Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady at the North Door and Our Lady of Pew In Westminster Abbey

The next destination on the Pilgrimage is Westminster Abbey, which had two particular centres of devotion to Our Lady. These were the image of Our Lady at the North Door in the now demolished Galilee porch to the North Transept and the image of Our Lady of Pew opening out from the north choir aisle. 

Our Lady of Pew was commemorated both in the Abbey and in the adjacent Palace, and was a particular focus for royal devotion. The most famous instance of this was by King Richard II  in 1381 during the crisis posed by the Peasant’s Revolt and his vow to dedicate England as the Dowry of Mary if he overcame the rebellion.

My post from last year has links to previous articles and links about these two shrines. It can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady at the North Door and Our Lady of Pew in Westminster Abbey

I found a piece about the small chapel of Our Lady of Pew on the Murray and Blue blog site which clearly indicates how it was a private space where King Richard II could attend Mass or pray within sight of the chapel of St John the Baptist, who was his personal patron. Lying as it does between the shrine of St Edward and the chapel of St John it can perhaps be understood as the centre point of the King’s spirituality. I am not sure that the Wilton Diptych, which encapsulates so much of King Richard’s spiritual and regal vision, would have been kept in the small chapel, but it might have gone there with the King on occasion. The post can be viewed at The little chapel in Westminster Abbey, beloved of Richard II….

As is described in more detail in the linked articles the modern statue is copied from a medieval alabaster one now in Westminster Cathedral.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Pew

with the modern statue and surviving medieval painted mouldings

Image: Wikimedia Commons

May Our Lady at the North Door and Our Lady of Pew intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Royal celebrations in Sweden

This past week has seen a great gathering of members of Royal families from Europe and beyond in Stockholm to join in the celebration of the eightieth birthday of King Carl XVI Gustaf on April 30th.

The King of Sweden

Image: Swedish Royal Palaces

The King is the longest reigning monarch in Swedish history and in his fifty third year in the throne. I recall his accession in 1973 and how some newspaper pundits were writing off the future of the Swedish monarch. The age gap between his almost ninety one year old grandfather and his youth at only twenty seven  were presented as hindering the chances of the institution.

Shortly before his death King Gustaf VI Adolf had accepted the new version of the Instrument of Government revising the 1809 constitution. The new form removed from the monarch the formal powers to appoint the prime minister or signing legislation into law, whilst retaining a national representative and ceremonial role. This came into effect in 1975.

If constitutional change was in the public sphere for discussion the Royal family faced anther problem. Because of the very strict regulation of royal marriages,  which could not be contracted with commoners the formal Royal family coomprised just the  unmarried King and his unmarried uncle Prince Bertil. The other two surviving sons of the late King had renounced their rights to marry commoners. This was a policy which had been very strongly maintained by King Gustaf VI Adolf  whilst Crown Prince.The new King’s four sisters were also married to commoners, and there was no provision for female succession to the Crown. 

In 1976 the King married Queen Silvia, and this year will also see the public celebration of their Golden Wedding. Here there was a youthful monarch and his consort who were blessed with three children, and women admitted to full rights of succession. A Royal house that for decades was, and appeared, middle aged and indeed elderly now had a youthful image, and which has continued with the birth of grandchildren to the King and Queen.

The revision of the constitutional position of the Swedish monarch may have appeared alarming to those of us of a traditional outlook, but to the outside world has not diminished the public perception of the monarchy. I have seen it argued that in Sweden itself the changes actually increased support for the institution.

Interestingly one have alongside the others was suspending the bestowal of the various chivalric orders other than to the Royal Family itself, which in reality really meant the most senior one, the Order of the Seraphim. In the last two or three years this policy has been abandoned and the other orders given as in other realms as public recognition for service.  

 

Furthermore the public face of the Swedish monarchy is not, as so many unthinking commentators say, the tired out trope of an unceremonious, bicycling royal house. On state occasions Sweden can put on a traditional ceremonial and military display to rival any other western monarchy.

The gloomy predictions of 1973 have, happily, not come to pass.

A friend and I were agreeing that one disappointment about the celebrations culminating in a gala banquet in Stockholm on the King’s birthday, complete with tiaras and orders and decorations, was that no member of our own Royal Family was present. The King and Queen were of course on their very successful state visit to the United States, and the Kings of The Netherlands and of Spain were committed to other events, but their families were present. One would have thought that a member of the House of Windsor could have attended. Not only are they related, several times over, but Sweden is now an ally through NATO - unthinkable in 1973 - and a country with close cultural connections. People in the UK expect foreign royalty to attend events here, yet here was a chance to reciprocate that was not taken up.

With congratulations and every good wish to the King of Sweden on his birthday and to the Swedish Royal Family.

St Helena and the Finding of the True Cross

The New Liturgical Movement website has an article today, the traditional feast of the Invention or Finding of the True Cross, about a cycle of paintings in the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence. These are dated to about 1335 and a few years later, and depict the background to St Helena’s visit to the Holy Land in search of the True Cross and her successful recovery of it.

The illustrated article can be viewed at A Legend of St Helena, the Discoverer of the True Cross 

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Red Ark in York Minster

The third station on the Pilgrimage is the statue of Our Lady of the Red Ark in York Minster.

My post from last year, with links to previous pieces about the lost image in the south transept of the Minster can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Red Ark in York Minster

The image of Our Lady of the Red Ark was probably just on the right of this picture

Image: Wikimedia

May Our Lady of the Red Ark intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

 

Anne Boleyn and facial recognition technology

The quest to find a contemporary portrait of Anne Boleyn, as opposed to posthumous, later sixteenth century portraits has taken a new turn with the publication of new research which has used current facial recognition techniques on portraits of her daughter and other relatives to seek common features. This evidence has then been applied to the unidentified portraits amongst the Holbein drawings in the Royal Collection.

The result has been to suggest one drawing in particular as a possible portrait of the controversial Queen.

Some art historians are highly sceptical about the methodology as blending two different types of image. This is all outlined in a report on the BBC News website, which can be seen at Scientists believe they have found previously unknown sketch of Anne Boleyn. There is also a short video about the research which can be viewed at Computing: Is this actually what Anne Boleyn looked like?

 

I would not claim expertise to pronounce either way about the proposed identification, but I would hesitate to dismiss it out of hand. I do not think the drawing long labelled as being of Anne very convincing, and the one suggested as being her does perhaps look more likely but that may be a consequence of the fact that it more closely resembles the well-known but posthumous portraits. 

One might wonder, adapting Marlowe, looking at any of these images of Anne Boleyn if this was the face that launched a revolution and displaced almost a thousand years of faith.

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady in the Undercroft Canterbury Cathedral

The second destination on the Pilgrimage is the shrine of Our Lady in the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral.

Situated in the Western Crypt it lies in the oldest part of the present cathedral. It was a major place of pilgrimage in the medieval period and would doubtless have been visited by pilgrims such as those described by Chaucer in addition to their primary object the shrine of St Thomas Becket in the main part of the cathedral.

  

My post from last year, with links to my previous articles about this fascinating survival, and its modern restoration, can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Undercroft in Canterbury Cathedral

 

The Western Crypt and the Chapel of Our Lady in the Undercroft 

Image: Canterbury Cathedral 

May Our Lady in the Undercroft intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Arthurian Legends - Sir Percival, Sir Marrok and Merlin

Before the Pilgrimage leaves Glastonbury I will share three recent online articles that relate to the Arthurian legends Many places have claims to participate in that vast corpus of poetry and prose, but Glastonbury is one of the central players, where history, legend and literature interweave so signally.

The first relates to the story of Sir Percival and is from The Collector. The article seeks to link the twelfth and thirteenth century stories of Chrétian of Troyes, Robert Borron and Wolfram von Eschenbach to earlier or contemporary Welsh tales and to actually place Perceval/Peredur as a real historical figure in the sixth century. 

The illustrated article can be viewed at The Real Historical Background of Sir Percival's Arthurian Legends 

I do not claim sufficient expertise in Arthurian studies to give an author at I’ve comment but the pieces does appear to be coherent and considered. Percival is usually suggested, because the early stories come from there, to have come from Wales. This interpretation makes him come from the area around York. As a Yorkshireman myself the thought that Percival was, so to speak, a Yorkshire lad is intriguing.

Wikipedia has an account of the various strands of the story of Percival which can be accessed at Perceval

Sir Marrok is not one of the well-known Knights of the Round Table and gets only a tantalising mention by Malory. Socially he was disadvantaged, having been made into a werewolf by his wife, but then, these things happen ….

What is known of his story and later variants on it is outlined in a post from Historic Mysteries at Sir Marrok: The Werewolf at the Court of King Arthur 

The reputed grave, or place of entrapment, of Merlin, is claimed for several places. Atlas Obscura has a piece about a site in Brittany which has been associated with Arthurian stories since the middle ages and more particularly since the nineteenth century. The article can be seen at Merlin's Tomb

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Glastonbury

The Pilgrimage begins at Glastonbury and wends its way to Walsingham.

Glastonbury is a place of beginnings, many of them so shrouded in myth and mystery as to have become impenetrable, yet ever intriguing. As one distinguished historian wrote the Glastonbury legends may not be fact but their existence is a very great fact.

My post about Glastonbury as a centre of Marian, and related, devotion, from last year, together with links to previous posts from other years, about the abbey as a focus of prayer and history can be read at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Glastonbury

Glastonbury, its legends and history have fascinated me since I was a boy, and as a younger man I had the opportunity to stay at the adjoining Diocesan Retreat House in preparation for the Anglo-Catholic Pilgrimage each year from 1987 until 1993. I also stayed there for retreats or as a holiday base in those years, and have been on other occasions to the actual Pilgrimage. My annual week, or weeks, at Glastonbury enabled me to soak up the historic atmosphere and Christian - but hopefully not the non-Christian - spirituality of the town and abbey ruins nestling beneath the distinctive profile of the Tot with its legends and story of martyrdom in 1539. I came to sense and see just how extraordinary and exceptional this charming little market town really is as a source of so much art and literature, of myth and legend. It is a holy place, a graced place, where the time-space continuum wears this, where time becomes space.

At its heart.are the remains of the abbey. One can be awed, as at Cluny, by the horrific scale of destruction, but then realise, and marvel, that from the fragments of stonework that survive most of the monastic church could be accurately recreated. 

The one portion that survives more or less completely save for vault and roof is the Lady Chapel at the western extremity

This, with its distinctive angle turrets, was built after the devastating fire of 1184 and stands on the site of the Old Church of Glastonbury. This was the venerable timber church built, it was claimed, by Joseph of Arimathea in honour of Our Lady. A later version of the legend had the structure actually created by Our Lord on a visit with Joseph of Arimathea whilst engaged in the tin trade before His public ministry. That version is, as far as I can tell, a post-reformation reworking to enhance the case for English exceptionalism. Just to the south of the chapel is the cemetery site where the monks found at this time of rebuilding what they believed, or claimed, to be the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere.

The chapel as rebuilt after 1184 is, unlike the main monastic church with its early Gothic style, consciously  more old-fashioned in a confident earlier twelfth century Romanesque and rich with carved decoration. In places, even today, remains of the painted decoration can be found on the sculpture of the doorways.  

The Lady Chapel at Glastonbury Abbey

Image: Britain Express

May Our Lady of Glastonbury intercede for us and our intentions,

Jesu mercy, Mary pray