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

Geoffrey of Monmouth was elected to the see of St Asaph in Wales on 24 February 1151.  It is assumed that he was born between 1100 and 1110, and died between  25 December 1154 and 24 December 1155.

He is mainly known as a writer of the Historia Regum Britanniae (The history of the kings of Britain), which includes stories of Arthur, Merlin and kings Leir and Coel.

Geoffrey will always remind me of my classes in medieval Latin at university, where we studied his story of King Arthur.  Though I had disliked Latin at school and only did the course because it was a prerequisite for graduation, here I discovered that studying a ‘dead’ language could actually be fun.

Reference:

J. C. Crick, ‘Monmouth, Geoffrey of (d. 1154/5)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Dorothea Preis

Tags: Books, Church

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

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

Martin Luther (born 10 November 1483) nails his 95 thesis on the church door in Eisleben in the evening of 31 October 1517, because the next day, 1 November, is All Saints’ Day, when everyone would come to church.

In the 95 theses he explains his view based on the Gospel that salvation is a free gift from God and cannot be earned by good deeds or purchased by buying indulgences . 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.

31 October is celebrated in the Lutheran church as Reformation Day commemorating Luther’s stand.

Tags: Church

It has just been announced that both the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Archbishop of Canterbury will be taking part in services in Leicester Cathedral to mark the reinterment of King Richard III.  The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster is the most senior clergy of the Catholic Church in the UK and the Archbishop of Canterbury is his counterpart in the Church of England/Anglican Church.

Since Richard’s remains were found two years ago, the Anglican Diocese of Leicester has worked closely with the Catholic Diocese of Nottingham, which includes Leicester, to ensure that the reburial will be handled with dignity and honour.

Anglican and Catholic clergy will celebrate at major as well as other services during the week 22 to 28 March 2015.  At the reburial service on 26 March, other Christian denominations as well as the World Faiths will be represented.

It has been occasionally been said that Leicester Cathedral is too modern for a medieval monarch.  While it is true that its modern Cathedral status is relatively new (1927), there were already Bishops of Leicester from the 7^th to the 9^th century.  The actual church was built by the Normans, replacing an earlier Saxon church.  The Norman church was rebuilt and enlarged during the 13^th and 15^th century.  So we can assume that Richard would have been very much aware of the church during his visits to Leicester.

You can find the full schedule of the planned services here.

Tags: Church, Leicester, Richard III