A Quentin Massys from Campion Hall

The BBC News online website reported some days ago on the identification of a painting in the collection of Campion Hall in Oxford as being by the Flemish artist Quentin Massys - sometimes Matsys or Massijs - rather than being the work of a follower. The article can be viewed at Flemish masterpiece resurfaced at University of Oxford hall

The painting was part of the reredos of the altar in the Chapel - not infrequently described as the finest twentieth century church interior in Oxford, but is rarely open for visitors to admire it.

The art collection was brought together by the then Master Fr Martin D’Arcy in the 1930s, at the time the present Campion Hall was built to the design of Sir Edwin Lutyens. There is a short biographical note on Wikipedia about him at Martin_D'Arcy

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One of his other acquisitions for the collection was in the news in 2011 when a Crucifixion was suggested to be a late work by Michelangelo, and was transferred to the Ashmolean for safety and exhibition, like the Massys, as can be read at Lost 'Michelangelo' found at Campion Hall, Oxford

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A new theory about the origin of the Black Death

Recent years have seen considerable research into the archaeological evidence from the era of the Black Death as well as into the evidence that can be found in archives and chronicles, and with all that, a pandemic of our very own to, perhaps, give some insights into the lived experience of social dislocation through illness and mortality.

The latest theory I have come across is one that ties in with another contemporary concern, that of a change in the weather pattern, and the dire effect that can have in an agrarian economy. The researchers attribute the change in the global weather pattern to an otherwise unrecorded volcanic eruption in 1345 somewhere in the equatorial belt and the consequent effect of the ash cloud on the levels of sunshine reaching the earth, with colder wetter conditions resulting. These are indicated both by archival material and physical data such as tree ring formation and ash deposits in the Polar ice caps.

The link to the introduction of the Black Death into Italy was the search by merchants and sailors for grain supplies from farther afield in western Asia, and the accidental transfer of plague infected fleas to Europe.

   

The theory appears plausible and we know that more recent volcanic explosions have affected the global climate by reducing the sun’s rays as in the 1815 Tambora eruption in the Dutch East Indies, as described in the Wikipedia article Year_Without_a_Summer

This latest research is outlined in a BBC News report which can be seen at Volcanic eruption may have triggered Europe's Black Death plague

It is also covered in a LifeScience article which may be found at Volcanic eruption triggered 'butterfly effect' that led to the Black Death, researchers find

More insights into the Rutland mosaic

Last week I and a regular reader both noticed online a report about the Rutland, or, as it is now designated, the Ketton, mosaic from a substantial villa that was occupied in the third and fourth centuries. I have written about this important discovery beforehand in posts about the excavations to uncover the floor.

The new article followed the most recent research into the subjects depicted by the mosaic, which are scenes from the Trojan War. Initially these were assumed to be taken from The Iliad - and seen as an indication of the wider cultural interests of the villa owners. Further research has enhanced that argument by demonstrating that the scenes come not directly from Homer but rather from a now lost play by Aeschylus entitled Phrygians.

Quite apart from revealing more about life in the Welland valley in the third and fourth centuries the mosaic points out the fact that Britannia was a Province fully integrated into the Roman world and sharing in Classical culture. 

The original article from The Independent can be seen at Archaeologists unlock secrets of ‘remarkable’ Rutland mosaic

A second report in Archaeology has a colour illustration of the floor and the link to the original account in Britannia and is accessible via Archaeology Magazine (@archaeologymag)

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

From the Office of Lauds in the Traditional Breviary for today - the fourth and fifth readings:

From the Sermons of St. Jerome, ob. 420, Priest at Bethlehem.

On the Assumption
Who and what was the blessed and glorious Mary, always a Virgin, hath been revealed by God by the message of an Angel, in these words: Hail, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women. It was fitting that a fullness of grace should be poured into that Virgin who hath given to God glory and to man a Saviour, who hath brought peace to earth, who hath given faith to the Gentiles, who hath killed sin, who hath given law to life, who hath made the crooked ways straight. Verily, she is full of grace. To others grace cometh measure by measure; in Mary grace dwelleth at once in all fullness. Verily, she is full of grace. We believe that the holy Fathers and Prophets had grace; but they were not full of grace. But into Mary came a fullness of all the grace which is in Christ, albeit otherwise than as it is in Him. Therefore is it said: Blessed art thou among women, that is, Blessed art thou above all women. The fulness of blessing in Mary utterly neutralized in her any effects of the curse of Eve. In her praise Solomon writeth in the Song of Songs, ii. 10,: Rise up, my dove, my fair one, for the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. And again: Come from Lebanon, my Spouse, come, thou shalt be crowned.

Not unjustly then is she bidden to come from Lebanon, for Lebanon is so named on account of its stainless and glistening whiteness. The earthly Lebanon is white with snow, but the lonely heights of Mary's holiness are white with purity and grace, brilliantly fair, whiter far than snow, sparkling with the gifts of the Holy Ghost she is undefiled like a dove, all clean, all upright, full of grace and truth. She is full of mercy, and of the righteousness that hath looked down from heaven, and therefore is she without stain because in her hath never been any corruption. She hath compassed a man in her womb, saith holy Jeremiah, but she conceived not by the will of fallen man. The Lord, saith the Prophet, hath created a new thing in the earth; a woman shall compass a man. xxxi. 22. Verily, it is a new thing. Verily, it was a new work of power, greater than all other works, when God, Whom the world cannot bear, and Whom no man shall see and live, entered the lodging of her womb, breaking not the blissful cloister of her virgin flesh. And in her body He was borne, the Infinite inclosed within her womb. And from her womb He came forth, so that it was fulfilled which was spoken of the Prophet Ezekiel, saying: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. xliv. 2. Hence also in the Song of Songs it is said of her iv. 12,: A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, thy perfumes are a garden of delights. Verily a garden of delights, filled with the perfumes of all flowers, rich with the sweet savour of grace. And the most holy Virgin herself is a garden enclosed, whereinto sin and Satan have never entered to sully the blossoms, a fountain sealed, sealed with the seal of the Trinity.

The seventh and eighth readings:

Homily by St. Germanus I, ob.740, Patriarch of Constantinople.

On the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin
Hail, Mary, full of grace, holier than the Saints, higher than the heavens, more glorious than the Cherubim, more honourable than the Seraphim, and the most worshipful thing that the hands of God have made. Hail, O dove, bearing in thy beak the olive-branch of peace that telleth us of salvation from the spiritual flood, Gen. viii. 10, n, dove, blessed omen of a safe harbour, whose wings are of silver, and thy feathers of gold, shining in the bright beams of the Most Holy and Light-giving Spirit. Ps. lxvii. 14. Hail, thou living garden of Eden, planted towards the East by the right hand of the Most Merciful and Mighty God, wherein do grow to His glory rich lilies and unfading roses, for the healing of them that have drunk in death from the blighting and pestilential breezes of the bitter West, Gen. ii. 8, 9; Eden, wherein hath sprung that Tree of life, Whereof if any man eat he shall live for ever. Gen. ii. 9; iii. 22. John vi. 52. Hail, stately Palace of the King, most holy, stainless, purest, House of the Most High God, adorned with His Royal splendour, open to all, filled with Kingly dainties; Palace wherein is that spiritual bridal chamber, not made with hands, nor hung with diverse colours, in the which the Eternal Word, when He would raise up fallen man, wedded flesh unto Himself, that He might reconcile unto the Father them who had cast themselves away.

Hail, O rich and shady Mountain of God, whereon pastured the True Lamb, Who hath taken away our sins and infirmities, Hab. iii. 3; Isa. liii. 4; John i. 29, mountain, whereout hath been cut without hands that Stone which hath smitten the altars of the idols, and become the head-stone of the corner, marvellous in our eyes. Dan. ii. 34; Ps. cxvii. 22, 23. Hail, thou holy Throne of God, thou divinest store-house, thou temple of glory, thou bright crown, thou chosen treasure, thou mercy-seat for the whole world, thou heaven declaring the glory of God. Ps. xviii. 2. Hail, thou vessel of pure gold, made to hold the manna that came down from heaven, the sweet food of our souls, even Christ. Ex. xvi.33; Heb. ix. 4; John vi. 49-51. Hail, O purest Virgin, most praiseworthy and most worshipful, hallowed treasury for the wants of all creatures; thou art the untitled earth, the unploughed field; thou art the vine full of flowers, the well overflowing with waters, Maiden and Mother; thou art the Mother that knew not a man, the hidden treasure of guilelessness, and the clear, bright star of holiness; by thy most acceptable prayers, strong from thy motherly mouth, obtain for all estates of men in the Church that they may continually tend unto Him Who is the Lord, and God, and Maker of thee, and of them, and of all, but of thee the Son also, conceived without man's intervention; obtain this, O Mother, pilot them to the harbour of peace.

                 Texts from Divinum Officium

A not inconsiderable rebuttal to those who claim the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is a modern invention.

A family reunion for the fourth Duke of Norfolk

In my previous post, I wrote about the impending auction of the painting by Hans Eworth of Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk. I expressed the hope that the purchaser would be someone who would enable it to remain on public display in this country.

The next day brought very good news as can be seen in the BBC News report Tudor portrait of 4th Duke of Norfolk sells at auction for £3.2m 

The portrait was bought by the present, eighteenth, Duke of Norfolk and the Arundel Trustees. This presumably means that the painting will go on show at Arundel Castle, alongside other family portraits and treasures.

 

A sixteenth century Duke up for auction

The BBC News website reported the other day in the forthcoming auction - this evening in fact - of the 1563 portrait of Thomas fourth Duke of Norfolk from the Rothschild collection. The painting is quite often reproduced in books, and as the article points out was originally paired with the painting of the Duke’s second wife, Margaret Audley. Quite apart from a historical interest as a portrait. It is in exceptionally good condition and a very important piece of work from the early Elizabethan era.. 

The BBC article can be seen at Duke of Norfolk Tudor portrait could fetch up to £3m at auction 

The sale notes from Sothebys can be read at Portrait of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1538–1578) These add to the information about the work, in particular, with regard to the heraldic backcloth.

For those who want some more information about the Duke and his downfall, the Ridolfi Plot, and the fate that befell his eldest son and heir, St Philip Arundel, there are Wikipedia articles but which seem reluctant to download,so I will suggest readers go to them directly.

Unfortunately I do not think these are necessarily very good when seeking to explain the politics, and more, especially the religious politics of the 1560s and early 1570s.

The articles describe people as being either Roman Catholic or Protestant At a time where there was still considerable fluidity between those recognisable, but not necessarily fully distinct groupings. It was not until 1570 that Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V in the bull Regnans in Excelsis eleven years after the Queen and her Parliament has reinstated the Royal Supremacy and Anglican worship. Whilst many of the Queens closest advisors, notably William Cecil, can definitely describe as Protestant - the term had by then been coined in Germany - for some, at least Anglicanism was mainly a stage towards a more radical alternative. Although they were a considerable number of the queen subjects whose commitment to Catholicism had sent them into exile or into active recusancy. The Catholicism that emerged from the Council of Trent had still to make its impact on the life of Catholic Christendom - for example the newly collated missal was not published until 1570. The more streamlined faith of the missionaries from Douai and Rheims, still less the Jesuits, not yet begun their endeavours. The more stringent and deadly anti-Catholic measures of the later years of Queen Elizabeth had not yet been introduced, For many others, there was the confusion of adapting to the new dispensation. In many ways, the fourth Duke of Norfolk exemplifier this. Raised in the Catholic culture of the later years of King Henry VIII and in the reign of Queen Mary I, and heir to a conservative aristocratic family he nevertheless appears to have settled into, they new Elizabethan era, if on the Catholic side of the spectrum. His third wife, Elizabeth Dacre was more explicitly Catholic in her beliefs.

I suspect that, when Norfolk was drawn into the plants to marry him to the exiled Queen of Scots, who for all her Catholicism had ruled over what was officially a reformed realm, such a marriage would not necessarily imply a Catholic restoration as it happened under Philip and Mary. Ridolfi may well have misread the English political situation. For all his Catholic background the Duke had had as a tutor and remained in contact with the Protestant martyrologist John Foxe, with whom he remained on good terms until his last days, and Foxe’s college roommate Alexander Nowell, Dean of St Paul’s, who had definitely reformist and idiosyncratic lideas, ministered to him in the Tower and with Foxe accompanied him on the scaffold, where in his words to the crowd the Duke denied being Catholic.

It is a long time sine I read Neville Williams’ biography  Thomas Howard Fourth Duke of Norfolk and the Jesuit historian Francis Edwards’ The Marvellous Chance but both are well worth reading. Williams’ book makes a sympathetic case for the Duke, who became entangled, surpringly, but also too easily, in the circle of Mary Queen of Scots, and then in Ridolfi’s machinations. Fr Edwards suggests that that conspiracy, like others later around the Scottish Queen, were at least in part directed by English minister like Cecil anxious to destroy both Mary and anyone likely to support her. Only a few years previously Cecil was eloquent in his praise for Norfolk’s skills, and he had been put forward by Queen Elizabeth, along with Leicester and Darnley as a potential husband for Mary when she was still the widow of Francis II. To that extent Norfolk was a victim of his own hubris, and his rivalry with the Earl of Leicester, and now, unbeknownst to him, with Cecil, who single-mindedly targeted Mary of Scots, as John Guy has shown so well. Like his father a quarter of a century earlier he was the victim of deadly court factionalism, and quite possibly an unwitting one. 

The politics surrounding his actual execution in 1572 is set out in a blog from the History of Parliament which can be read at The execution of Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk.

 

There is a much better online biography of the Duke than that on Wikipedia from the Tudor Society at Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk

I very much hope that the new owner of this portrait will be one that means that it remains on display in this country.

The 150th anniversary of St Aloysius Church Oxford

Yesterday was the 150th anniversary of the opening of
the church of St Aloysius in Oxford. On that day in 1875 Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne of Birmingham celebrated a Pontifical Mass in the newly constructed Jesuit church in the presence of Cardinal Manning. This year on the eve of the anniversary the present Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham celebrated a Pontifical Mass in Latin in the Ordinary Form in the presence of Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe OP in the church, which since 1990 has served as the Oxford Oratory.

In attendance were other bishops, a mitred abbot, canons, groups of other religious, a professed Knifht of Malta, and past parish priests both from the diocese and the Oratory. Also present were the Lord Mayor of Oxford and the Vice Chancellor of the University, representives of othe churches in the city, and, of course, many of the regular congregation

The Mass can be seen online at 150th Anniversary of the Parish – Solemn Pontifical Mass 

The liturgy was elaborate and impressive as befits such an occasion and as befits the Oratorian tradition of the beauty of holiness. 

All the signs, and certainly the hopes, are that the next century and a half will continue the ministry of the building and the Oratorian community in Oxford in the way so splendidly shown at the weekend.

The reappearance of the Florentine Diamond

A fortnight ago there was the really amazing announcement by the Imperial House of Austria that, contrary to widespread belief, one of the Habsburg family treasures, the famous yellow diamond known as the Florentine, had not been lost or stolen, nor recut, but had survived thanks to the forethought first of Bl. Emperor Charles I who reclaimed it from public display

in 1918 and took it with him into exile, and then of his widow Empress Zita who took custody of it after his death in 1922. Having kept it, and other family jewels, including a bejewelled badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece, with her in exile in Spain and then Belgium, she took then in a cardboard suitcase to Canada at the beginning of the Second World War. There she left the small suitcase in a safe deposit box with a bank. When she retuned to Europe in 1953 the jewels remained in the Canadian bank. Two of her younger sons were the only individuals to whom she confided the whereabouts of the items, asking they remain hidden until after the centenary of the Emperor’s death. Now the sons of these two Archdukes, together with the head of the Habsburgs, Archduke Karl, have reclaimed the suitcase and revealed its contents.

Quite apart from the historic interest of the Florentine and the other jewels the story is an eloquent tribute to the Empress Zita as a devout Catholic widow, who mourned her husband for almost sixty seven years, always sombrely dressed in black, and guardian of not merely what was left as a tangible inheritance following the expropriation of their assets by the Austrian and other successor states after 1918, but of the traditions and heritage of the Habsburgs. A truly remarkable woman.

I first saw the story online in The Independent at 137-carat diamond missing since 1919 revealed from in Canadian bank

A friend sent me the link to the original account from the New York Times whose journalist accompanied the Archdukes, and which may be seen at The Florentine Diamond Resurfaces After 100 Years in Hiding

Art Net also had a report on the rediscovery which is available at The Hunt: The Mysterious Fate of the Florentine Diamond

Wikipedia has a history of the diamond at Florentine Diamond, which includes the two stories of its origin. They are arguably not irreconcilable, and the idea that the jewel once belonged to Charles the Bold is an attractive one, in that it was through the marriage of his daughter and heiress Mary to Maximilian of Austria that the Habsburgs secured their prominence in European affairs.

The Emperor Karl League of Prayers - the Gebetsliga - which is in itself well worth supporting, has an online article about the rediscovery at Habsburg Florentine Diamond Reemerges

The history of the jewel and of the carat system for weighing such stones is discussed in The Ancient Secret Behind the Carats of the Florentine Diamond