medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I'm preparing to give a paper on Lady Chapels, and have a few queries I
can't quite get a definitive answer on.
Here's one that's had me curious for years: somewhere between 1218 and
1222, the Bishop of Bath & Wells lent a master mason to St Augustine's
Abbey, Bristol to 'hew out the Seven Lamps of Wisdom's House'. The
building that resulted was a Lady Chapel.
What does 'Seven Lamps of Wisdom' mean to list members? Why might a
bishop use the phrase to refer to a Lady Chapel? Is there a connection
with the Seven Wise [necessarily paired with Foolish equivalents?]
Virgins who sometimes decorated Lady Chapels (Lichfield) and the
entrances of Marian-related buildings (Salisbury?).
Apologies, I do not have the original Latin for the phrase to hand.
-----Original Message-----
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jim
Bugslag
Sent: 01 February 2006 19:08
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] Touching sacred objects
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture
> > Have you ever wondered why a cathedral has a nave, and what that was
used
> for?
>
>
> ideological reasons aside, i always assumed that it was to hold great
masses
> of folk, who assembled there especially on special feast days.
One should not underestimate the importance of processions in naves.
Particularly
in monastic churches which, unlike cathedrals, were not absolutely
required by
definition to accommodate a lay congregation. There are, in particular,
some quite
long Cistercian naves, which would specifically not have had to
accommodate any
lay use. There are, I believe, in the pavement of the nave at Fountains
in Yorkshire
the remains of markers to aid the monks in stopping the procession
before the rood
screen before re-entering the choir. As for parochial involvement in
monastic
churches, I am more familiar with this from English examples, but there
certainly
was a movement in the later Middle Ages to provide the parish with a
separate
church, or at least a chapel attached to the outer nave wall, in order
to separate
parochial and monastic spaces, but if Saint-Hilaire is 12th-century in
origin, this
would be substantially earlier than any example I know of in England.
Surely the
cartulary of Saint-Pierre would be helpful in determining whether there
was a parish
attached to the abbey church.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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