Richard Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) obtains permission to found and endow two collegiate chapels at St Mary and St Akelda’s Church, Middleham, and at St Mary’s Church, Barnard Castle.

The college at Middleham was to have six priests, the one at Barnard Castle twelve.  The priests were to offer prayers for the souls of Richard himself, King Edward IV and his Queen Elizabeth, his brothers and sisters and his father, wife and son.

While the college at Barnard Castle never materialized due to Richard’s death at Bosworth, the college at Middleham was established and continued until 1856.

(Photograph of St Mary and St Alkelda, Middleham, by D Preis)

Tags: Church, Yorkshire

Murder of Thomas Becket from an English psalter.

Murder of Thomas Becket

On 29 December 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights.

More information here.

Tags: Church

Westminster Abbey (© D Preis)

Westminster Abbey Consecrated

On 28 December 1065, Westminster Abbey was consecrated under Edward the Confessor.

More information on Edward the Confessor and Westminster Abbey here.

Tags: Church

Baptism of Martin Luther in Eisleben, Germany, from which his date of birth, 10 November 1483, is deducted.

He disputed the claim of the (Catholic) church that salvation could be purchased by indulgences, instead salvation is a free gift by God, received by faith in Jesus, who has redeemed our sins.  He explained his view in the 95 thesis, which he nailed on the church door in Eisleben in the evening of 31 October 1517, the evening before All Saints’ Day, when everyone would come to church.   This is often regarded as the starting point of the reformation.  While his original aim was to reform the church, the Pope saw it differently, which ultimately led to the split with the Catholic church.  As Luther was of the opinion that the Bible was the only source for knowledge of God, he translated it into German to make it accessible to everyone.

He died on 15 February 1546.

You can find out more at http://www.luther.de/en/

Dorothea Preis

Tags: Church

Richard III was buried in the choir of the church of the Grey Friars in Leicester. Polydore Vergil states that the burial was “without any pompe or solemn funeral”. This is often – mistakenly – seen to indicate that there were no religious rites. However, as John Ashdown-Hill explains, “solemnity” in the religious context refers to certain aspects of a service, which were not essential. It basically means that the service was a private ceremony by the friars, especially as a choir of their church would not have been open to the public.

To the day 527 years later, on 25 August 2012, on the first day of the archaeological dig in Leicester to find out where the church of the Grey Friars actually had been and hopefully to find Richard’s remains, parts of a human leg bone were unearthed. These were later identified as being part of the remains of Richard III.

Sources:

John Ashdown Hill, The Last Days of Richard III. The History Press, 2010, pp.91-96

Mathew Morris & Richard Buckley, Richard III:  The King under the Car Park.  University of Leicester Archaeological Services, 2013, pp.22 + 36-45

Mike Pitts, Digging for Richard: How Archaeology Found the King. Thames & Hudson, 2014, pp.99-105

Dorothea Preis

Tags: Church, Leicester Greyfriars Dig, Richard III

Death of William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester

Source: ODNB on William Waynflete

Tags: Church, Oxfordshire

Thomas Becket consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Tags: Church

A friend of mine shared a link to a video clip about the making of the tomb of King Richard III on Facebook.  I’d like to share the link here with you as I know that some of our readers are not on Facebook, but would also be interested.

Having seen the tomb face to face, I have to admit I never realised how much detailed and fine craftmanship was involved in bringing out the beauty of the stone so impressively.

Don’t miss this video!

Tags: Church, Leicester, Richard III

Good news. There will be various services at Leicester Cathedral to commemorate Richard III during THAT week in March 2015. About a week ago, members of the Richard III Society received their ballot papers to try and get one of the sought-after seats for one of the services.

Yesterday Leicester Cathedral announced that it will be making 200 seats available for members of the general public, representing one third of all the seating in the Cathedral. This will include the following services:

• Sunday, 22 March (6.00pm) – evening service of Compline, at which the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, will preach the sermon
• Thursday, 26 March (11.30am) – the reburial, culminating in the lowering of the coffin below ground into the specially designed tomb
• Friday, 27 March (12.00 noon) – Richard III’s tomb will be revealed

This ballot offers another chance to win a ticket for one of the services. As this ballot is open to the public, it does not include the special service for members of the Richard III Society on Monday, 23 March (7.00pm).

As Revd. Pete Hobson, Canon Missioner and Project Manager, explained on Facebook, “anyone can enter the ballot, for one, two or all three services, but each person will only be selected once and we can’t guarantee for which service if you out in for more than one”. They will also coordinate the allocation of tickets from their ballot with that of the Richard III Society, so that no one gets “double invites”, thus allowing as many people as possible to have a chance to attend one of the services.

Revd. Pete also mentioned that they hope to open the Cathedral to the public by mid-afternoon on Friday, 27 March, to pay their respects at the tomb.

The ballot will open on Friday 12th December, 100 days before the week of events, at 8.00 am (UK time), which is 5.00pm AEST, and close at midday (9.00pm AEST) on 31 December. The lucky ones who will be invited, wll be notified by letter, which are expected to be sent out in the week beginning 12 January. This is the same week, when the Richard III Society will notify those members, who were successful in being chosen.

To find out more about the ballot, visit the website of the Diocese of Leicester (this includes a link to the ballot):
http://www.leicester.anglican.org/news/details/public-ballot-for-king-richard-lll-services

More about the services:
http://www.leicestercathedralkingrichardiii.org/plans/

Tags: Church, Leicester, Richard III