

That as the trenchant blade descending fell,

An eagle, that, unseen by human eyes,

Had poised aloft, down swooping from the skies,

For one short instant hovered o’er the slain,

And dyed his pinions with a crimson stain,

Then wildly shrieked, and upward soaring sped

To witness for the blood unjustly shed.

For artists the story of the teenage Conradin was rather like the English ones of the Princes in the Tower  or Lady Jane Grey, as in Paul Delaroche's well-known painting of her execution. In the case of Conradin and Frederick the topic appealed to the Romantic imagination of the latre eighteenth century, as with this somewhat sentimental piece:

Conradin of Swabia and Frederick of Baden Being Informed of Their Execution in Prison in Naples

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein 1785 

Image:Wikipedia

and some are frankly awful:

Painting by Pauline Soltau (1833-1902) of 1860

Image:Wikipedia

Others are fine examples of ineteenth century historical painting. This one shows Conradin wearing a cap like that he is depicted wearing in the Villani illustrations:

 

Image:artelista.com

and this one better still I think:

Robert of Bari reads the death sentence to Conradin and Frederick

Anton Werner 

Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

Image: Flickriver.com

The execution itself inspired a number of dramatic, if not overly accurate, indeed fanciful depictions over the centuries. Although these suggest the executioner used a sword or an axe one website I saw suggests Conradin and his companions died by the use of a mannaia (literally "the knife"), a very primitive forerunner of the guillotine, which was operated by driving the blade - essentially a meat cleaver, hence the name mountd in a block of wood - down through the victim's neck using a heavy mallet. Mannias eventually evolved into larger devices with weighted blades that more closely resemble the Halifax Gibbet, but the short drop required a very heavy blade to insure decapitation, and the axes would likely crush through the spinal column rather than slice through it.

Frederick of Baden receives the head of Conradin - detail from an early print

Image:executedtoday 



The execution of Conradin in Naples
A seventeenth century copper engraving

Image:chain.to

Frederick kisses the severed head of Conradin

Print by Bernhard Rode, 1781

Image: Wikipedia




Image;corbisimages.com

With Conradin's death at 16, the legitimate Hohenstaufen line became extinct. He was buried at first as an excommunicate on the beach at Naples but hisis remains, with those of Frederick of Baden, were removed to the church of the monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Naples founded by his mother for the good of his soul, and situated near the site of his death.There in 1847 the Crown Prince of Bavaria, later  King Maximilian II(1848-64) erected a marble statue by Bertel Thorvaldsen to his memory.

The statue of Conradin by Thorvaldson in the Carmelite church in Naples

Image: Wikipedia

Ccnradin' s posthumous career from  thirteenth century teenage  claimant and victim to fourteenth century figure of legend and then sixteenth century anti- Papal icon to the Romantic hero-victim which appealled to the a sensibilities of that era to nineteenth century proto-nationalist and twenty first century gay icon is a remarkable cultural journey - and no mean achievement for a teenager who died before he was seventeen.

Celebrating Bl.Salvio Huix-Miralpeix

Yesterday at the Oxford Oratory the 11am Solemn Mass was a celebration of the Beatification of Bishop Salvio Huix-Miralpeix a fortnight ago in Tarragona. The Oratory website's illustrated report on those  ceremonies in Catalonia can be read at Beatification of our First Martyr. I wrote about the subject in my recent post The Spanish Martyrs.

Bl. Salvio Huix-Miralpeix C.O.

Image:Oxford Oratory

It was highly appropriate that the impressive red vestments worn by the sacred ministers were Spanish - the dalmatic and tunicle have the distinctive feature of the collarette, which I assume originates in an apparel for an amice - and the music was by Spanish composers, the Mass setting itself being by Tomas Luis de Victoria.

In his sermon Fr Dominic, who has long had an interest in the story of Bl. Salvio, told the congregation of the life and martyrdom of the Oratorian who became Provost of the Oratory at Vic and then Bishop successively of  Ibiza and Llerida, and put it in the wider context of both the other martyrs of Spain and St Philip's attitude to sanctity and martyrdom amongst his sons.

The Mass concluded with the singing of the Te Deum in honour of the Beatification.

 

 

Image:flama.info

At Mass we were given prayer cards with the Collect for Bl. Salvio, whose feast day is November 6th:

Almighty and eternal God, who

in your goodmess bestowed on the
bishop and martyr Salvio Huix the
gift of pastoral charity even to the
point of shedding of his blood for
Christ and his Church; bestow on us
also the grace to work faithfully in
your vineyard and to experience his
intercession in this life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Amen

Roger Scruton on Language and Liturgy

Last night I went to a meeting of the Prayer Book Society at Pusey House to hear Prof. Roger Scruton speak on the topic of Liturgy and Language.

The Ursell Room was packed out to hear what Prof Scruton had to say and his talk was followed by questions and discussion.

In effect describing himself as someone who had come to find in the settled phrases and rhythms of the Bookof Common Prayer a spiritual path the Professor, not surprisingly given his well known and robust defence of traditional values and ideas, as well as his audience, stressed the importance of that high register language deliberately chosen by Cranmer, consolidated by its reissue in 1662 and hallowed by constant use which characterises the BCP. Such language aquires an aura, and conveys meaning by more than literalism. That depth of meaning was in one sense beyond the power of words and acquired alife and being of its own. It is noble language used in a noble aim, the worship of Almighty God.To that end he quoted Philip Larkin writing of religion as a "serious thing on serious ground." Such language can and should convey meaning beyond the conscious to the depths of the soul.

The retention of such serious, charged language was important to convey fundamental and unchanging truths to present and subsequent generations, that the words carried meaning beyond their linguistic and academic ones, opening up the mind and spirit to the Infinite. Prof. Scruton clearly implied that  his view could be broadened to include the concept that the same principle could be applied to the Roman Missal of 1570 and its successive reissues down to 1962.

Amongst the many questions and commends I was particularly struck by one from an academic who was raised as a Catholic and who, when he had worked in Japan had found modern Catholic worship offered by western chaplains dull and uninspiring. Together with those same chaplains he had visited Buddhist shrines, with their elaborate and beautiful worship amidst clouds on incense, at which they had all been entranced. Nonetheless on return to the chaplaincy the to him uninspired liturgy of modern Catholicism had resumed Sunday by Sunday. The importance and need for the beautiful in the externals of holiness failed to make an impact. The result - the academic who told us this had, in consequence, given up on Catholicism and become a High Anglican, because they did the liturgy better.

This was talk which was about a much debated issue, but still a valuable set of thoughts from an intellectual, on a topic of concern to Anglicans and Catholics in respect of their liturgical books, and what they are saying.

Four generations and a baptism

The baptism of Prince George of Cambridge on Wednesday received more attention from much of the media than has been usual for royal christenings, even those of children in the direct line of succession to the throne.

Part of the reason is that for the first time since 1894 has there been the opportunity to photograph the Monarch with three direct male heirs, spanning four generations. That is the historic image from the occasion, and a very good and positive one too.

 Image: newsbbcimg.co.uk

The baptism of a royal infant here is not as public as in some monarchies, such as the Netherlands or Sweden, and represents the tradition of it being a private family occasion first and foremost, with public photographs released afterwards, as were the official pictures today.

Much speculation and significance has been assigne dto the choice of godparents. It is somewhat different from previous generations - friends of the parents rather than royal or public figures, but it is not that different. Traditionally a godparent was not a close relative, and the idea was to establish a new spiritual family for the child. In this case it may mean the godparents will have more time to discharge their responsibilities than if they are high profile members of royal families or highly place public figures.

Certainly the choice of older godparents, such as the Duke of Connaught in 1926 for the present Queen, when he was the last surviving son of Queen Victoria, and born in 1850, with the great Duke of Wellington as his own godfather, was aa way of linking Princess Elizabeth to her forebears. Similarly the choice of King Haakon VII in 1948 as a godfather to the Prince of Wales linked him to King Edward VII's son-in-law and to the Danish-Norwegian Glucksburg house. That and the photographs of the Prince on his mother's lap between two of his great-grandmothers, Queen Mary and the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven ( born a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt and by the Rhine, and sister to the Empress Alexandra of Russia ) all helped to stress continuity and contact. So there is a lot to be said for such things. The image of four generations is very much in that tradition.

Who was or, more significantly, it is suggested was not invited has caused some, indeed quite alot of comment. Ity may signify something, and it may not - practical considerations nmay well lie at the root of that. 

The choice of the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace rather than the Music Room of Buckingham Palace is in many ways more suitable. First of all, it is a proper place of worship, and an historic one. It  dates from the sixteenth century, has the heart of Queen Mary I buried within it, was where King Charles I received communion on the day he was martyred, witnesses the annual Royal Epiphany service, was the scene of the wedding of Queen Victoria and King George V, of the vigil by the Princess of Wales' coffin in 1997 and of the Duchess of Cambridge's confirmation. So a lot of Royal ghosts were hovering in the shadows this last Wednesday.

Let us pray for every blessing upon Prince George both as a child of God and as a child of the Royal Family.

"Warrior King" - Keith Dockray's view of King Henry V

Today being the anniversary of the battle of Agincourt it seems an appropriate one on which to comment on a fairly recent biography of the victor, King Henry V. Recently I have been looking again at "Warrior King" by Keith Dockray, which is published by Tempus.

Image:Amazon

It is useful, indeed valuable, contribution to studies of the reign, and well worth looking at, although it is pity the publshers did not use better quality illustrations to accompany the text. 

The author sets out at the beginning specifically to be conciously more critical of the King's achievements than have been historians such as say K.B.Macfarlane or Christopher Allmand. There is nothing necessarily wrong in that, although it would not necessarily be my opinion. He certainly raises the question - ultimately unaswerable  - as to whether the King could ever have succeeded in his French plans.  They may well have been unattainable, but King Henry V did show a remarkable ability to make things happen and to happen as he wanted them to. 

Occasionally however this approach does seem to lead Dockray to what becomes a rather selective use of language. Thus, writing about the King's non-appearance at his Queen's coronation at Westminster in 1421 the author suggests that Henry was not interested in such "junketings". That, to my mind, misses the point about Kings usually being absent from such a seperate coronation of their consorts, so as to leave the Queen centre stage - as with Margaret of Anjou in 1445, Elizabeth Woodville in 1464, Elizabeth of York in 1487 and Anne Boleyn in 1533. The King might well be there, but hidden away in a royal pew,so as not to divert attention from her.Furthermore as King his sense of the importance of ceremony appears clear. Queen catherine's coronation indeed appears to have been an impressive occasion, and demonstration of the unuin of the dynasties and crowns.

The book is divided into three parts - the historiography, life, and the author's assessment of his subject. I was struck by the way in which the historiography is surprisingly consistent whether contemporary English or French writers or later historians using those same sources - a consistent portrait emerges. The difference lies more in the attitude of the different writers to the King they are describing, and thus reveals more about them rather than modify the image of King. Individual historians may or may not like or admire King Henry V, but he himself emerges true to the record - a disciplined, austere, intelligent man, gifted in the art of governance, well able to assert his authority and command men, a man able to lead. Whether what he sought to do was practicable, possible or desirable may be open to discussion, but that he stamped his presence on his contemporaries and the enduring national conciousness (not least thanks to Shakespeare) is unquestionable.